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patriot’s notion of a Highland chieftain.
    Every evening he climbed to the top of the hill and smoked a pipe, beginning his slow ascent an hour before sunset. Sometimes one of his grandchildren, or an old crony of his own clan, would go up with him, but more often he sat there alone, lost, as it seemed, in a long perspective of recollections. The Claires, down at the Springs, would glance up and see him appearing larger than human against the sky and very still. Or Huia, sitting on the bank behind the house when she should have been scrubbing potatoes, would wave to him and send him a long-drawn-out cry of greeting in his own tongue. She was one of his many great-grandchildren.
    This evening he found much to interest him down at the Springs. A covered van had turned in from the main road and had lurched and skidded down the track which the Claires called their drive, until it pulled up at their front door. Excited noises came from inside the house. Old Rua heard his great-granddaughter’s voice and Miss Barbara Claire’s unmelodious laughter. There were bumping sounds. A large car came down the track and pulled up at the edge of the sweep. Mr. Maurice Questing got out of it followed by a younger man. Rua leant forward a little, grasped the head of his stick firmly and rested his chin on his knotted hands. He seemed rooted in the hill-top, and part of its texture. After a long pause he heard a sound for which his ears had inherited an acute awareness. Someone was coming up the track behind him. The dry scrub brushed against approaching legs. In a moment or two a man stood beside him on the hill-top.
    “Good evening, Mr. Smith,” said old Rua without turning his head.
    “G’day, Rua.”
    The man lurched forward and squatted beside Te Kahu. He was a European, but his easy adoption of this native posture suggested a familiarity with the ways of the Maori people. He was thin, and baldish. His long jaw was ill-shaved. His skin hung loosely from the bones of his face, and was unwholesome in colour. There was an air of raffishness about him. His clothes were seedy. Over them he wore a raincoat that was dragged out of shape by a bottle in an inner pocket. He began to make a cigarette, and his fingers, deeply stained with nicotine, were unsteady. He smelt very strongly of stale spirits.
    “Great doings down at the Springs,” he said.
    “They seem to be busy,” said Rua tranquilly.
    “Haven’t you heard? They’ve got a big pot coming to stay. That’s his secretary, that young chap that’s just come. You’d think it was royalty. They’ve been making it pretty solid for everybody down there. Hauling everything out and shifting us all round. I got sick of it and sloped off.”
    “A distinguished guest should be given a fitting welcome.”
    “He’s only an actor.”
    “Mr. Geoffrey Gaunt. He is a man of great distinction.”
    “Then you know all about it, do you?”
    “I think so,” said old Rua.
    Smith licked his cigarette and hung it from the corner of his mouth.
    “Questing’s at the back of it,” he said. Rua stirred slightly. “He’s kidded this Gaunt the mud’ll fix his leg for him. He’s falling over himself polishing the old dump up. You ought to see the furniture. Questing!” Smith added viciously. “By cripes, I’d like to see that joker get what’s coming to him.”
    Unexpectedly Rua gave a subterranean chuckle.
    “Look!” Smith said. “He’s got something coming to him all right, that joker. The old doctor’s got it in for him, and so’s everybody else but Claire. I reckon Claire’s not so keen, either, but Questing’s put him where he just
can’t
squeal. That’s what I reckon.”
    He lit his cigarette and looked out of the corners of his eyes at Rua. “You don’t say much,” he said. His hand moved shakily over the bulge in his mackintosh. “Like a spot?” he asked.
    “No, thank you. What should I say? It is no business of mine.”
    “Look, Rua,” said Smith energetically.