told the teacher, cheerfully and confidently, that August said
she'd cut Mrs. Lorrens' throat the first chance she got. Next week
the aunt sent down to ask if the teacher could sell her a bar of soap,
and sent the same old shilling; he was tired of seeing it stuck out
in front of him, so he took it, put it in his pocket, and sent the soap.
This must have discouraged them, for the borrowing industry petered out.
He saw the aunt later on, and she told him, cheerfully, that August was going
to live with a half-caste in a certain house in town.

Poor August! For she was only a tool after all. Her "romance"
was briefly as follows: -- She went, per off-hand Maori arrangement,
as `housekeeper' in the hut of a labourer at a neighbouring saw-mill.
She stayed three months, for a wonder; at the expiration of which time
she put on her hat and explained that she was tired of stopping there,
and was going home. He said, `All right, Sarah, wait a while
and I'll take you home.' At the door of her aunt's house he said,
`Well, good-bye, Sarah,' and she said, in her brooding way, `Good-bye, Jim.'
And that was all.

As the last apparent result of August's mischief-making,
her brother or someone one evening rode up to the cottage,
drunk and inclined to bluster. He was accompanied by a friend, also drunk,
who came to see the fun, and was ready to use his influence
on the winning side. The teacher went inside, brought out his gun,
and slipped two cartridges in. "I've had enough of this," he said.
"Now then, be off, you insolent blackguards, or I'll shoot you like rabbits.
Go!" and he snapped his jaw and the breech of his gun together.
As they rode off, the old local hawk happened to soar close over a dead lamb
in the fern at the corner of the garden, and the teacher,
who had been "laying" for him a long time, let fly both barrels at him,