"Oh!" cried Rakope, with round open eyes; and "Oh!" cried Piha and Mehere, and all the chorus.
"No," continued he, lazily contemplating a smoke-ring in the moonlight; "her father and mother were only kukis, or something not far off it, and she, of course, is not rangatira, not a lady."
"Oh!" cried Rakope and the others briskly, and joyously jumping to their feet, "that alters the case. We thought she was a lady, and were offended at what she said; but as she is not, it does not matter--she knows no better, and what she says is nothing. _We_ are ladies, and don't mind what common persons say or do."
So, back to the hall came the whole body, romping and laughing round Old Colonial, the acute and wise diplomatist, who had made matters straight and pleasant once more. And we, standing in a body near the hall, heard the rippling laughter of the merry band, and saw their white muslin dresses and bright ribbons glancing among the trees. From within the lighted hall came the sound of fiddles and of stamping feet. We forgot all about Miss Cityswell; we left her to the care of Saint and Whangarei Jim; we forgot the terms of our compromise. We rushed into the bush to meet our partners, as they came up from the beach, with streaming hair and eager eyes. And presently twenty couples took the floor--we Pakeha men and the dusky daughters of the land; and Old Colonial and Rakope waltzed fast and furiously at the head.
[Footnote 6: A battle-axe of polished green jade. One of the most valued of Maori possessions.]
[Footnote 7: Missionary and schoolmaster.]
I think I need hardly say that we are not æsthetic here in the bush. In point of fact, we have no sympathy whatever with æstheticism or high art culture. We are, to put it shortly, Goths, barbarians, antithetics, what you will. The country is not æsthetic either; it is too young yet to use or abuse intellectual stimulants. There exists among us a profound contempt for all the fripperies and follies of fashion and civilization. We hold these things to be wrong--to be a sort of crime against manhood.
In a measure we are Puritan; not altogether in a religious sense, but in a moral and social one, certainly. We regard our horny hands with pride, and talk about "honest labour" with something more than a virtuous glow. We are apt to be rather down on city foplings and soft-handed respectabilities. All such people we despise with positively brutal heartiness. When we read of what is doing in London and Paris we swell with indignation and contempt. We look upon the civilization we have come out of as no fine thing. Life is a serious matter-of-fact business to us, and we hold in stern derision the amenities of more sophisticated communities.