with mutton and firewood, and his simple wants are thus supplied.
After shearing, about January, his wages are paid, varying from 75
pounds to 100 pounds a year, according to the locality, and then he
gets a week's leave to go down to the nearest town. If he be a
prudent steady man, as our friend Salter was, he puts his money in
the bank, or lends it out on a freehold mortgage at ten per cent.,
only deducting a few pounds from his capital for a suit of clothes,
a couple of pair of Cookham boots for hill walking, and above all,
some new books.

Without any exception, the shepherds I came across in New Zealand
were all passionately fond of reading; and they were also
well-informed men, who often expressed themselves in excellent,
through superfine, language. Their libraries chiefly consisted of
yellow-covered novels, and out of my visits in search of a
congregation grew a scheme for a book-club to supply something
better in the way of literature, which was afterwards most
successfully carried out. But of this I need not speak here, for we
are still seated inside Salter's hut,--so small in its dimensions
that it could hardly have held another guest. Womanlike, my eyes
were everywhere, and I presently spied out an empty bottle, labelled
"Worcestershire Sauce."

"Dear me, Salter," I cried, "I had no idea you were so grand as to
have sauces up here: why we hardly ever use them." "Well, mum,"
replied Salter, bashfully, and stroking his long black beard to gain
time to select the grandest words he could think of, "it is hardly
to be regarded in the light of happetite, that there bottle, it is
more in the nature of remedies." Then, seeing that I still looked
mystified, he added, "You see, mum, although we gets our 'elth