entailed thought and trouble, had to be done.

It is true these rough jobs were not exactly in my line, but indoors
I was just as busy trying to make big things fit into little spaces
and _vice versa_. We could not afford to take things coolly and do
a little every day, for at that time of year an hour's change in the
wind might have brought a heavy fall of snow, or a sharp frost, or
a; deluge of rain down upon the uncovered and defenceless heads of
our live stock. The poor dear sheep, the source of our income, were
after all the least well-cared for creatures on the Station. A well
grassed and watered run, with sunny vallies for winter feeding, and
green hills for summer pasturage, had been provided by antipodean
Nature for them, and to these advantages we only added some twenty
or twenty-five miles of wire fencing, and then they were left to
themselves, with a couple of shepherds to look after fifteen
thousand sheep all the year round.

But yet, busy as we were, we found time to look up a congregation.
The very first Sunday afternoon, whilst we were still in the midst
of a chaos of chips and big boxes and straw and empty china-barrels,
our own shepherds came over, by invitation, and the only very near
neighbours we had--a Scotch head-shepherd and his charming young
wife,--and we held a Service in the half-furnished drawing room.
After it was ended we had a long talk with the men, and they
confessed that they had enjoyed it very much, and would like to come
regularly. When questioned as to the feasibility of inducing others
to join, they said that it might be suggested to more than one
distant, lonely hill-shepherd, but his uncontrollable shyness would
probably prevent his attendance.