’The Bishop had not lost his Eton tastes, and only liked to see them play games, and the little fat merry-faced lads were always on the look-out for a bit of fun with him.  One evening a tea-drinking was given in the hall in honour of us.  The Mota boys sung in twilight the story of the first arrival of the Mission vessel and of their wonder at it.  The air, with a monotonous, not unpleasing refrain, reminded us of some old French Canadian ditties.  I remember well the excitement when the Bishop sent up a fire balloon.  It sailed slowly towards the sea, and down rushed the whole Melanesian party, shrieking with delight after it.  Our dear friend’s own quarters were very tiny, and a great contrast to his large airy room at St. John’s.  He occupied a corner house in the quadrangle, to be close to the boys.  Neither bedroom nor sitting-room was more than ten feet square.  Everything was orderly, as was his wont.  Photographs of the faces and places he loved best hung on the walls.  Just by the door was his standing desk, with folios and lexicons.  A table, covered with books and papers in divers languages, and a chair or two, completed his stock of furniture.  The door stood open all day long in fine weather, and the Bishop was seldom alone.  One or other of the boys would steal quietly in and sit down.  They did not need to be amused, nor did they interrupt his work.  They were quite content to be near him, and to get now and then a kind word or a pleasant smile.  It was the habitual gentle sympathy and friendliness on his part that won the confidence of the wild timid people who had been brought up in an element of mistrust, and which enabled them after a while to come and open their hearts to him.

’How vividly the whole scene comes back to me as I write!  The Bishop’s calm thoughtful face, the dusky lads, the white-shelled square in front, relieved by a mass of bright geraniums or gay creepers, the little bed-room with its camp bed, and medicine bottles and good books, and, too often, in spite of our loving remonstrances, an invalid shivering with ague, or influenza, in possession.  We knew that this involved broken nights for him, and a soft board and a rug for a couch.  He was overtasking his powers during those years.  He was at work generally from five A.M. to eleven P.M., and this in a close atmosphere; for both the schoolroom and his own house were ill-ventilated.  He would not spare time enough either for regular exercise.  He had a horse and enjoyed riding, but he grudged the time except when he had to come up to town on business or to take Sunday services for the English in the country.  It was very natural, as he had all a student’s taste for quiet study, yet could only indulge it by cutting off his own hours for relaxation.  He was constantly called off during the day to attend to practical work, teaching in school, prescribing for and waiting on the sick, weighing out medicines, keeping the farm accounts, besides the night classes in several languages.