The Runaway Settlers (13 page)

For the return journey there was one worry, and one disappointment.

The disappointment was that no one knew anything at all about Bill Phipps. Always the same answer! Men spoke of Ballarat Bill, Japanee Bill, Bill the Shark, Brandy Bill, as if nobody had a real name any more; but no Bill Phipps.

‘Maybe he’s onto a lucky strike and he’s not letting it be known where he is!’ one of the diggers suggested.

So Tamati and Ruia took Mrs Phipps and Archie back to the Natural Paddock, where they must try to be away before the bad weather came again. They would move must faster without the cattle, and were feeling fit in spite of the strenuous walking and the wet conditions in which they had often slept.

But now came the worry. After Tamati and Ruia were paid—and Mrs Phipps insisted on that—and stores had been bought at the Paddock, there were still about eight hundred pounds in cash to be carried, with no possible way to conceal this from any lawless men upon the track.

‘We must use our wits, Archie, for our knives won’t see us far,’ said Mrs Phipps. Archie had to agree, although he had dreamt up some thrilling stories to tell the boys at Kaiapoi.

Once again, it paid to be patient. After two days, a pair of surveyors passed through on their way to Christchurch, and Mrs Phipps asked if they might travel together. At first the
surveyors hesitated to take a woman, because she might not be able to keep up—but they changed their minds when they heard she had brought through a mob of thirty-four cattle, with only four losses. To prove that this was no hoax, the storekeeper took the surveyors and showed them the pack-bullock.

The men studied the heavy, stupid-looking beast without enthusiasm.

‘I don’t know how you kept thirty of those things on the move,’ said one of them, ‘for I can’t figure out much progress with that one. Suppose you leave him there? We could put your tent on our pack-horse.’

Mrs Phipps needed no persuading. She had no desire to push him through those boulders and mud-pools up near the pass! The bullock was slaughtered and the best cuts of him made a feast for surveyors, storekeepers and diggers at the Paddock; while the tough parts made a feast for Wally.

The party of four made excellent progress.

At the Lakes Homestead, Mrs Phipps called to tell Mrs Taylor of their success, and to ask after the man they had rescued from the bush and sent on to her.

‘He’ll be safe in Christchurch by now, if he’s managed to keep off the whisky,’ said Mrs Taylor. ‘Wait a moment!’ She rummaged in a drawer. ‘He left a letter for the drover lady.’

Mrs Phipps unfolded it and read its clumsy scrawl.

Dear Lady, was that Bill Fips you asked for cum from Guvners Bay and been at Gabreels Gully. Becos he was at Okarito last think I hurd & doing well he had good mates. But
you stick to the cows they wont let you down like the yeller metal or the fiery likker.

Much
Yours Mick Dorie.

With hands shaking from laughter and relief, Mrs Phipps passed the letter over.

‘Poor man! He did his best to be polite, but he couldn’t get round the “obliged”,’ laughed Mrs Taylor.

‘Excuse me!’ said Mrs Phipps, and flung open the window on to the yard, where Archie was sitting on a gate. ‘Archie! Archie! Bill’s at Okarito, and doing well!’

‘Where’s Okarito?’ called Archie.

‘Where is it? I haven’t the least idea, but he’s there!’ cried Mrs Phipps, satisfied at last.

The Kaiapoi baker handed over his fresh, steaming bread and listened admiringly to Mrs Phipps. It was raining hard outside and it was just as well he could not hear the talk of the boys who crowded under the veranda to question Archie.

‘How much money you get?’

‘Nine hundred pounds, but there were cuts out of it.’

‘How much then? Ten—eight—’ The boy was having trouble with his figures and Archie said, smiling:

‘Eight hundred.’

‘Crumbs! Wouldn’t they stick you up for that?’ Archie drew a deep breath and said: ‘They did.’ ‘Who?’

‘Two big dark foreign men. Might’ve been Spanish.’

The audience was spellbound. ‘What did you do?’

‘Went at them with my knife in one hand and the axe in the other.’

‘You never!’

‘Show us your knife.’

Archie unsheathed the bowie-knife and handed it over. The boys felt the blade and the point, which were now very blunt.

‘It’s got no edge any more,’ said one round-faced boy.

‘Course not,’ said Archie scornfully. ‘It’s worn down on the bones.’

‘What did your mother do?’

‘Oh, she tied up their wounds so they wouldn’t die, and told some diggers to tell the coppers.’

Before the next question could come over, Mrs Phipps emerged with her bread.

‘Ready, Archie?’ she said brightly.

Her clothes looked the worse for wear, one of her boots was broken at the side, and her face was brown with windburn, but she looked as ordinary as anybody’s mother and tinier than most of them. Archie whistled to Wally, nodded goodbye in an offhand sort of way, and walked off.

The boys stood in a knot and stared. It was hard to believe that this pair were such heroes. But they didn’t meet heroes every day in the week, and they very much wanted to believe.

A real-life story can never have a real ending, because things go on happening to people, and people go on making them happen. On the other hand, a book must end somewhere.

It was a Sunday afternoon in February 1867, a little less than eight years after the Phipps family had landed in Lyttelton. Mrs Phipps was sitting outside the cottage in her rocking-chair: no packing-case seats for her now! Near by was Mary Ann, quite wrapped up in a book she was reading. From somewhere around came the voice of Emma, singing gaily, and adding her own musical accompaniment by whistling the verses all over again. She was working with her crochethook, for she had clever fingers: she had made the pretty lace front that her mother was wearing at this moment.

Today, for a wonder, there was no one else about. Visitors came often to see the garden, which had become famous, especially for its golden peaches: and these were ripening and scattering over the ground. There were plums too, red and purple and yellow; and greengages; and nectarines, and huge red apples. Rose and jasmine mingled their scents together, and a bellbird swung on the honeysuckle vines. Far above, the rocky peak of the Sugarloaf stood out in the strong sunlight to face the square head of Mount Bradley
on the other side of the harbour.

Through a gap in the trees, Mrs Phipps saw Jack’s cutter sail by. Archie and Jim and some of their friends were with him. It was a pleasure boat, but it was not considered right for picnic parties to hire it on the day for rest and worship. Jack was doing well as a boatman, Archie was making a good farmer and Jim could turn his hand to anything.

She picked a blue marguerite and turned it over in her hands. Whether she looked at the whole picture of her garden, the harbour and the hills, or only at this tiny perfect flower, it gave her a great contentment.

‘Isn’t nature wonderful!’ she exclaimed to Mary Ann. ‘Everything in its season, everything for its purpose. I could sit here and read nature’s book every day of my life!’

But Mary Ann, who was lost in a book with real pages, did not hear her. The voice that answered was Bill’s.

‘Happy, Mother?’

She looked round. ‘Yes, Bill! Very happy—but I thought you were away for the afternoon.’

It was a while before he answered; and her keen eyes saw a familiar old restlessness about him. What was he after now? Not the goldfields this time! The West Coast had returned him with a few shillings in his pocket; but that was all. It was not his gold, but her cattle-dealing that had put the family on its feet.

‘I want to ask you something,’ he said.

‘Oh? What are you planning—a journey or a job?’

‘Both, in one!’

‘That means you’re going to get married.’

‘Right on the nail, Mother!’

‘Sarah Powell?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I can see as far into a stone wall as a good many masons.’ She added sternly: ‘You don’t ask my permission.’

‘You wouldn’t refuse it!’

‘No, but I might warn Sarah,’ she teased. ‘You’ll be taking her to the ends of the earth before you’re through with life. I don’t expect you to settle down quietly in Governors Bay.’

‘What if I don’t? She’ll stick by me!’

‘No doubt she will. But, Bill,’ said Mrs Phipps, growing more serious, ‘there’s one thing we must all think about.’

Mary Ann looked up from her book, and Emma appeared with her crochet-work in her hand.

‘I want to see if the collar will fit,’ said Emma.

‘Trust girls to flutter round when there’s talk of marrying!’ said Bill. ‘You were listening.’

‘I couldn’t help hearing,’ giggled Emma. ‘Poor Sarah!’

‘What is the problem?’ said Mary Ann.

‘It’s this. Is Sarah to be Mrs William Phipps—or Mrs William Small?’

Emma gaped. ‘Why should she be Mrs William Small?’

‘Have you forgotten, Emma? Or have we kept the secret so well that you didn’t even know? Our real name is Small. Now, is it right that Bill should be married under a name that isn’t his own?’

‘No,’ said Mary Ann promptly. ‘Sarah must be Mrs William Small.’

‘You used to be much afraid, Mary Ann, that we should be found out for running away!’

‘Did we run away?’ cried Emma. ‘Was that why we had to change our name?’ But Mary Ann did not answer, and went on:

‘There’s hardly a chance now, Mother, and besides we’re all grown up!’

‘All?’ laughed Bill as he took a pull at Emma’s long plaited hair; but she ducked away and spun round on her toes with her dress flying, whistling a tune, and only stopped for a second to say, ‘Yes, I’m grown up! Look at me!’

‘Thank goodness Sarah doesn’t whistle,’ said Bill.

‘Bill, I’m trying to be serious,’ said Mrs Phipps. ‘Mary Ann says Sarah must be Mrs Small. Well?’

‘She can be Mrs Anything for all I care,’ said Bill cheerfully, ‘so long as she’s
my
missus.’

‘And I say,’ said Emma, dancing herself to a stop, ‘that it will sound very silly if he’s William Small and I am Emma Phipps.’

‘Well then,’ said her mother smiling, ‘we’ll stick together as we’ve always done. When Bill changes, we’ll all change. We’ll use our right name and we won’t be runaways any longer.’

And that is how the bells of St Cuthbert’s first rang out for the Smalls of Governors Bay.