Free A Canoe In the Mist by Elsie Locke Page A

have to have a church,’ said Lillian. ‘Listen to Mr Bainbridge telling them about this.’
    The newcomer had an interested audience listening to his life story. Edwin—and he’d like them all to call him Edwin, not Mr Bainbridge—was twenty. He had lost both parents when he was seven and was raised by his grandparents, who sent him to a boarding school, encouraged him in sport and athletics, and found him work in a business firm. But in the year just past, the family had met with tragedy. His elder brother was accidentally shot and his sister died of illness a few weeks later. The double loss had weakened his own health and the doctor had advised a journey; so he’d come out to see a friend of his schooldays who lived in Auckland.
    ‘It must have done you good already,’ said Mrs Hensley. ‘You look the picture of health.’
    ‘Oh, I’m all right now!’ said Edwin. ‘I came to myself on the beaches of Fiji. I know that my loved ones are happy in Heaven. And this beautiful country gives a lift to my heart.’
    ‘If you want to see more of the countryside, you’re welcome to ride out to the place we’re surveying,’ said John Blythe. ‘Do you follow astronomy? On Wednesday night there’ll be a conjunction of the moon with the planet Mars, at a very good time, about ten past ten. We’re a little too far south for a complete occultation, unfortunately. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a fine night.’
    ‘What’s an occ-ul—what was it?’ Lillian broke in. Sometimes she couldn’t hold back her questions, even when her mother was present to remind her that it was rude to interrupt.
    ‘An occultation? The moon passes in front of the planet. Or putting it another way, the planet hides behind the moon. For us, the two will simply come together.’
    ‘We must see that, Mattie,’ said Mr Hensley enthusiastically.
    ‘Mumma, can I watch it too?’ asked Lillian.
    ‘You are never up so late,’ said Mrs Perham doubtfully.
    ‘I can see Mars from my window. It’s the red planet, it rises above the hill. I wouldn’t have to be up , Mumma.’
    ‘There’ll be nothing to see if the weather’s like this,’ said her mother.
    ‘The sky is already lighter. It will clear tonight, I think,’ said Harry Lundius. He was a young immigrant from Sweden and spoke his English words very carefully.
    Edwin Bainbridge was in luck. The trip to Rotomahana followed its usual course with Guide Kate in charge, and a grandson of Te Rangiheuea paddled out in his canoe to greet the visitors. Nobody wrote their name on the White Terrace. The air was clear from dawn to sunset and they saw nothing on Lake Tarawera except fishing canoes returning to Moura. According to Mr McRae and Mr Humphreys, this was final proof that the waka wairua was only a trick of the mist.
    On Wednesday Edwin went on his promised shooting trip. He and Joe had a long ride before sighting any game, but Edwin brightened the morning by proving his horse Monarch the equal of Joe’s big mare Rosinante. Their pace was rather hard on the dog Lollop, who got that name from the easy way he lolloped along; and Edwin had to pet him afterwards. In return, Lollop flushed out a solitary pheasant which Edwin knocked over with his first shot. He returned in high spirits, although soaked for the second time in a squall of rain. He took his trophy to the kitchen and asked the cook to see that everyone had a taste, staff included. ‘Delighted!’ he said when Bridget asked if the feathers could go to decorate a Maori cloak.
    Mattie and Lillian ran home from school through that same squall of rain, shouting to the clouds to keep it up, please keep it up, long enough to turn the road to mud so that the coach couldn’t get through. For the Hensleys were to go tomorrow and the two friends would be parted. But the clouds weren’t listening. The rain stopped before Mattie had her taste of Edwin’s pheasant.
    The friendship wouldn’t finish, of course. Mattie and Lillian