He was a farmer who had recently married and brought his wife over from Nelson to live with him. They were good, hardworking English folk who befriended us — particularly George and me and Mary the nursemaid, as we were no help at all in the repairing of Black Diamond. While Bully shouted orders and at low tide the crew busied themselves hauling the ship onto one side and then the other, looking for rotten planks, caulking and tarring the poor wormy timbers, the three of us walked over the sand and through the bush to the Askews’ neat little home. Oh what a pleasure to wash in pure river water! What joy to strip off our dresses, which were stiff with salt; to wash them in soap and water and leave them to dry on sweet-smelling bushes! Wrapped in blankets and coats, we sat by the cosy fire in that little home and chatted. Jane Askew was about my age, come out alone from England as a maid, but now brimming with happiness to have found and married a decent, landowning man. ‘I am mistress of my own home!’ she said, her pretty, fair face showing astonishment at her good luck.
