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diff --git a/45683.txt b/45683.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 771e026..0000000 --- a/45683.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8230 +0,0 @@ - THE WONDER-CHILD - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost -no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - - -Title: The Wonder-Child -Author: Ethel Turner -Release Date: May 25, 2014 [EBook #45683] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDER-CHILD *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - -[Illustration: Cover art] - - - - -[Illustration: 'HERMIE.' (See page 134.)] - - - - - THE WONDER-CHILD - - An Australian Story - - - BY - - ETHEL TURNER - - (MRS. H. R. CURLEWIS) - - - - Author of 'Seven Little Australians,' 'The Camp - at Wandinong,' 'The Story of a Baby,' 'Three - Little Maids,' etc. - - - - 'The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, - Is, not to fancy what were fair in life, - Provided it could be,--but finding first - What may be, then find how to make it fair - Up to our means,'--ROBERT BROWNING. - - - - With Illustrations by Gordon Browne - - - - _FIFTH IMPRESSION_ - - - - LONDON - THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY - 4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard E.C. - 1901 - - - - - *CONTENTS* - - -CHAP. - - I. TWO WORLDS - II. THE WONDER-CHILD - III. THE SECOND LADY-HELP - IV. THE PAINTING OF THE SHIP - V. DUNKS' SELECTION - VI. THIRTY THOUSAND A YEAR - VII. COME HOME! COME HOME - VIII. AN ATHEIST - IX. MORTIMER STEVENSON - X. 'I LOVE YOU' - XI. A SQUATTER PATRIOT - XII. R.M.S. UTOPIA - XIII. THE BUSH CONTINGENT - XIV. HOME TO THE HARBOUR - XV. HEART TO HEART - XVI. THE ROSERY - XVII. CROSSING THE VELDT - XVIII. A SKIRMISH BY THE WAY - XIX. THE MOOD OF A MAID - XX. MISS BROWNE - XXI. THE MORNING CABLES - XXII. CONCLUSION - - - - - *THE WONDER-CHILD* - - - - *CHAPTER I* - - *Two Worlds* - - 'Ah me! while thee the seas and sounding shores - Hold far away.' - - -They were walking from the school to the paddock where the children's -horses, thirty or forty nondescript animals, grazed all day long. - -'Sh' think,' said Peter Small, son of the butcher who fed -Wilgandra,--'Sh' think you could have afforded one sprat at least for -teacher's present!' - -'Afforded!' quoth Bartie Cameron. 'I could have afforded a thousand -pounds!' - -'Then why d'ye 'ave 'oles in your stockings, and bursted boots?' asked -Peter. - -''Cause it's much nicer than having darns and patches,' returned Bartie, -looking disparagingly upon his companion's neater garments. - -'My old man's got a mortgage on your sheep,' said Peter, baffled on the -patches. - -'We like mortgages,' said Bartie airily; 'they make the sheep grow.' - -'We've got a new red carpet comin' for our livin'-room,' shouted Peter. - -Bartie looked him over contemptuously. - -'I've got a sister in London, and she makes fifty pounds a night by her -playing.' - -'You're a lie!' said Peter, who was new to the school, and did not know -the Camerons. - -'Take this, then!' said Bartie, and put his strong young fist in the -face of his friend. - -A big girl, saddling her horse, came and pulled them apart, after they -had had a round or two. - -'Haven't I got a sister who makes fifty pounds a concert?' demanded -Bartie breathlessly. - -'Ain't he a lie?' demanded the son of the slaughterer. - -The big girl arbitrated instantly. Certainly Bartie had a sister who -made hundreds and hundreds--more shame to her. Peter had better go home -and read the papers, if he did not believe it. - -Peter said he did read the papers; he had never seen anything in them -about no sisters. - -'What papers?' said the girl. - -'_P'lice Budget and War Cry_, of course,' answered the boy. - -'That's the sort of paper _your_ sister would be in,' Bartie said; 'mine -is always in the cables.' He turned off from both girl and boy, and -made his way to where a half-clipped horse nibbled at the exhausted -pasturage. - -A small girl of eight had, with incredible exertion, put the huge saddle -on its back; Bartie had nothing to do but fasten the girths in place and -put on the bridle. He flung himself up, and moved the animal close to a -stump; Floss, the small girl, climbed to a place behind him, and a -nine-year-old boy, playing marbles near, rose up at the sight of the -moving horse, pocketed his marbles, swung his bag of books round his -neck, and clambered up to the third place on the steed's broad neck. - -All the paddock was a-move. There was a general race down to the -sliprails, a gentle thunder of horses' hoofs and boys' shouts, broken by -the shriller cries and 'Good-byes' of the girls. - -Then up and down, left and right, away along the branching roads rode -the country school children, tea and home before them, behind, one more -day of the quarter's tedium dropped away for ever. - -The Cameron horse jogged along; as a rule she had only Roly and Floss to -carry, Bartie having a rough pony to journey on; but to-day the pony had -wandered too far to be caught before school-time, so Tramby had an extra -burden, and walked sedately. - -Floss had a tiny red palm to show. - -'Why, that's three times this week you've had the cane! You must be -going it, Floss,' said Roly. - -'It was sewing,' sighed Floss; 'how would you like to sew? I know you'd -go and hide behind the shed.' - -The front horseman turned his head. 'It's time you did learn, Floss,' -he said; 'look at my stockings, I'm sick of having holes in them. Look -at my trousers.' - -'I heard Miss Browne telling you to leave them for her to mend,' said -Floss. - -'No, thanks,' said Bart; 'I know her mending too jolly well. She'd -patch it with stuff that 'ud show a mile off.' - -'Yes, look at my elbows,' Roly said; and though the positions forbade -this, a mental picture of the clumsy mending with stuff worlds too new -rose up before the eyes of his brother and sister. - -Floss was dressed with curious inequality; she wore heavy country shoes -and stockings, like the rest of the children at that public school, and -her bonnet was of calico and most primitive manufacture, but her frock -was exquisite--a little Paris-made garment of fine cashmere, beautifully -embroidered. - -'I wish some more of Challis's frocks would come,' she sighed; 'this -one's so hot. I wish mamma would make her always wear thin things.' - -'Why, she'd be shivering,' said Roly. - -'Think how cold it is in Paris and those places!' - -'Think how hot it is here!' sighed Floss and mopped at her streaming -little face with her disengaged hand. - -'I got the mail,' Bartie said, and pulled two letters out of his -pocket--a thick one from his almost-forgotten mother, and a pale blue -with a fanciful C upon the flap from his twin sister; they both bore the -postmark of Windsor. - -'Suppose they're stopping with the Queen again,' he added laconically. - -'Wonder what they have for tea at her house?' sighed Flossie, and her -system revolted against the corned beef and ill-made bread that were in -prospect for her own meal. - -Tramby turned of her own accord at a sudden gap in the gum-trees, and -stood alongside while Roly stretched and contorted himself to lift out -the sliprail--nothing ever induced him to dismount for this task. Then -she stepped daintily over the lower rail, and again waited while the -passenger in the rear stretched down and made things safe again. - -Their father's selection stretched before them, eighty acres of -miserable land, lying grey and dreary under the canopy of a five o'clock -coppery sky, summer and drought time. - -[Illustration: HOME FROM SCHOOL.] - -Patches of fertility showed some one laboured at the place. There was a -stretch of lucerne, green as any in the district. But this was not -saying very much, for Wilgandra's vegetation as a rule copied the -neutral tint of the gum-trees, rather than the vivid emerald so pleasant -to the eye in country wilds. - -There was a small patch under potatoes, there were half a dozen -orange-trees, yellow with fruit. At the very door of the house a cow -grazed calmly, and everywhere browsed the sheep, brown, ragged, dirty -things, fifty or sixty of them, far more than the acreage should have -carried, but still in good condition--it seemed as if the mortgage was -fattening. The house was a poor weatherboard place, the paint blistered -off, the windows rickety, the roof of cruel galvanised iron. - -Inside there were chiefly pictures, great canvases on which Thetis was -rising from a roughly tossing sea, her infant Achilles laughing in her -arms; on which the lofty mountain Pindus towered, the Muses seated about -in negligent attitudes; on which delicious twists and turns of the River -Thames flowed; on which wet, cool beaches glistened, and shallow waves -lapped idly. - -There was also a piano with a mountain of music. Also a few chairs and -a table. - -Bartie dragged off the saddle and harness, flung them on the verandah, -and turned Tramby loose among the sheep. Then he went into the house. - -There rose up listlessly from the doorstep and a book an exquisitely -pretty girl of seventeen, a girl with sea-blue eyes and a skin that -Wilgandra could in no wise account for, so soft and fresh and pure it -was. You saw the same face again and again in the canvasses about the -room, sweetest as Isis, with the tender, anxious look of motherhood in -her eyes, and Horus in her arms. This was Hermie. - -'Have you got the mail?' she asked. - -Bartie nodded. - -'Go and fetch father,' he said; 'he's down with the roses, I saw his hat -moving.' - -He flung himself on the ground, listless with the heat; Floss dragged -off her hot frock and her shoes, and revelled in the pleasure of her -little petticoat and bare feet. Roly looked plaintively at the table, -on which was no cloth as yet. - -'Miss Browne,' he called, the very tears in his voice, 'Miss Browne, -isn't tea ready?' - -A faded spinster, lady-help to the family for six years, came hurrying -into the room. - -'Poor Roly!' she said. 'Yes, it is too bad of me, dear; I was mending -your best jacket, and didn't notice the time. But I'll soon have it -ready now.' She ran hastily about the room looking for the cloth, and -at last remembered she had put it under the piano-lid, to be out of the -dust. She put on the vases of exquisite roses that Hermie had arranged, -and a wild collection of odd china and crockery cups and enamelled ware. - -Then she noticed the rent of extraordinary dimensions in Bartie's coat, -the same jagged place that had made even Peter Small exclaim. - -'Dear, dear,' she said, 'this will never do. This really must not go a -moment longer. Where is my thimble? Where can I have put my thimble? -Give me that coat, Bartie, this minute, if you please. - -Bartie took it off, but sat with jealous eye upon it all the time it was -in her hands. He would have it mended his way. - -'Now, look here,' he said, 'please don't go putting any fresh stuff in -it. Just sew it over and over, so the places come together. I'll take -to mending my own clothes. It's just the way you go letting new pieces -in that spoils your mending, Miss Browne.' - -'But, Bartie dear,' the gentle lady said, 'see, my love, when a place is -torn right away like this, we have to put fresh stuff underneath. I'll -just get a tiny bit from my work-basket.' - -'You just won't,' said Bartie stubbornly. 'You give it to me, and I'll -mend it myself'--and he actually took the needle and cotton and cobbled -it over till there certainly was no hole left. - -'Now, my love,' he said, and held it up triumphantly. - -'But it will break away again to-morrow,' said Miss Browne, in deep -distress. 'If you would just let me put a little patch, Bartie.' - -But Bartie clung to his coat. - -Roly had strayed out to look at his kangaroo-rats, but now came back. - -The tears came to his voice again at the sight of Miss Browne, sitting -with her thimble on, looking helplessly at Bartie. - -'Oh dear,' he said, 'isn't there never going to be any tea?' - -'You poor little fellow!' she said. 'Just one minute more, Roly dear. -You can be sitting down.' - -Hermie had gone flying across the ground to a place in the eighty acres -where the ground dipped into a little valley. It was all fenced round -with wire, to keep off the fowls and sheep. Within there grew roses in -such beauty and profusion as to astonish one. She saw a very old -cabbage-tree hat bending over a bush, and darted towards it. - -'Dad,' she said, 'dad darling, come along in; the mail has come.' - -There rose up a man, grey as his own selection, a man not more than -five-and-forty. Eyes blue as Hermie's own looked from under his grey -eyebrows, a grey beard covered his mouth. - -'The mail, did you say, little woman?' he said, and stopped to prune -just one more shoot here, and snip off just one more drooping blossom. - -'And tea, too, darling; at least I suppose it will be ready some day. -Come along, you are very tired, daddie. Why did you start ploughing a -day like this?' - -The man sighed. - -'It had to be done, girlie; but see, I gave myself a reward. I have -been down here an hour. Now let us go and read our letters.' - -As they reached the living-room they found Miss Browne dusting the piano -and tidying the music; the setting of the table was advanced one stage -further, that is, the knives and forks were now on. - -Roly came up again from another visit to his rats. - -'Miss Browne,' he said, 'oh dear, oh dear!'--and stalked off to the -kitchen, to demand of Lizzie, the young State girl who scrubbed and -washed for them, where was the corned beef for tea, and wasn't there any -butter? - -But the father was tearing open the letters. Hermie and Bartie hung over -his shoulder, reading just as eagerly as he. Floss crouched between his -knees to catch the crumbs. Roly, munching while he waited at a hunch of -ill-coloured bread, kept an eye and an ear for any spoken news, and Miss -Browne moved continually about the room, straightening chairs, altering -the position of the table vases, rearranging the knives and forks. - -Mr. Cameron looked up, and drew forward a chair next to his own. - -'Do sit down, Miss Browne,' he said; 'I am sure you are very tired. Sit -down, and let us enjoy this all together.' - -So Miss Browne, too, joined the circle, Roly watching her with a -brooding eye. - - -'WINDSOR CASTLE. - -'OH, MY DEAR ONES, MY DEAR ONES' ran the white letter,--'Is the earth -shaking beneath me, have my hands ague, that my pen trembles like this? -We are coming home, home, home. No false reports this time, no -heart-sickening disappointment; the papers are actually signed for a -long season, and we leave by the Utopia in six weeks. The news came an -hour ago. I saw an equerry coming in with the letters, saw the letter -that meant so much carried up to my room by a house steward, and had to -pass along the corridor and leave it. Challis was going down to play to -the Queen in her private sitting-room. But after it all was over how we -went to our rooms again! There was only a chambermaid in sight, and for -the last twenty yards of corridor we ran. Home, home, home, to your -arms, my husband, my dear one, my patient old sweetheart! Home to my -little girls, my boys, my little boys! Darlings, my eyes are streaming. -Oh, to hold you all again, to feel you, to touch my Hermie's hair--is it -all sunlight yet?--to be crushed with Bartie's hug, to hold again the -poor little babies I left, my Roly, my little Floss. Ah, dear ones, -dear ones, now it is all over, now we are coming, coming to you, I can -let you know. Oh, these weary, weary years, these great cities where we -have no home, no corner of a home. I have broken my heart for you all -every night since I came away. Six years, my dear ones, six years of -nights to break my heart. Be sorry for mother, and love her, darlings. -Have you forgotten her, Hermie? Bart, Bart, have you kept a little love -warm for her? Ah, dear God, my babies will not know me, little Floss -will turn away her head. My sweetheart, my sweetheart, if the time has -been as long for you, and pleasures as tasteless, and all things as -void, then my heart sickens afresh, for I know what your life has been. - -'What has kept me up all this weary time I cannot even think. Whatever -it was, it has snapped now, and I am limp, useless, broken up into -little bits, like nothing so much as a little child stretching out its -arms and crying to its mother. Can you not see my arms stretching, -stretching to you? Does not my cry come to your little town? It is -Challis who is the woman now; she sees my work is done. She had begun -to show me the bracelet the Queen gave her, and to tell me what every -one had said, but I had torn open Warner's letter, and found the home -orders had come. She is packing various little things now, and has -rung, and given orders with the dearest little air of self-possession. -"Sit down and write, and tell daddie," she said; "I will see to -everything now." - -'The carriage is to come for us in an hour. We have been here three -days, and every one has been as kind and as enthusiastic as they are -always. We go to Sandringham on Friday; the Princess asked for Challis -to play for her guests that night; the Dowager Empress is to be there, -and others. - -'Then at Manchester an immense farewell concert on Monday; Mr. Warner -says two thousand seats are already booked to hear the "Wonder-Child"; -another at Plymouth on Friday; a rush up to Edinburgh, just for her to -appear at the Philharmonic. They are only giving her forty pounds for -the night, but Mr. Warner is unwilling for her to lose the Scotch -connection. - -'Then peace, perfect peace, and home. I sit and try to fancy the -changes the six years have made in the home. I am glad you have had two -new bedrooms built; that will allow you to have a study again, -sweetheart, and Hermie a drawing-room--sixteen is sure to be hankering -for one. The furniture is looking a little shabby, I know; but of -course that can be easily remedied, and I have always had my boxes -stuffed with art vases and bits of brass and bronze, ready for when the -good time came. You have probably laid down new carpets long ere this -in all the rooms, but I shall bring some rugs and Eastern squares, for I -doubt if your back-block towns have supplied what would satisfy my now -cultured taste. - -'I suppose people wonder at you still being stuck to the Civil Service -at a wretched two hundred and fifty pounds a year. Isn't the prevailing -idea that we are rolling in money? There is surprisingly little for all -the enthusiasm there has been--I think Mr. Warner said he had banked -three thousand pounds for her--all the rest goes in expenses, which are -enormous. We are obliged to be at the best hotels, and to be dressed -up-to-date; that runs away with big sums. And the advertising that Mr. -Warner says is so necessary swallows gigantic amounts. This has been -the first year with much profit. Sometimes when I dress my little -girlie in her Paris frocks I think of Hermie, making last season's do -again, perhaps. Did the last box of Challis's frocks do for Flossie? -The lady-help, I am sure, will have been able to cut them down. - -'Do not let us think of the future, sweetheart, I cannot bear it yet. I -cannot leave you any more, you must not be left; Challis has had her -meed of her mother now, and it is the turn for the others. Yet Mr. -Warner says it must be kept up, this life of hers, this Wandering Jew -life. It is the price great artists pay. But the child is brave. - -'"You shall not have it any more, mamma," she said when I read this out; -"you shall go home to daddie for always now." - -'But when I looked at her face it was pale, and there was that wan look -in it that comes sometimes. To think of the little tender thing bearing -all this alone! - -'But we must not think of the future, sweetheart; we must not think of -it for an instant. You will come to Sydney to meet us? Perhaps only you. -And we will come straight home to Wilgandra with you. If she ruins her -chances for ever, she shall have one month's quiet home before the -Sydney season begins. Mr. Warner will try to prevent this, but I shall -be very firm. Then you must get leave, and children and all, we will go -to Sydney together, and you shall hear the darling play. To think you -have none of you ever seen great audiences carried away by her little -fingers! - -'Ask the lady-help not to do up my bedroom for me. I want to see the -faded pink and white hangings, and the sofa with the green roses on it, -and the knitted counterpane that grandma made--just as they were when I -left them. - -'Oh, my little home, not beautiful, not even very comfortable, stuck -away in that hot little town hundreds of miles from Sydney--my heart is -breaking for you!' - - -Nobody spoke when the letter was finished--nobody, indeed, had spoken -all the way through. Tired little Floss, finding no news forthcoming, -had fallen asleep. - -Roly had sat down to the table, and was sawing an end off the corned -beef. Miss Browne, since nothing was read aloud, had gently risen up -and was dusting the piano, to be less in the way. But from time to time -she glanced at the letter, alarm in her eyes. Could it be the little -golden girl was ill? - -The father put down the letter, and his hand shook. - -'Coming home,' he said, and rose up, looking dazed; 'we--we must stop -her at once, of course. Children, how can we stop her?' - -Bart's chest was heaving. For a second he had heard the crying come to -the little town, and seen the stretching of the arms. - -But out of the window lay the grey selection that she had never seen; -closer at hand were the rents in his clothes, the broken places on his -boots. He pulled himself together. - -'I'll go down to the post and cable to her not to come,' he said; 'you -be writing it down, dad.' - -And Hermie's girl-heart was breaking. The letter had shaken the very -centre of her being, and wakened in her a passion of love and longing -for this tender woman. Oh, to be held by her, kissed, caressed--to feel -that hand on the hair she could not help but know was pretty! - -But looking up she saw her father's anguished gaze around him--Bart's -manly mastery of himself. She brushed her tears aside. - -'I'll get the pen and ink,' she said; 'it--it's late--the cable ought to -go to-night.' - -Miss Browne sat down, quivering with the suspense. - -'Which,' she whispered, 'which of them is dead, your mother or little -Challis?' - -Bartie it was who laughed--a hoarse apology for a laugh. - -'Dead!' he said; 'they're coming home, Miss Browne!' - -It was Miss Browne's turn to look anguished. She rose up and moved -uncertainly about the room, she began to tidy the music in feverish -haste, she dusted the piano yet again. - -Then she turned to Mr. Cameron with one hand fluttering out. - -'I--I--must ask you to let me have a s--shilling,' she quavered; -'the--the boys really must have their hair cut before she sees them.' - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - *The Wonder-Child* - - 'Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with His dew - On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and - blue, - Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings.' - - -Up to the last eight years Mr. Cameron's friends and relatives had -always had their hands full with finding positions for him that would -enable him to support his wife and family. - -Once or twice he was in receipt of five hundred a year, but much more -frequently he would be in a bank or an insurance company, starting with -a modest salary of a hundred and twenty. - -Every one liked him cordially--they could not help it. But every one -was unfeignedly glad when one of the relatives made a great effort, and, -by dint of interviewing Members of Parliament and getting a little -influence to bear here and a little there, worked him into the Civil -Service, the appointment being that of Crown Land Agent at Wilgandra, -the salary two hundred and forty pounds, less ten pounds for the -Superannuation Fund. - -Wilgandra was so far away--three hundred and seventy-three miles back, -back, away in the heart of the country--the very farthest town to which -the Government sent its Land Agents. Surely the bad penny could never -turn up again to vex their peace! - -Even Mrs. Cameron's anxious soul was set at rest. - -The climate was intolerable in the summer, there was little or no -society, the only house they could have was not over comfortable. But -the work seemed smooth and easy, and after so many ups and downs the -quiet security of the small hot township seemed delicious to her. - -It was not that Mr. Cameron drank or gambled, or possessed indeed any -highly coloured sin. He was simply one of the impracticables, the -dreamers, that the century has no room for. - -He had written verses that the weekly papers had accepted; indeed, a few -daintily delicate things had found their way into the best English -magazines. - -He had painted pictures--a score of them, perhaps; the art societies had -accepted three of them, refused nine, and never been even offered the -remainder; no one had ever bought one of them. - -He had composed some melodies that a musical light passing through -Sydney professed to be captivated with, had promised to have published -in London, and had forgotten entirely. - -When they were unpacking their much-ravelled chattels the first night in -Wilgandra, James Cameron came to his great paint-box that the late -family vicissitudes had prevented him touching for so long. - -'Ah,' he said, and a light of great pleasure came into his grey eyes as -he lifted it from the packing-case and rubbed the dust off it with his -good cuff--'mine old familiar friend. Why, Molly darling, I shan't know -myself with a brush in my hand again. With all the spare time there -will be here, I ought to do some good work at last.' - -Then his wife laid down the stack of little torn pinafores and patched -jackets and frocks she was lifting from another box, and crossed the -room and knelt down by her husband's side, just where he was kneeling -beside the rough packing-case that had held his treasure. - -'Dear one,' she said, 'dear one, Jim, Jim,'--one hand went round his -neck, her head, with its warm brown hair that the grey was threading -years too soon, pressed against his shoulder, her face, old, young, sad, -smiling, looked into his, her brave brown eyes held tears. - -'Why, little woman,' he said, 'what is it--what is troubling you? -Smiling time has come again, Molly, the worries are all left behind with -Sydney.' - -'Jim,' she said, and her hand tightened on the paint-box he held, 'Jim, -do you know we have five children, five of them, five?' - -'Well, girlie,' he said, and got up and sat down on the edge of the box -and drew her beside him, 'haven't we an income of two hundred and thirty -pounds for them, a princely sum, when we are in a place where there is -nothing to tempt us to buy? And we hardly left any debts behind us this -time.' - -'But, dearest, dearest,' she urged, 'if you get hold of this, we shall -not have it a year; you will get up in cloudland and forget to furnish -your returns or some such thing, and then you will be dismissed again.' - -'Ah, Molly,' he said, his face falling, 'always the gloomy side. -Couldn't you have given me a night of happiness?' - -A stinging tear fell from the woman's eyes. - -'I couldn't, I couldn't,' she said; 'the danger made my heart grow sick -again. See, for I must be brutal, the time has come for it. _I_ love -your ways, your dreams; no canvas you have touched, no song, no verses -but I have loved. But what have they done for us, what _have_ they -done?' - -The man's eyes, startled, followed her tragic finger that swept a -circle. Outside he saw the sun-baked, weary little town that must see -their days and years, inside the cramped room full of boxes that were -disgorging a pitiful array of shabby clothes and broken furniture; just -at hand his wife, the woman he had taken to him, fresh and beautiful, to -crown his tenderest dream and turned into this thin, careworn, -anxious-eyed creature. - -His face whitened. 'It is worse than drink!' he said. - -She acquiesced sadly. - -'Nothing else would make me take it from you,' she said, her wet eyes -falling again to the paint-box; 'and if it were you and I only against -the world, you should have it all your days. But five children to get -ready for the world! Jim, my heart fails me!' - -He was trembling too. It was the first time he had felt a sense of -genuine responsibility for his tribe since the time Hermie was put into -his arms, a babe three hours old. Then he had rushed away to insure his -life for five hundred pounds. He forgot, of course, to keep up the -policy after the second month. Now his heart felt the weight of the -whole five, Hermie, Bartie and Challis, Roly and little Floss. - -He gave his wife a passionate kiss. - -'You are right,' he said, 'take it; I give it all up for ever, and begin -from now to be a man.' - -Time went past, and the criss-cross lines on the mother's brow were -fading, and the anxious outlook of the eyes seemed gone. She called up a -home around her where before had only been a house; the children were -taught; she even, by dint of hard economy, made it possible to send to -Sydney for the piano they had left as security for a debt. - -The friends in Sydney, two years gone by, began indeed to congratulate -themselves that Wilgandra had swallowed up for all time that troublesome -yet well-liked fellow Cameron, and his terrible family. - -Then the name began to crop up in the country news of the daily papers. -Another wonder-child for Australia had been discovered, it seemed--a -certain Challis Cameron, a mite of eight years who was creating much -excitement in the township of Wilgandra. - -Presently from the larger towns near the paragraphs also were sent. A -concert had been given in aid of the Church Fund, and a pleasing -programme had been submitted. Among the contributors was a tiny child, -Challis Cameron, whose wonderful playing fairly astonished the big -audience. - -Before Mr. and Mrs. Cameron had quite waked up to the situation, an -enthusiastic committee had been formed, a subscription list started and -filled, and a sum of sixty pounds thrust into their astonished hands, -for the child to be taken to Sydney for lessons. - -Nowhere on the earth's surface is there a a land where the people are so -eager to recognise musical talent, so generous to help it, as in -Australia. - -Mr. and Mrs. Cameron looked at each other when they were left alone, a -little dismay mingled with their natural pride. And from each other -they looked to the paddock beside their house where all the children -were playing. This especial child was unconcernedly filling up her -doll's tea-cups with a particularly delightful kind of red mud, and then -turning out the little shapes and calling Bartie to come and look at her -'jellies.' - -Talent they had always known she had, but hardly thought it was anything -much above that of any child very fond of music. As a baby she had -cried at discords; at three years old she used to stand at the end of -the piano and make quite pretty little tunes with one hand in the -treble, while Bartie thumped sticky discords in the bass. At four she -used to stand beside Hermie, whom her mother was teaching regularly, and -in five minutes understood what it took her sister an hour to learn -imperfectly. At four, too, her head hidden in the sofa-cushion, she -could call out the names of not only single notes but chords also, as -Hermie struck them. So her mother undertook her tuition too, and in two -years these paragraphs were appearing in the papers. - -But to go away with her and stay in Sydney while masters there heard her -and taught her! What was to become of the other four, and the husband -who needed his wife so much? - -'I am afraid we must send her to a boarding-school there,' she faltered. -'How can I leave the home?' - -But later the child came and stood at her knee; a tall, thin, little -child she was, with fair fine hair that fell curlless down her back, and -in her eyes that touch of grey that makes hazel eyes wonderful. - -The face was delicately cut, the skin clear and pale; only when the pink -ran into it was she pretty. - -'I made another song, mamma,' she whispered. - -The dying light of the long still day was in the room, very far away in -some one's fig-trees the locusts hummed, a sprinkle of sweet rain had -fallen, the first for months, and the delicate scent of it came through -the window. - -'What is it, darling?' whispered the mother. - -The child's eyes grew larger, she swayed her tiny body to and fro. - -'Oh, the roses, the roses and the shivery grass! Oh, the sea! Oh, the -little waves running on the sand! Oh, the wind, blowing the little -roses till they die! Oh, the pink roses crying, crying! Oh, the sea! -Oh, the waves of the crying sea!' - -The mother's arm went round the little body, down into the depths of -those eyes she looked, those eyes with their serious brown and grey -lights mingling, and for one clear moment there looked back at her the -strange little child-soul that dwelt there. - -Out at the door there was a clamour, Roly demanding bread-and-jam. From -the paddock came a sudden gust of quarrelling, the next-door children, -with Hermie, shrill-voiced, arbitrating. Probably down in the street -Bartie was fighting any or all of the boys who passed. - -'Dear heart!' ran the woman's thoughts. 'My days are too crowded to tend -this little soul. Better that she too asked bread-and-jam of me.' - -'Play it for me, mother,' said the child, and plucked at her hand. 'I -can't; I have tried and tried, and the sea won't cry, only the roses.' - -'Nonsense, nonsense!' said the troubled mother; 'run and play till -bedtime. Play chasings with Roly and Floss, or be Bartie's horse. Have -you forgotten the reins I made him?' - -The child seemed to shrink into her shell instantly. - -'I will get the reins,' she said nervously, obediently. - -Into the midnight they talked, the father and mother; and all they could -say was, this was no child to hand over to a boarding school or -strangers. - -Wilgandra and the towns around grew clamorous. They grudged every -moment that the child was not being taught, and having contributed solid -coin of the realm for her education, they were vexed at the -shilly-shallying in using it. - -So to Sydney the mother went, half fearfully, Challis and a modest trunk -beside her in a second-class carriage. - -'We shall be back in a month at most,' she called out for the twentieth -time reassuringly to her family seeing the train off. - -But Sydney seemed in league with Wilgandra. Without a doubt, it said, -the most wonderful child performer ever heard. It wiped its eyes at her -concerts, when the manager had to get thick music-books to make her seat -high enough; it stood up and raved with excitement, when she stepped off -the stool at the end of her performances and rushed off the stage, to -bury her excited little face on her mother's breast. - -Without a doubt, it said, with its peculiar distrust for the things of -its own, here was no child to be confined to Sydney teachers; it -insisted she must have the best to be had in the world, and thrust its -hands recklessly into its pockets. - -Mrs. Cameron at the end of six months went back to Wilgandra, the -anxious outlook in her eyes again, and five hundred pounds in her -pocket, the result of concerts and subscriptions given for the purpose -of sending the child to Germany. - -And now what to do? - -The small house at Wilgandra seemed going along very steadily; Mr. -Cameron had not once failed to furnish the reports due from him to the -Government. The lady-help selected by the mother had the house and the -children and the father in a state of immaculate order. She was a -magnificently capable, managing woman; every one, Mr. Cameron -especially, stood much in awe of her, and unquestioningly obeyed her -smallest mandate; even Roly, unbidden, performed magnificent ablutions -before he presented himself for a meal, and Hermie was often to be seen -surreptitiously trying to mend her own pinafores in the paddock. - -Mrs. Cameron could not but confess her place was not crying out for her -to the extent she had imagined; indeed, the wonderful lady-help, Miss -Macintosh, seemed to have brought the home into a far better state of -order and discipline than even she, the mother, had been able to do. -Little Floss was a healthy and most independent babe of two; Roly, three -years old, was a sturdy mannikin who stared at her stolidly when, her -heart full of tears, she stooped over him and asked, did he want her to -go away again? - -'Mamma mustn't go away in a big ship, must she, sweetheart? You can't -do without her again, can you?' she said. - -But Roly was a sea-serpent swimming on the dining-room floor, and the -interruption irritated him. - -'Yes,' he assented, with swift cheerfulness, 'mamma go in big ship. -Good-bye, good-bye!'--and he waved an impatient hand to get rid of her. - -Hermie and Bartie had just started to a good private school near at -hand, and the teaching--all honour to the mistress!--was of so skilful -and delightful a nature that the two could hardly summon patience to -wait for breakfast ere they set out for the happy place. So Challis's -claims tugged hard. - -'But you--what of you, my husband?' she said. 'You cannot spare me; it -is absurd for you to even think of it!' - -But he was excited and greatly moved at the thought of his child's -genius. Deep down, in his heart was the knowledge that had he himself -been given a chance he could have made a name for himself in this world. -But there was always uncongenial work for him, always something else to -be done, 'never the time and the place and the loved one all together.' - -'Let us give her her chance,' he said. 'It is early morning with her. -Don't let ours be the hands to block her, so that when evening comes she -can only stand wistful.' - -So they sailed away, the mother and the wonder-child; behind them the -plain little home, before, the Palaces of Music. - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - *The Second Lady-Help* - - 'The droop, the low cares of the mouth, - The trouble uncouth - 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain - To put out of its pain.' - - -And for actually six months that home survived! After that the -crumbling was to be expected, for some discerning man came along, and -married the marvellous lady-help out of hand. - -Mr. Cameron spent five pounds in the purchase of a pair of _entree_ -dishes for a wedding-present, and was unhappy that he could so very -inadequately reward her great services. But there was a curious air of -buoyancy and relaxation observable in him the first day the house was -free of her. - -At tea he got _The Master of Ballantrae_ out, and read boldly all -through the meal, a thing he had not ventured to do for eighteen months. -And out in the frozen shrubbery at midnight, with the Master and Mr. -Henry thrusting at each other, he spilled the tea that Hermie passed -him. When he saw the wide brown stain he had made on the table's -whiteness--although the ridiculous fancy pursued him that it was the -Master's life-blood smirching the snow--he looked up startled, full of -apologies. But there was only Hermie's childish face in front of him; -and though she said, 'Oh, papa!' as became a president of the tea-tray, -she looked away the next second to laugh at Roly, who had spread his -bread with jam on both sides, and did not know how best to hold it. And -Cameron felt so much a man and master of his fate once more, that he -stretched right across the table to help himself to butter, instead of -politely requesting the passing of it. For three months the household -ran a merry course. Hermie, a bright little woman of eleven, begged her -father to let her 'keep house' and give the orders to Lizzie, the very -young general servant. - -The father bent his thoughts five minutes to the problem; Miss Macintosh -had been away now a fortnight, and everything seemed going along really -delightfully. What need to break the sweet harmony of the days by -getting in some person whose principles counted reading at table and -spilling tea among the cardinal vices? - -And Lizzie, the State girl, was at his elbow with a shining face. She -was fifteen, she said--fifteen was real old! Now why should the master -go getting in any more of them lady-helps, who did nothing but scold -from morning to night? She, Lizzie, would undertake all there was to do -in this place 'on her head.' - -Cameron smiled at the eager girls, and, while hardly daring to consent, -put off for a further day the engagement of a successor to Miss -Macintosh. And the three months ran gaily along, and still Hermie sat -importantly at the head of the table, and still her father read, and -still Roly spread his bread upon both sides. - -There was always a good table--far better than either the mother or -lady-help had kept. - -For the family grocer had an alluring way of suggesting delicacies, when -he came for his orders that certainly no mistress of eleven or handmaid -of fifteen could withstand. - -'Almonds?' he would say. 'Very fine almonds this week, Miss -Cameron--three pounds did you say--yes? And what about jam? I have it -as low as fivepence a tin, but there is no knowing what cheap fruit -these makers use.' - -'Oh,' Hermie would say, 'I must have very good jam, of course, or it -might make my little sister ill! How much is good jam?' - -'There's strawberry conserve, a shilling a tin,' the man would -say--'pure fruit and pure sugar, boiled in silver saucepans.' - -'Silver saucepans! That couldn't hurt Flossie! We will have six tins -of that, please,' the small house-woman would answer. Then there were -biscuits; Miss Macintosh, frugal soul, only gave Wilgandra, when it came -calling, coffee-biscuits at sevenpence a pound with its afternoon tea. -Hermie regaled it upon macaroons at half a crown. Then Lizzie would -have her say. What was the use of cooking meat and vegetables on -washing-day, ironing-day, and Saturdays, she would say, when you could -get them tinned from a grocer? So tins of tongue, and whitebait, and -pressed meats, French peas, asparagus, and such, were added weekly to -the order, the grocer sending to Sydney for the unusual things. 'We are -saving a lady-help's wages,' Hermie would say, 'and it saves the -butcher's bills, so it is not extravagant a bit.' - -It was not until the third month that the day of reckoning came. Then -the grocer, grown a trifle anxious over his unusual bill, which no one -was settling, ventured to accost Mr. Cameron one day on his verandah and -present it. - -'No haste, of course,' he said politely, 'only as your good lady and -Miss Macintosh always paid monthly, I thought you might not like it -going on much longer.' - -When he had bowed himself out, Mr. Cameron rubbed his suddenly troubled -brow a moment. Money, bills! The thought had actually never crossed -his mind all these three months! His wife first and then Miss Macintosh -had always managed the finances of the family. Indeed, one of Mrs. -Cameron's injunctions to the lady-help had been, 'When Mr. Cameron's -cheque for his quarter's salary comes, please be sure to remind him to -pay it into the bank.' And Miss Macintosh had never failed to do so, -nor to apply for the twelve pounds monthly for payment of the household -bills. - -He went into the dining-room and began to rummage helplessly about his -writing-table. To save his life he could not recollect what had become -of his last cheque, for there was a conviction on his mind that he had -never paid it into his account. - -Hermie was at the table, Mrs. Beeton's cookery-book spread open before -her; over her shoulders peeped the heads of Bartie and Roly, absorbed in -the contemplation of the coloured plate picturing glorified blancmanges -and jellies. For was not to-morrow Roly's fifth birthday, for which -great preparation must be made by the young mother of the house? - -'Children,' said the father at last entreatingly, 'come and help me; I -have lost a very important envelope.' - -For over an hour did that family search from one end of the house to the -other. It was Lizzie's happy thought that discovered it. - -'A long blue envelope, with no stamp on it and just printing -instead--why, there was one like that in the kitchen drawer with the -dinners on it,' she said. - -She rushed for it, and met her anxious master with it held triumphantly -out. - -The back of the envelope bore dinners for the week in Hermie's round -careful hand. - - - _Mon._--Roast fowl, mashed potatoes, collyflower, pink jellie - and gem cakes. - - _Tues._--Tong, blommange and strawberry jam, rainbow cake. - - _Wed._--Sardenes, current buns, yelow jelly and merangs. - - -Mr. Cameron thrust a trembling hand into the depths of it, and, to his -exquisite relief, was able to draw out the cheque for his quarterly -sixty pounds. - -In danger of the kitchen fire, in danger of the dust-box, in danger of -Roly's passion for paper-tearing, in danger of all the wind-storms that -had sprung up and torn raging through the place, in danger of all these -for three months, and still safe! - -The relief took the man back into the dining-room, responsibility for -his family to the front for the third time in his life. - -He ran through the bills with a sinking heart. Instead of twelve pounds -a month that Miss Macintosh's carefulness had made suffice, little -Hermie had brought up the totals to twenty-eight--eighty-four pounds for -the quarter, to be deducted from the sixty pounds that must also pay -rent and clothes and many other things. - -The child cried bitterly when he showed her what she had done. It had -been delicious pleasure to her, this time of ordering and helping with -the dinners. Delicious pleasure to see her father appreciating the -changed meals as much as the boys--Cameron had quite a boyish appetite -for good things, and Hermie's brilliant menus had been delightful to him -after a long course of Miss Macintosh's boiled rhubarb puddings, treacle -roly-polies, and milk sagos. - -'A first-rate little manager,' he always called her, when he passed up -his plate for more of the jelly, or more whitebait, or asparagus, and he -recked even less than Bartie that the things were intrinsically more -expensive than rhubarb or rice. - -'Oh, daddie, oh, daddie dear, I am so sorry!' she said, awake at last to -the sad truth that luxury must be paid for, cash down, and was a dear -commodity. And her eyes streamed, and her little chest heaved to such -an extent that he had to put the bills aside and comfort her affliction, -and explain to her that he was scolding himself, not her. - -'But I am eleven,' she kept repeating sadly, 'eleven, papa. I ought to -have known.' - -There rang at the door a few minutes later the master of the boys' -school to which Bartie had just been sent. Hermie, her mother's -conscientiousness strong in her, had always gone off to her school each -day, though, in truth, so absorbed was she by her housekeeping delights -that she was a very ill scholar nowadays. - -But Bartie, plain unalloyed boy, had wearied suddenly of tuition, and -found a pleasant fishing-ground in a secluded creek. There was no one -to tell him to go to school, it was against nature that he should betake -himself to servitude every day of his own accord, so, towards the end of -the quarter, it fell out that he fished two days of the week and studied -three, even at times reversing that order of things. In restitution he -took canings, his hands were horny, the touch of the master not over -heavy. - -But now the matter was before his father, and the master was returning -home, the consciousness of duty done lifting his head. - -The father's blue eye flashed with strange fire as he looked at the boy. - -'Is my son a thief,' he said, 'that he should treat me so? Or is it he -despises me because I leave him unwatched and free?' - -With that he strode out of the room, out of the house; Bart, his -conscience quick once more and in agony, watched him walking, house-coat -on and no hat, down the main street of the township and up, up, never -resting, to the top of the great hill the other side they call the Jib. - -No further word of the matter was ever said till the next Christmas, -when the boy marched in with the year's prize for punctuality under his -arm. Then Cameron shook hands with him. - -'I like a man of honour,' he said. But the two events together, the -grocer's bill and the master's call, decided the father he must enter -into submission and have another lady-help, for the children's sake. - -How to obtain one? He made inquiries about Wilgandra, but the class of -people from whom he sought to take one were of the mind that prevails in -many of the country towns and bush settlements. They would rather -starve than serve--at all events where they were known. Now and again a -self-respecting intelligent girl broke away from her life and went off -with her trunk to find service in Sydney. - -But, for the most part, the daughters of a house up to the number of -seven, or even ten, stayed under the cramped roof-tree of their fathers, -and led an unoccupied, sheepish existence, till marriage or death bore -them off to other homes. - -So in despair Cameron wrote off to a Sydney registry office, and asked -the manageress to send him a lady. Just before he closed the letter the -happy freedom of the last three months led him to add a postscript, 'I -should like the lady you select to be of not too managing a -disposition--gentle and pleasant.' - -The registry office keeper rubbed her hands; here surely at last was a -chance to dispose of Miss Browne--Miss Browne, who was ever on the -books, who was sent off to a situation one week, and came back with red -eyes and a hopeless expression the next, dismissed incontinently as -incapable. - -The registry office keeper turned up the town Wilgandra in her railway -time-table. - -Three hundred and seventy-three miles away! Surely at such a distance, -especially as the employer was paying the expensive fare, Miss Browne -might be regarded as settled for a space of three months! - -Mr. Cameron had no complaint to make of his new lady-help on the score -of being of a managing disposition. She was gentleness itself--that -kind of deprecating gentleness that makes the world feel uncomfortable. -She tried pitifully hard to be pleasant--pleasant and cheerful. She -worked from earliest morning to late at night, and accomplished about as -much as Hermie could in two hours. It took her nerveless fingers nearly -a quarter of an hour to sew on a waistcoat button, and in little more -than a quarter of an hour the button would have tumbled off again. - -Lizzie seldom trusted her to cook anything; when she did so the poor -lady invariably emerged from the kitchen with her hands burnt in several -places, sparks in her eyes, the front width of her dress scorched, her -hair singed, and her poor frail body so utterly exhausted, the family -would insist upon her instant retirement to bed. - -Nobody knew what the woman's life had been, where had gone the vigour, -the energy, the graces that should still have been hers, for her years -were barely thirty-five. - -A crushing sorrow, disappointment on the heel of disappointment, -loneliness, or perhaps only a grey life full of petty cares passed in a -scorching, withering climate--one or all of these things had dried the -sap out of her, and left of what might have been a gracious creature, -radiating pleasure and comfort, only the rags and bones of womanhood. - -The Camerons suffered her patiently for three long months; then the -father gathered his courage up in both hands, closed his ears to the -pity that clamoured at his heart, and told her gently enough that she -must go. - -She threw up her fluttering hands and sank on the sofa--in her eyes the -piteous look of amaze and grief that your fireside dog would wear if you -took a sudden knife to him. So kind had the family been, so patient, -the poor creature had told herself exultingly that they were satisfied, -even pleased with her, and had hugged the novel, delicious thought to -sleep with her for the last two months. - -She asked shakingly what she had done. - -'Nothing, nothing at all,' Cameron reassured her eagerly; 'it is merely, -merely I can see you are not strong enough for such a hard place as -mine.' - -'A hard place!' she cried, and looked at him dazed. 'Why, there are -only five of you, and Lizzie to do all the rough work! I've been where -there were ten, and done the washing and everything. I've been where -there were nine, and had to chop the wood and draw the water myself. -I've been mother's help and had to carry twin babies miles in the sun. -I've been where the children pinched and scratched me. I've been at -places where I rose at half-past four, and found my way to bed at -eleven. And in none have I ever given notice myself. A hard place! -Dear heart!' - -'My dear Miss Browne,' Cameron said, and such was the fluent nature of -the man that his eyes were filled, and he had no idea that he lied, 'it -was solely for the sake of your health I spoke. You look so delicate. -If you think the duties are not too heavy, why, I shall be most heartily -obliged to you if you will stay with us indefinitely.' - -Then he went away to seek his children, to tell them her story, and beg -their tenderest patience. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - *The Painting of The Ship* - - 'Never a bird within my sad heart sings, - But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings.' - - -Yet his coward pen never plucked courage to itself to write across seas -of this family incubus. - -The earlier letters had spoken variously of 'Miss Macintosh,' or 'the -lady-help'; now there was never a name given, the references being -merely to 'the lady-help.' Even the children scrupulously followed this -up. - -When the Marvellous One had gone off with her _entree_ dishes to her new -home, the father had said, 'Children, we will not tell mother just yet -that Miss Macintosh has left, it would only worry her. We will wait -till we can write and say we have another one as good.' - -So the tale of Hermie's housekeeping and the mislaid cheque never -crossed the sea, and the mother in her far German boarding-house -continued to comfort herself with the thought of Miss Macintosh's -perfections. - -When Miss Browne's shortcomings made themselves glaringly patent, the -pens again shallied in telling the story. - -'It is so close to Challis's concert, we mustn't worry them with our -little troubles, children,' the father said. - -So Bartie and Hermie continued to write guarded letters; and if the -boy's hand at times ran on to tell how Miss Browne had put ugly patches -on his clothes, or the girl's heart began to pour itself out on the thin -paper and speak of the discomfort of the new reign, recollection would -come flooding, the letters would be cast aside and new ones written, -short, studied, and never saying more in reference to the vexed question -than 'the lady-help had taken Floss out for a walk.' - -'I hope Miss Macintosh sees you have your little pleasures,' the mother -would write. 'You do not tell me about birthday parties or picnics. -Don't forget mother loves to hear of it all.' - -And Hermie would write back sadly: - -'The lady-help is very busy just now, but when she has more time she is -going to let us have a party.' - -'I tremble each mail,' the mother wrote once, 'lest your letter should -bring me news that Miss Macintosh is engaged and about to be married. -It is strange such a woman has not been snapped up long before this.' - -And Cameron answered: - -'I do not think you need worry, my darling, about the lady-help -marrying. She has given me to understand she has had a disappointment, -and will never marry.' - -But the very guarding of the letters, the reading of them over, to be -sure nothing had been let slip, made them seem poor and lifeless to the -anxiously devouring eyes the other side of the world. - -She wrote at last: - -'Sweetheart, from what you don't say, more than from what you do, I -learn of your loneliness. You are so dull, my poor boy, and the days -rise up and sink to rest all grey like one another. Yet a little more -patience, and surely there will be plenty of money to make life all -sunshine for you. But just for a little brightness, darling, reach down -that box of paints we put away on the cupboard top, get out your -brushes, and let them help the hours to fly. While the Conservatorium -has been closed for vacation Challis and I have been four days in Rome. -And she found me crying one morning in a picture gallery, in front of -some great picture, a Raphael, or an Andrea del Sarto--some one, at all -events, who painted with hands of fire. And yet it was not the subject -of the picture that moved me, unless it was that the magic canvas -wrought me to the mood that is yours so often. All I thought of was the -cold harsh woman, the Martha with blind eyes, who, that first day in -Wilgandra, took away by force and at the same time the paint-box and the -glow from your life. My boy, my sweetheart, let me give it back. Ah, -would that I could stand on the chair and reach it down from the -cupboard and put it into your hands myself! But do it now, my darling, -this moment. I know you will be careful and not risk your position by -forgetfulness. And when you are loneliest, when you miss me most, let -the brushes take my place.' - -Cameron had been reading his letter at the tea-table. - -'Children,' he said, and rose up, his face working, his eyes shining -strangely, 'children, mother wants me to paint pictures again. I--she -says I am to get the box down.' - -The table had no comprehension of the greatness of the matter, but rose -up at once, at seeing the father so moved. Roly brought his mug of -sweetened milk along with him, Floss continued to bite at her crust of -bread-and-jam, Miss Browne fluttered about, Hermie and Bart pressed at -their father's elbow. - -'Bring a chair, Bartie,' Cameron said, 'here at the cupboard in the -hall.' - -'Mine cubbub,' interjected Floss; 'me's hat in dere. Go 'way, daddie.' - -'I'll climb up,' said eager Bart. 'What is it up there, dad?' - -'Give me the chair--let me reach it down myself,' Cameron said, and -stepped up and stretched his long arm to the top. - -A dusty mustard-box! The children's eyes brightened with swift thoughts -of treasure, then dulled when the lid was flung back and displayed -nothing but a chaos of dirty oil-tubes and brushes. - -But when they saw their father's glistening eyes, saw him fingering the -same tubes with a tender, lingering touch, looking at the brushes' -points, they did not tell him they were disappointed in the treasure. -Instead, Bart led off with a cheer. - -'Hurrah for daddie the artist!' he shouted. - -'Hurrah!' cried Hermie. - -''Rah!' shrilled Roly. - -Floss claimed a kiss. - -'Me dive daddie dat,' she said in her kindest way, 'out mine cubbub.' - -And thus was the painting of the ship begun. - -'Can you see what I mean, Bart?' Cameron said two months later, when the -picture was almost finished, so desperately had he worked at it. - -'You mean it for a ship, don't you?' Bart said. 'If I'd been you, -though, dad, I'd have painted a steamship with two funnels. People -don't think much of sailing-boats now.' - -'Can you see what I mean, Hermie?' Cameron said, and wistfulness had -crept into his eyes. - -Hermie's blue-flower eyes were regarding the great canvas dubiously. - -'Couldn't you have made the water blue, papa?' she said; 'the sea is -blue, you know. P'raps, though, you hadn't enough blue paint. But I like -it to be a sailing-boat; steamships aren't so clean.' - -The man's heart clamoured for his wife, who had never been at a loss to -find what he meant. For a moment it seemed intolerable to him that she -was not there at his elbow, to share the exaltation of the moment with -him. - -'Run away, run away,' he said irritably to Hermie and Bart; 'you shake -my elbow, you worry me; run away.' - -Miss Browne made a hysterical noise in her throat. - -'It is so sad,' she said; 'what is it you have done to it? It is only a -ship and a man, and yet--do you know I can hardly keep the sobs back -when I look at it.' - -To her amaze her employer turned eagerly round, shook her hand again and -again in warmest gratitude, and fell to painting once more with feverish -haste. - -The canvas showed a livid stretch of coast and ocean, and a spectre ship -with a spectre captain at the helm. - -The ship had an indescribably sad effect. You saw her straining through -the strong, repellent waves, you heard her cordage creaking, you saw her -battling stem struggling to push a way. She was a living thing, -breaking her heart over the black hopelessness of her task. The -captain's face burnt flame-white out from the canvas; his desperate eyes -stared straight ahead; his long hand held the helm in a frightful grip. -You knew he was aware he would never round his cape; you knew he would -fight to do so through all eternity. - -The Camerons celebrated the day of the finishing of the picture as a -high holiday. The children had ten shillings tossed to them to spend as -they liked. They bought a marvellous motley of edible things, and -dragged their father and Miss Browne up the Jib to partake of them. It -were sheer madness to suppose a whole half-crown's worth of Brazil nuts; -to say nothing of chocolates, tarts and other extreme dainties, could be -discussed within the cramped walls of a house in a street. The whole -width of the heavens was needed, and a thousand gum-trees, and the smell -of earth and grass. - -Cameron walked about on the heights as if on air. He had not painted -that canvas that stood, still wet, down below in the straggling town. -He had entertained a spirit, something stronger, fiercer, more -triumphantly capable than himself. He could have flung up his arms and -run shouting up and down, shouting thanks to the winds, the trees, the -sailing skies, that the spirit had taken its dwelling in him. -Magnificent fancies came bursting upon him; now and again he held his -head, so rich were the conceptions, so strong felt his hand to bring -them into instant being. - -An urgent craving for his wife took hold of him--he strode away from the -children's shouts, away from Miss Browne, who sat wretched because she -had forgotten the tin-opener, and the tea, and the sugar. - -He found himself down near the creek, with the gums waving eighty feet -above his head, gums with snow patches of blossoms on them, stern gums, -smiling gums, red, silver, blue. And he called, 'Molly,' and the trees -encouraged him. - -And again, 'Molly,' 'Molly,' and there burst up to his lips from his -heart all the words he had had to stifle away since the sailing of her -ship. All that he would have poured out to her these last two years, -all that had lain quiet and kept his being stagnant since that last -agonised clinging of her arms. - -'I thought I could bear it,' the man said to the trees, 'but I can't--it -is too much! Are you listening to me, Molly? I must have you again to -talk to. She has had you long enough--Challis has had her share of you; -now I must have you again. These children take us from each other, -Molly. We are very fond of them, but we should have more time to love -each other without them, to love like we did twelve years ago. I want -you, to tell you about the picture, Molly, Molly. Can you hear, darling, -can you hear?' - -And sometimes she seemed near to him, seemed a part of the air, the -trees, the earth, and he raved to her and talked joyously. - -And sometimes he lost her, the delicate spirit webs broken by the -world's machinery, and he dropped his head on his arms and wept. - -But when the thread snapped finally, and nothing could bring her to him -again, he groped his way upwards, for now the loneliness, after the -speaking, was a thing he dared not bear. The children welcomed him -eagerly. They had wanted him so badly, they said, for dinner, and here -he came only just in time for tea. Would he please open that tin of -jam--there was no opener, but perhaps he could do it with a bit of -broken bottle? And there were no matches; would he please use his and -light the fire? The tea was forgotten, but hot milk and water would be -nice, perhaps, but there was only a little milk remaining, and the sugar -had been left behind. He fell to laughing, and was thereby restored to -more normal mind. He lighted the fire, and water and milk circulated -round the little party, and refreshed it. He attended to the -wounded--Bart had gashed his hand attempting the opening of that tin of -jam, Hermie had a tick in her arm, Roly had stirred up a nest of -bull-dog ants, and had met with his due reward, Floss had eaten too many -chocolates, and Miss Browne had been stuck in the mud, attempting to get -water from a pot-hole; her large shabby shoes looked pathetically -ridiculous. - -So by the time he had helped all his lame dogs over their stiles, and -got them ready for marching home, his mood was quite a happy one again. -He went down the mountain-side, Floss in his arms, Bart and Hermie on -either side, Miss Browne and Roly close at hand. - -And with a flushed face and happy eyes and a fluent tongue he told them -all manner of wonderful things; in very truth he could keep them to -himself no longer. How the world was going to be very pleased indeed -with his picture, and hang it in so famous a place that Challis would -not be the only one making the name of Cameron celebrated. And how a -whole mint of gold was going to be given to him for it--Hermie and Miss -Browne would be able to order all they liked and more from the family -grocer. And how he was going to send for mamma to come at once to stay -with them again, so that they could all live happily to the end of their -days. - -Through the little town they wound with eyes shining at the thought. - -Hermie's order-loving soul was soothed at the vision of domestic peace -once more. Bart resolved to keep his best knickerbockers for the -mother-fingers to mend. - -'Can she make puddings?' said Roly, who despised the culinary skill of -Miss Browne. And 'Mam-mam,' murmured little sleepy Floss, not because -her mind held recollection of using the name, but because a baby -next-door spoke it incessantly, and it seemed pleasant. Only Miss Browne -looked wistful-eyed; a mother such as this seemed would never deem her -capable enough; Christmas would see her back in Sydney, weariedly -waiting occupation in the registry office. - -They turned the key of the door--Lizzie had had holiday also. And on -the threshold, pushed beneath the door by the post-boy, lay another long -blue envelope with no stamp upon it, and only printed letters instead. - -Cameron picked it up, quite without suspicion--his cheque for the -quarter, he supposed. - -But the reading told him he was dismissed the service for his -carelessness and the culpable neglect of his duties during the past four -months. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - *Dunks' Selection* - - 'Well, it is earth with me; Silence resumes her reign, - I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.' - - -'I shouldn't think it can be very much farther, dad,' said Bart. - -'I believe we have passed it,' Hermie sighed; 'I am sure we have come -much more than nine miles,' and she mopped her hot cheeks that the sun, -burn as he would, had never freckled. - -Cameron, the reins slack in his hand, looked doubtfully from side to -side. - -'It ought to be somewhere here,' he said; 'isn't that a fence at the top -of the hill? Yes, I'm sure it is.' He touched the horse lightly with -the switch that Floss held, and on they went again. They were in a -borrowed broken-springed buggy, the five of them and Miss Browne, come -out to see the home their father was buying--none of them, not even the -father, had seen it yet. - -For a couple of months after his dismissal Cameron had lingered on in -the house in Wilgandra, too bewildered and helpless to know what to do. - -It was not the first time a similar crisis had happened, but before his -wife had always taken matters in hand, looked up situations for him in -the papers, interviewed influential people, brushed his clothes and sent -him out with little to do but present himself to his employer. - -But now he was completely at sea. - -He wrote a few letters to Sydney friends, vaguely asking if they knew of -'a billet.' But seven years' silence makes strangers of ones best -friends; some were scattered, and dead letters were the only reply; -others wrote to say Sydney had never been in such a state of hopeless -depression, and strongly advised him not to come to add to the frightful -army of the unemployed. - -'Why not go on the land?' said one or two of them. 'A man like you with -a growing family should do well there, and you would at least be your -own master and free from "a month's notice."' - -Cameron first asked the children what they thought of 'going on the -land.' - -When they heard this meant moving to a new place, and having sheep and -growing all their own things, and each one helping, they were enchanted. - -Cameron was too shy and reserved to have made many friends in the -township, but he put on a clean cool coat and filled his pipe and -wandered forth, with the vague idea of asking some one's advice on the -matter. But there was a race-meeting in a neighbouring township, and -the streets were almost deserted, the tradespeople and the -land-and-estate agent being the only men at their posts. The latter, -however, struck Cameron as the very man to ask. And Cameron struck the -agent as the very man for whom he had been waiting. There was a -selection, he said, a few miles away--eighty acres of fine land that its -drunken owner, Dunks, had hardly stirred since he had taken it up. -There was a five-roomed cottage on it, there were fifty head of sheep, -poultry, a couple of horses, a cart, and all tools. Dunks, anxious to -get to Sydney, was willing to let all go for two hundred and fifty -pounds. - -But Cameron went home hopeless, he could as easily raise two thousand -pounds as two hundred and fifty. - -Hermie met him with a registered letter from which a cheque for a -hundred fluttered. Challis's professors, it seemed, had allowed her to -give a few concerts in the midst of her course of lessons, and five -hundred pounds had been the result. - -'The child insists that I shall send a hundred,' ran the letter, 'for -you all to buy presents with, and though I don't know what you can -buy--but sheep--in Wilgandra, I send it. More I do not enclose, my dear -one, for well do I know how shockingly you would lose and give it away. -But all have some fun with this hundred, and now every penny that comes -I shall jealously bank for the future and for the child's own use, as is -but fair and right.' - -Cameron and Bartie and Hermie went eagerly off to the agent's again. -Cameron held up his cheque, and asked if it would do if they paid that -amount down and the rest on terms. And the agent, after a little demur, -was agreeable--had he not that morning been visited by Dunks, who said -he would take as low as a hundred and fifty to be rid of the place? - -Cameron almost handed the cheque over there and then, but then some of -the prudence learned from his wife came to him, and he pocketed it -instead, and said they would go and look at the place. - -Thereupon, the following Saturday, the agent lent his buggy, gave -directions for finding, and this was the journeying. - -'Yes,' Cameron said, 'this must be it, but there doesn't seem to be a -gate. I suppose we had better go through these sliprails. Get down and -lift them out, Bart.' - -The early summer, in her eagerness and passion for growth and beauty, -had been tender even to Dunks' selection. The appearance of the place -appalled none of the buggy-load. - -Wattle in bloom made a glory of the uncleared spaces, the young gums -were very green, the older ones wore masses of soft white upon their -soberness. - -Farther away there browsed brown sheep, but this was the season for -lambs, and a dozen little soft snowballs of things had come close to the -cottage and gambolled with the children. There was a bleating calf with -a child's pink sash tied round its neck, fluff balls of chickens ran -under the feet, downy ducklings were picking everywhere. - -And all this young life was so beautiful a sight that the children were -wild with rapture, and Cameron's dreamy beauty-loving soul told him here -was the home for him. - -The cottage shocked him somewhat, it was so very tumbledown, the roof -was so low, the windows so broken. - -He began to consider whether he had not better take up a selection for -himself near at hand and run up his own cottage, these walls were hardly -worth the pulling down. - -But Mrs. Dunks began to talk to him, and her apron was at her eyes -nearly all the time. He learned that Dunks was the best of men, and only -weak. If once they could get from this neighbourhood and his bad -companions to Forbes, where her own people were, he would surely reform. -He learned that Mrs. Dunks had nine children, all under fourteen; that -she was in a consumption, and only the air of Forbes could cure her. It -seemed to him that he could not turn round to this fragile, heavily -burdened creature, look into her fever-bright, anxious eyes, and tell -her he would not give her this chance to end her days among her own -people. - -So he looked at all the young life again, and the sheer sun, bursting -out of the wattles, and was glad to be persuaded that a little paint and -a bit of timber would make the house quite new again. - -'Do you think,' he said, and turned round to the woman, 'that you could -give me possession of the place in a month?' - -And the woman burst into thankful tears, and told him they would be gone -to-morrow. - -'I've packed up for going eighteen times this year,' she said through -her tears. 'I've got my hand well in.' - -Dunks was away in the township, the youngest baby was lying in her arms -looking up at her with pure eyes, and the pale wraith death, whom she -ever felt beside her, had kept her conscience tender. - -'Did--did you say the agent told you two hundred and fifty?' she -faltered. - -Cameron thought of his children and braced himself up. - -'He did,' he said firmly, 'and I cannot possibly give you a penny-piece -more. I consider it is a very fair price.' - -'But--but----' the woman began again. - -'It is no use, I can go no further,' Cameron said, 'so please do not -waste your breath'--and he unhobbled his horse and prepared for the -journey home, his face set away from her, lest he should be softened. - -How could he dream she wanted to tell him that a hundred and fifty was -all they had asked, and more than the place was worth, so ill in repair -was everything? Then the thought of this man's famous child came to -her--Challis, with fingers of gold. What were a hundred pounds to the -father of such a child? - -She looked away from the eyes of her babe, she forgot that she and death -were met, and replied: - -'Very well, we will take two hundred and fifty, Mr. Cameron.' - -Going homewards in the jolting buggy the talk was of the happiest. - -'Miss Browne and I will look after the fowls, daddie,' Hermie said. - -'An' me,' said Floss. - -'You and I must get the crops in,' Bart and his father told each other. - -But how this would be done, and what the crops should be, they had but -the remotest notion; still, it was a phrase heard often in Wilgandra, -and sounded well. - -'Will it take you long to learn to shear the sheep?' asked Miss Browne -timidly. - -Cameron looked a trifle disturbed. Sheep seemed very right and proper -things to own when one was 'going on the land,' but it had not yet -occurred to him to think to what use he was going to put them. - -Bart's observation of his neighbours had been a little keener than this, -however. - -'We sha'n't get any wool to mention from that handful,' he said. 'I -suppose they are for killing. Mrs. Dunks says they use a sheep a week. -Her husband kills one every Saturday.' - -'Who--who--oh, surely you will not have to kill them, Mr. Cameron!' said -Miss Browne, shuddering with horror. 'Surely you will not be expected -to kill them for yourself.' - -The thought of it turned Cameron sick; it seemed to him he had never -quite got over chopping off a fowl's head once for his wife, though it -was nine years ago. - -Roly gloated over the thought. - -'I'll shoot them with my bow and arrow,' he said. - -Cameron wiped his brow. - -'I suppose one could use a gun to them, eh, Bart?' he said. - -But Bart looked doubtful. - -Nearing home Cameron gave the reins to Bartie, and leaped out and walked -the last mile or two, wrestling with the problem how he might turn -himself from a dreamer of dreams into a practicable, hard-working man of -business. It had to be done, some way, somehow, or what to do with -these children, and how to face his wife? - -Then suddenly he found his thoughts had wandered to the sunset fire that -blazed before him in the sky; he was putting it in a picture, massing up -the purple banks, touching the edges with a streak of scarlet. - -When he convicted himself of the wandering he groaned aloud. - -'There is only one way,' he said, and walked into his house with lifted -head. - -The children were stretching their limbs after their cramping drive, -Roly and Bart panting on the floor, a cup of water beside them so warm -and flat and tasteless that even thirst would not bring them to it. -Bart was talking of Nansen, picturing stupendous icebergs, revelling in -the exquisite frigidity of the water in which Nansen had washed -luxuriously every day. The exercise actually cooled the little party -down one degree. Then in to them came their father. - -'I want a bonfire made in the yard,' he said; 'a very big one, I have -something to burn.' - -The boys were upright in a moment and on their way; even Floss tossed -down the newspaper with which she was fanning herself (the _Wilgandra -Times_, with which was incorporated the _Moondi Mercury_), and rushed to -partake of the fun, and Hermie and Miss Browne found themselves impelled -to go and see what was happening. - -Such a blaze! Bart raked up a lot of garden rubbish and added tree -branches. Roly, feeling quite authorised since the bonfire had been -commanded by his father and was no illicit one of his own, made journeys -to and from the wood-heap and piled on the better part of a quarter of a -ton of wood just paid for. - -Then down came the father, his blue eyes a little wild, his mouth not -quite under his own control. He had his mustard-box under his arm. - -'Oh, daddie!' Hermie cried and sprang at him. 'Oh no, no, no!' - -But he pushed her aside. - -'Don't speak to me--none of you speak one word,' he said, and he stooped -and dropped the box where the flames leapt. - -'No, no, no!' Hermie screamed, and rushed at it, and put a hand right -through the flame and touched the box, then drew back, helpless, crying. - -'Get away!' Bart said, and pushed her back from danger and took the work -himself, a rake for aid. - -He dragged the charred box out, Miss Browne fluttered round him and -caught at the lid and burnt her hands, and fell over the rake and singed -her hair and eyebrows. Roly and Floss, carried off their feet by the -excitement, rushed to help, and the box lay safely on the grass again, -two minutes from the time it had been in the flames. - -'Let it alone, no one dare to touch it!' commanded the father, and the -voice was one the children had never heard before. - -He picked the box up, hot and blackened as it was, and flung it on the -fire again; the lid fell off, there came a rain of tubes and -paint-brushes, a splutter or two from the turpentine, the smell of burnt -paint, then the fire burnt steadily again, and there was silence that -only Hermie's bitter crying broke. - -The father had gone back to the house; he came down to them once again -and this time The Ship was in his arms. - -Surely an ill-starred ship! There had been no money to send it to -Sydney for the artists there to appraise; Cameron, absolutely frightened -when he found how the debts were growing, exhibited it in Wilgandra and -a neighbouring town or two, and marked it ten pounds. - -But who in the back-blocks was going to give that sum for a picture -without a frame? The coloured supplements, with elaborate plush -surrounds, satisfied the artistic yearnings of most of the community, -and The Ship came back to sad anchorage in the Cameron dining-room. - -But to burn it! - -Hermie gave a fresh despairing cry. Floss, Bart, and Roly stood -absolutely still, the instinct of obedience strong at such a crisis. - -Cameron's arm was again raised, but Miss Browne flung herself right upon -him and clung to the canvas, her weak hands suddenly filled with -strength and tenacity. - -[Illustration: 'NOT THIS, NOT THIS,' SHE CRIED, 'ANYTHING BUT THIS.'] - -'Not this, not this!' she cried. 'Anything but this! Give it to me--I -will keep it from your sight--I will hide it away--it shall never meet -your eyes. My ship, my ship, you shall not burn it.' - -She held it in her arms, actually torn from his grasp. - -Cameron glanced around--the leaping flames, the startled children, -Hermie's hysterical sobbing, Miss Browne's wild attitude of daring and -defiance--he told himself he had taken a theatrical vengeance on -himself. - -'Oh, do as you like,' he said irritably, and turned back to the house. -'Bart, put a bucket of water on that fire.' - -One month from the night of the sacrifice the Camerons were in -possession of the selection, and Mrs. Dunks was lying in peace among -those of her own people who rested from the sun's heat in the Forbes -graveyard. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - *Thirty Thousand a Year* - - 'Ah, for a man to arise in me, - That the man I am may cease to be.' - - -'I should think we might get the bag of corn now, eh, Bart?' Cameron -wiped his brow, and stopped to survey the patch of ground that looked so -smooth. - -Bart looked at it critically. - -'I think we'd better give it another turn, dad,' he said, and hitched -the string-mended harness a little more securely to the jaded horse. -'It's such a lunatic plough, it misses twice for every time it hits.' - -Cameron looked at the wide space of ground to be gone over yet again. - -'I'm very anxious to get the corn in,' he said. 'You see, we're a month -late as it is, and it will be a big saving in feed when we have it to -cut.' - -'Yes; but it is no good unless the ground is ready,' Bart said. 'We -have no manure or anything like the _Journal_ says. We'd better give it -an extra turn.' - -'You're quite right, quite right, my boy,' Cameron said, and led his -horse on again, up and down, up and down the furrows. - -'I don't like such a lot of stumps being left in,' Bart said, the -seventh time in an hour that the plough had gnashed on one. 'In the -_Journal_ there's a picture of a stump eradicator--a grand little -machine. We'll have to save up and get it, dad.' - -'Ay, ay,' said the father; 'still, I don't think the stumps will -interfere very much. The corn can easily come up between them.' - -'It would be easier ploughing,' sighed Bart, following the horse about -in a waved line. - -'You're tired out, lad; knock off for a spell,' Cameron said. 'I keep -forgetting how young you are. We have been working here since -eight--five hours.' - -But Bart would work till he dropped rather than leave off a minute -before his father. He took a long drink at the oatmeal water Miss -Browne had made, and went on stooping, picking out the stones, digging -spots the unfaithful plough had left untouched, following the horse -while his father dug. - -Cameron was thin as a rail. Ever since they had come here he had worked -like a man possessed, for the spectacle that came to haunt his nights -was of his children in actual need of bread. He had left debts behind -him in the township--a hundred pounds' worth of them; there was a -hundred and fifty yet to pay on the selection; and the patching-up of -the house, rough as it had been, had taken money. There was seed to -buy, there were tools to mend or replace, interest to pay on the money -he had borrowed on the place--a thousand other things. - -And not one word of all the changes did the letters carry across the -secret seas. - -'There is no need to worry mamma unnecessarily,' Cameron said to the -children. 'When we have made a great success of the place and paid -everything off, then we will tell her.' - -Across the acres came the insistent sound of the dinner-bell. - -'I don't think I'll stop,' Cameron said, 'I'm not hungry. Off you go, -Bart, and don't come back for an hour.' - -But Bart was learning the art of managing his father. - -'The poor old nag wants a rest,' he said. 'We must take her up and give -her a drink and some oats. And I'd come in to dinner, dad, if I were -you. Hermie will be disappointed if you don't.' - -So they went up to the little patchwork house together. - -It was not to a very tempting repast the bell had summoned them. -Hermie, no longer able to order macaroons and whitebait and tinned -oysters to make delicacies with, had, childlike, lost interest in the -culinary department of the house. And Miss Browne was no artist; to her -a leg of mutton represented nothing but a leg of mutton, and fricassees -and such tempting departures seemed but tales in the cookery book never -to be put to practical use. - -To-day there were chops--fried. Years back, when Lizzie came fresh from -the State to Mrs. Cameron's tutelage, she had been instantly instructed -in the fine art of grilling. But now that there was no one to insist -upon these delicate distinctions, and the frying-pan was so much easier -labour, Cameron was slowly forgetting the taste of grilled meat. - -There were potatoes too; the family took it for granted that these were -necessarily nasty things, either watery or burnt. - -Bread and jam--no longer silver-pan conserve, but cheap raspberry, in -which the chief element was tomato--finishing the pleasing repast. - -Miss Browne sat at the head of the table, exhausted and dishevelled, for -she had swept the room, had sewn on four buttons, and dressed Floss, and -set the table. - -Cameron, before removing to the selection, had dismissed her again, -gently enough; he knew it would be impossible to continue to pay her ten -shillings a week for being a nuisance to them. - -And again she had wept and wrung her hands and entreated to remain. The -tears streaming down her cheeks, she told him the time she had been in -his family was the happiest in her life. She would not dream of taking -money now, she said; but she implored him to let her work for her home. -So here she was, still at the head of the table, faithfully apportioning -the dish of chops and keeping the smallest and worst-cooked one quietly -for herself, and pouring out tea, which all the family drank with each -and every meal, so slowly and confusedly that her own was always cold -before she touched it. - -'Not a chop?' she said to Cameron. 'Oh, but you really must. Think of -the severe physical labour you are continually doing. Just a small one! -You touched no meat yesterday, nor the day before.' She looked on the -verge of tears. - -'Don't trouble, I don't care for any,' Cameron said. 'I'll have -some--some,'--his eyes wandered round the table in search of something -nicer than the potatoes--'some bread and butter.' - -But Lizzie's prentice hand at bread! And store butter three weeks old! -He reached himself _Pendennis_, and, helped by the pleasant gossiping of -the mayor, managed to swallow a few mouthfuls. - -All through the meal Miss Browne lamented over his appetite, but he -heeded her voice just as much as he did the flies that buzzed round his -tea-cup--both were integral parts of life, and to be endured. - -'May I put you a chop aside, and warm it up for your tea?' she persisted -anxiously. - -He put his finger on the place in the book and looked up for one second. - -'I am going to try vegetarianism,' he said. 'I have come to the -conclusion that meat does not agree with me.' - -And it did not. Every second Saturday now with his own hands he was -obliged to kill a sheep for the sake of his family; he found a man would -charge ten shillings each time to come the distance. The physical -nausea for the task was such that from the time he first took the knife -into his shuddering hand to the day they buried him, no morsel of animal -food passed his lips. - -The children were still--a month after they had come--full of -magnificent enthusiasms. Hermie and Miss Browne were going to restore -the fallen fortunes of the family by raising poultry. Hermie worked -intoxicating sums on paper, and even Miss Browne, distrustful of the -child's arithmetic, on checking the figures could find so little wrong -that she began to be a-tremble with delight at the prospect herself. -Bart himself, the only one of the family touched with caution, found -they had left sufficient margin for losses, and assented that a fortune -might assuredly be made. - -For who could dispute the fact that the grocer charged from one to two -shillings a dozen for his eggs, according to season? Let them reckon on -the basis of one shilling. And Small, the butcher, charged three and -sixpence to four and sixpence a pair for table fowls. Let them be very -safe, and say two and sixpence. - -They were starting with the twelve fowls the Dunks had left on the -estate. Now if one hen in one year brought up three clutches of -chickens, how many would that make? Hermie, with shining eyes, cried -thirty-nine; but Bart, who had seen mortality among chickens, refused to -put down more than twenty. - -'Very well,' said Hermie, 'count twenty, if you like, only I know it -will be thirty-nine, I shall be so careful of them. Twelve hens with -twenty chickens each--that will be--that will be--what are twelve -twenties, Miss Browne?' - -'Two hundred and forty,' replied the lady, amazed herself that it could -be so much, 'two hundred and forty! Why, I have never seen so many -together in my life.' - -Bart wrote down the figures two hundred and forty. - -'Fowls grow up in six months,' Hermie said. 'Lizzie says so, and her -mother used to keep fowls. The _Journal_ says--I read it this -morning--that fowls generally lay two hundred eggs a year.' - -'Say one hundred and fifty,' Bart said. - -'Very well,' said Hermie. 'Please, Miss Browne, what are two hundred -and forty times one hundred and fifty?' - -'My dear,' gasped Miss Browne, 'I--I really need a pencil for that.' - -Bart offered his stump, and Miss Browne was five minutes working the -sum, so sure was she she must have made an astounding mistake somewhere. - -'It--it certainly comes to thirty-six thousand,' she said at last. - -'Would you please multiply it by a shilling a dozen, and say what it -comes to,' was Hermie's further request. - -Miss Browne again took a surprising time to do the simple sum. - -'A hundred and fifty pounds,' she said. - -'That is for the first year,' Hermie said; 'but now would you please -work it out on this big piece of paper, and see what we should get the -second year. Two hundred and forty fowls----' - -'And the twelve you began with, too,' said Roly. - -Hermie was quite willing to be cautious. - -'We won't count them, we'll allow for them dying, too,' she said. 'Two -hundred and forty fowls with, say, twenty chickens each in the year. -What's that?' - -Miss Browne's pencil worked. - -'Four thousand eight hundred,' she said. - -'And they lay one hundred and fifty eggs a year.' - -Miss Browne looked quite shaken at the result her arithmetic -produced--seven hundred and twenty thousand eggs! Three thousand -pounds! - -The excitement made her work out the results of the third year, and she -was weeping when the sun came out--sixty thousand pounds. She was -weeping for her grey spoiled life. Exquisite dresses, travel, health, -even marriage, and little children of her own, would have been all -possible, had she worked these sums years and years ago, and set to work -with twelve fowls. - -Bart still had misgivings. - -'More might die than that,' he said. - -Hermie was quite pale with excitement. - -'We have counted that half that come out die,' she said, 'and Lizzie -says her mother always reared ten out of every thirteen. We have only -counted six. But count three, if you like; still, that is thirty -thousand pounds. And we have not counted selling any.' - -Even Bart saw the moderation that only counted three chickens to each -hatching, and his doubts died away. - -Visions of all this wealth intoxicated the children; they tore their -father from his book; Hermie told him, with eyes ashine with tears and -little heaving breast, that he was never to do any more of that dreadful -ploughing, that in three years they would be making thirty thousand a -year, at least, by no harder work than just feeding the fowls and -packing up eggs. - -He smiled at them very gently; he could not bear to damp their ardour. -In very truth he could not exactly find out why these figures should not -be as they seemed. - -'Of course you would have a huge feed-bill and want a big run of land,' -he said. - -Bart gave a comprehensive sweep of his young arm towards the scrubby -bush-land that lay around them. - -'As much as we like for a shilling an acre a year,' he said. - -'But the feed-bill?' - -'Five thousand a year would buy enough at all events, and still we'd -have twenty-five thousand left,' Hermie said jubilantly. 'You will give -up the ploughing, won't you, daddie?' - -Cameron temporised, and said he would just do a little while the -chickens grew. - -That night a violent wind came up with drenching rain. Cameron lay -listening to it, wondering what skies were over the head of his beloved -whom the seas held from him. - -Then he heard doors opening and shutting, whispered words, and finally a -series of very angry cackles. He threw on some clothes, and went to -find out the meaning. In the living-room an oil lamp was flaring in the -draught, a Plymouth rock was roosting on the piano top, a white Leghorn -was regarding the sofa suspiciously. On the floor sat Hermie, rubbing a -wrathful fowl dry with a Turkish bath-towel, and presently in staggered -Bartie and Miss Browne, the former with five fowls by the legs, the -latter nervously holding one at arm's length. - -Cameron fell into a convulsion of silent laughter, so earnest were the -children, so absorbed. And Miss Browne, poor Miss Browne, how ludicrous -she looked with her scanty hair flying ragged round her shoulders, her -figure clad in an ancient mackintosh, her mouth frightened, her eyes -heroic with the endeavour not to let go the fowl, which twisted itself -madly to peck at her trembling hand! - -'I don't know what you are laughing for, papa,' Hermie said, a trifle -offended. 'The fowl-house leaks dreadfully.' - -'But it has rained half a dozen nights since we came; you never brought -the things in here before, my child,' he urged. - -Hermie received Miss Browne's contribution on her knee, and fell to -drying its dejected feathers. - -'We didn't know before that each of them was worth two thousand five -hundred pounds,' she said. 'Please, papa, will you hold Bartie's fowls, -so that he can light the fire. We are going to give them something hot -to drink.' - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - *Come Home! Come Home* - -. - - 'Oh, that 'twere possible, - After long grief and pain, - To find the arms of my true love - Around me once again!' - - -Five years dragged on. Sometimes word came that the travellers were at -last coming home, and Cameron's heart grew warm, only to grow cold -again, as he realised he dare not let them come to this. Then, while -the agony of dread still was crushing him, the next mail would bring the -bitter relief that the time was not yet--the agent or the music masters -or some one else had found another year was necessary, or the great -career would be spoiled. Not one word all this time of the selection, -else had the 'career' been in instant danger of the ruin predicted, the -mother would have journeyed at the greatest possible number of knots an -hour back to them. Her dreamer of dreams depending on a selection, her -children depending on her dreamer, become his own master! - -Yet surely the man had had his lesson, and toiled now marvellously, -piteously. - -Five years, and not one idle day. - -Five years of bewildered struggling with unknown enemies--drought, -hurricanes of wind, bush fires, devastating rains, a soil that the -farmer born and bred could hardly have made pay. Never a complaining -word. Hermie, growing to womanhood, broke her heart over his life at -times. - -There was even a day when she fell down on her knees at a chair, and -covered paper wildly with a pen that commanded her mother to come home. - -Cameron working obstinately on one frightful day, the thermometer one -hundred and seventeen degrees, had a 'touch of the sun,' and even after -the doctor had left him quieted, his head in cool cloths, his -temperature falling, he still moaned for his wife, cried to her like a -child, stretched out his arms, raved, besought her to hold his hand. It -was then that Hermie broke her promise, down on her knees, just hidden -by the bed-curtain, writing wildly with the pen she had brought for the -doctor to write his prescription. - -'By the next boat,' she wrote; 'if you wait for the one after, it will -be wicked of you. How can you stay like this? Challis, Challis--all our -lives spoiled for her to have a chance! We have no chance; father's life -is worse than any dog's. Challis--I think I hate Challis! Going along -quietly and happily, are we? Miss Macintosh taking your place? We are -starving, worse than starving; the food we have to eat is worse than -none at all. He needs delicate things, ice and invalid dishes, properly -cooked. I have just been to the safe to look what I could get, and the -mutton has gone bad--it goes bad nearly every day in summer here; there -is no milk, for the cows have no feed, there is some nasty mouldy bread -and bad butter, and golden syrup with flies in it, and sugar alive with -ants. You! You and Challis are eating the best things that can be -bought with money. I hate Challis! The doctor says we are to keep his -head cool with water, and to stand vessels full of water about the room -to cool the air. The well is nearly dry, the sun has turned the tank -water bad, or else a wombat or a bird has fallen in, and it is -poisonous. Bartie has gone a mile with the cart to beg some from the -Dalys. - -'Miss Macintosh taking care of us all so nicely! We have no one in the -world but Miss Browne. Oh yes, we have told you lies and lies, but you -ought not to have believed them. You should have come to see for -yourself that he was happy and well. Oh, if you could hear him crying, -just to hold your hand, he says, and to hear you talk! Ah, mother, -mother, mother, how cruel you are!' - -But the spirit of the man, just learning to be indomitable, kept him -back from long illness. In four days he was up again, easily turned -sick and faint, but able to lie on the sofa, and even take an interest -in the delicacies that Hermie set before him. She had ridden Tramby -into Wilgandra herself, gone to the grocer, and implored him for nice -things--calf's foot jellies, and whitebait, and Canadian tinned fruit. - -'My sister, Challis Cameron, the pianist will be back soon. I have -written for them to come, so you will be sure to be paid.' - -And the grocer, a kindly spot in his heart still for the youngest -housekeeper he had ever taken orders from, made up a big basket of -tinned goods, and said he would wait for Challis to pay him. - -'Hermie,' Cameron said from the sofa on the fifth day, 'my head is still -confused, but I seem to remember when I was very bad that you kept -telling me mamma was coming. There has been no letter, has there?' - -Hermie grew a little pale. - -'No, there has been no letter, papa,' she said. - -'Hermie,' he cried, after spending a minute trying to find the reason -for her curiously averted head, 'you did not write for mamma, Hermie?' - -She turned to him then, her blue young eyes on fire. - -'I did,' she said; 'it is time, more than time she came. If she does -not come soon, you--we--we shall all be dead!' - -'Child, child!' he said. - -He had risen from his sofa and gone to the window, to look once more -with aching eyes at his wretched lands. If this had been the green isle -in the sea he had dreamed of making it, he would have sent long ago -himself. But these desolate acres! - -'Child,' he groaned, 'I couldn't let her come to this. I am only half a -man--half a man. God left the manliness out of me when He made me, and -gave me womanish ways instead. And I have never fought them down, as it -must have been meant I should do. But I will begin again, I will work -harder--things must take a turn, and then I can meet her, and she will -not despise me. Child, God has no more awful punishment than when He -lets those we love despise us. Send another letter, tell her not to -come yet--not just yet. Let me have one more chance.' - -Hermie was sobbing at his side, pulling at his arm, trying to urge him -back to the sofa. She knew he was not talking to her, knew he was hardly -aware she was there, but her sensitive spirit, leaping at his troubles -with him, was bowed down with the knowledge and weight of them. How she -loved this man--this grey-haired, blue-eyed man at her side! Hardly the -love of daughter for father; her feelings for him had in them something -of the passionate, protecting tenderness of a mother for a crippled -child. - -'Lie down,' she said, 'there--let me move these pillows; that is better. -She must come--she should have come long ago. And I told her to be sure -to come by the next boat. Now lie still; I am going to get your lunch.' - -The exertion and emotion had tried him exceedingly. He lay still, -still, his face to the wall; and now his mood brought a tear from under -his eyelid. It was too late! She would have started! Ah, well, praise -God for that! God who took these things out of our hands. She was -coming--he might give up for a little time, and lie with his head on her -breast; she who had always forgiven him would forgive him still and -clasp him to her, and call him, 'Dear One.' Then all he would ask would -be the happiness of dying before the world began again. - -The happy tears rolled down his cheeks. Hermie, tip-toeing back with her -tray, saw them, and was filled with dismay. What had she done by this -interference? - -'Darling,' she said, dropping beside him, 'don't mind, don't mind. The -letter is not posted yet--Bartie was going to take it in this afternoon. -It is not mail day till to-morrow. We will not send it.' - -Not posted! Not posted! She was not coming--she might not know of his -extremity, his need for her! The chill wind passed over him and dried -his tears, dried his heart. - -'Here is the letter,' the poor child cried; 'don't look like that, -darling. I would not vex you for the world. Shall I tear it up?' - -He looked at it piteously. Oh, that Bartie had it, riding with it -through the bush, summoning her, summoning her! - -'Shall I burn it?' said the poor little girl. - -'Yes,' he said, 'burn it.' His voice was lifeless, his eyes stared -dully at the wall. - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - *An Atheist* - -'Thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat -of the day.' - - -Hermie put her letter and all hopes of rescue together into the kitchen -fire. - -Life was an endless drab again. - -She went listlessly out, and stood on the doorstep to look at it. - -Her father did not want her, he had pushed his lunch aside, and bidden -her, irritably--he who was so gentle--to leave him to himself. - -Bart, poor grave little Bart, a man at fourteen, was working about the -place. Neither he nor the young ones had gone to school while the -father had been ill. He and Roly had been all the morning beating -monotonously at a bush fire just across the road. There was no -excitement about it, there seemed little danger; the fire burned -quietly, steadily--it had been burning for two days--but this morning it -had crept to the fences; the boys had been obliged to cut boughs and -beat at it. - -Roly sat on the fence most of the time, and sleepily kept back the -cunning yellow tongues from the patch Bart had entrusted to him. Bart -walked up and down, mechanically threshing out the little licking flames -that longed to curl round the fence. - -Sometimes he left Roly on guard, and went to do necessary work, feed the -two calves, shed a burning tear over the dying sheep, give Tramby a few -drops of water. - -Hermie went down to him wearily, a sun-bonnet on her head. - -'There's no danger about the fire?' She looked at it a little -apathetically. - -'Oh no; if there were three of us, we could put it all out. Roly's not -much use, of course.' - -'Bart, what are we going to do?' - -'For water? Oh, Daly's going to let me have a big cask to-night. -You've got half a bucketful still, haven't you? I didn't want to take -Tramby out till it was cooler. Reminds me, I must mend the cart--that -old shaft's smashed again.' - -'And when that cask's gone?' - -'Oh, I'll go and get some from old Perry. His well's not half dry, and -there's only himself. But don't you go and be wasteful, Herm--no -washing clothes and that sort of waste.' - -'I want a bath--I want to turn on a tap, and not have to use just a -dipper or two. All Challis has to do is turn on a tap.' Hermie spoke -with a strange bitterness. - -Bart smiled good-humouredly. 'Yes, she's a lucky little beggar,' he -said. 'My word, if I could have the bath-water she wastes, I'd make -this poor old place look up a bit.' - -He looked round on the desolate acres, looked at them with yearning -affection. He was a quiet-natured boy; he did not call himself unhappy; -he would have felt he had nothing left to ask for, had he but a -plentiful water supply for the stock and crops, and better tools to work -with, and a little more strength in that young arm of his. Like his -mother, he had the knack of doing the thing at hand with all his power, -and already he was a far more proficient farmer than his father would -ever be. - -'What are you going to do now?' the girl asked, as he hurried away. -'I'll come with you if you like.' Such a hot, patient young face his -was, it smote her that she seldom heeded him. He looked pleased at her -faint show of interest. - -He showed her the corn, coming up bravely, the wheat patch, not drooping -quite as much as it might have done. He pointed to the trees in the -little orchard. 'In another month or two those apricots and peaches -will be about ripe,' he said; 'make a nice change, won't they?' His -eyes dwelt lovingly on the green small fruit. 'When the drought -breaks----' - -'Pshaw!' said the girl. - -'Oh,' the lad said cheerfully, 'it will, one of these days; then we'll -go along grand.' - -He had caught the spirit of patience, of acceptance of ills, from the -settlers about. - -'But the sheep, nothing will give them life again!' The girl's eyes -burned. - -The boy had no fortitude against this; he gave a sudden wet glance -towards the far end of the selection. - -'Let's go and see how they're getting on,' he said in a low tone. - -The girl rebelled. - -'No--why?' she said. 'It only makes us miserable, and we can't help.' - -'All right, you go back,' Bart said. 'I'll have to go. I might have to -light another fire.' - -Hermie followed him. - -The sheep crept away from the house to die, once they found no water was -to be had there. They chose to lie down and cease to be at the spot -where once had been a dam. Patches of ashes showed where Bart had piled -wood over the poor carcases and burnt them up, in his wise young -knowledge that the air must be kept pure. - -None were dead to-day, though fifty seemed dying. Half a dozen brown -ragged little lambs filled the air with piteous outcry. - -Hermie's heart swelled. - -'Can't you do anything?' she said. - -'No,' he said, 'they'll have to go. I've had to give them up, dear. If -I can get water for the house for the next week, I'll be glad. Daly is -running very short himself.' - -There were footsteps in the bush just near, a panting of breath, a -curious dragging sound. - -'Floss,' said Hermie, and remembered for the first time she had not seen -her little sister for hours. 'Where can she have been?' - -The child was dragging a bucket. Her face was almost purple with the -heat; she had kept her eyes half closed, to shut out the almost -unendurable glare, and did not know she was so close to home till she -stumbled almost into Bart's arms. - -When she saw Hermie there too, she clung to the handle jealously. - -'It's not for the house,' she said, 'so don't you think it. Let it -alone, Bart! Bart, if you take it, I'll scratch.' - -Such a fierce little face it was! - -'I'm only going to carry it for you, Chucks,' Bart said. 'You shall do -what you like with it.' - -'True'n honour?' - -'True and honour.' - -The little girl relinquished her hold, but kept a guarding eye on the -precious fluid. - -'Where did you get it, old girl?' Bart said. - -'Don't tell father?' - -'Why ever not?' said Hermie. - -Floss turned on her vehemently. - -'I took it,' she said. 'Don't care, I'm glad. They've got a whole cask, -the greedies, and lots of money, so they can get as much as they like. -They get casks from the Bore, and they're sent down in the train, and -they've got a cart to fetch it. They drink it all themselves--pigs! -They don't care about the sheep.' - -'Not the Scotts, Floss--you've not been stealing the poor Scotts' -water?' cried Hermie, aghast. The Scotts lived in a miserable hut on -the adjoining selection, and were the nearest neighbours. - -Flossie's eyes blazed indignantly. - -'Them!' she said. 'They've got less than us! I got it from those mean -measuring men.' - -Hermie looked puzzled. - -'She must mean that camp of surveyors down the road,' Bart said. 'It's -a mile away at least. Why, you poor old Flossie, have you been right -down to that camp for this little drop of water?' He put his disengaged -arm over her bony little shoulders. - -Floss caught her breath, and looked unhappily into the half-full bucket. - -'The first one was fuller,' she said, 'but the s-sheep nearly knocked me -down to g-get it, and they s-s-spilled it on the g-ground.' Her voice -shook with sorrow for the waste. - -'Twice,' muttered Bart, 'she's been twice, Hermie.' - -They were back among the sheep now, and Bart hardly knew what to do with -such a drop among so many. - -'This one,' said Floss; 'look at its poor eyes--and that one lying down, -and the little lambs, Bartie.' - -Bart put the bucket to the noses of the ones she touched, but had to -drag it away before the poor things had half what they wanted. - -A piteous bleat went up from the others. - -'I--I think I'll just get one more,' Floss said, and almost staggered to -the bucket. 'It's quite easy to steal it now; the camp's left all by -itself. Oh, I must get one more--look at that one's eyes.' - -But Bart picked her up in his arms, and started back to the house with -her. - -'You'll just come and lie down quietly,' he said. 'I never saw anything -like your face. You'll be ill like father. Poor little Floss! poor -little old Floss!' - -'There--there would have been half a bucket more,' said Floss, 'only I -nearly fell once, and it s-s-spilled.' She was sobbing on his shoulder, -sobbing heart-brokenly, hard little Floss who never cried. - -Hermie took the child from her brother at the door. - -'I'll undress her and sponge her,' she said; 'that will cool her a -little, but I quite expect she will be ill like father. Well, it is all -Challis's fault.' - -In an hour Floss lay asleep, the fierce heat of her cheeks a little -faded, and Hermie's hands were idle again. - -Miss Browne was helping Lizzie to fold the poor rags of clothes from the -wash; the father still begged to be left alone; outside Bart and Roly -still threshed monotonously at the fire. - -Hermie went into the tiny bedroom that had been run up for her because -the house was too small--the bedroom that the mother had been so pleased -to hear was built. She found herself looking in the glass at herself, -looking sadly, listlessly. - -She saw a girl, thin, undeveloped, with a delicately cut face, and -shadows lying like ink-smears beneath her eyes. Her womanhood was -coming, and she had no strength to meet it; at her age she should have -had rounded limbs and pleasing curves. She seemed to recognise this, as -she gazed unhappily at her angles. Her hair pleased her, for the sun -was making a glory of it; there was a nameless beauty about her face -that she recognised vaguely. - -'I shall never marry,' she sobbed. 'No one ever comes here but that -heavy, stupid Morty. I shall be like Miss Browne in a few more years. -I'm getting untidy now--no one can be tidy in clothes like these; I -never care how I do my hair--what is the use, when there is no one to -see it? I've not been to a party or a proper picnic, like the girls in -the book, in all my life. I shouldn't know what to do, if I did go to -one. No; I shall grow just like Miss Browne, and it is all Challis's -fault.' - -A portrait of the sweet-faced girl-player hung on the wall. Hermie tore -it down from its place and broke it into fragments. - -'I'm just tired to death of seeing you smile!' she muttered. - -Miss Browne came in--Miss Browne, with perspiration on her face and a -strand or two of her colourless hair loose. She carried an armful of -Hermie's clothes from the wash. 'They are a very bad colour,' she said, -'but we cannot blame Lizzie, when there was next to no water. My dear, -what is the matter?' - -Hermie did not even wipe the tears from her face; she was sitting still, -her hands on her knees, and letting the salt drops trickle drearily down -her cheeks. - -Miss Browne took a step towards her, then paused timidly. There had -never been much intimacy or confidence between them. Hermie, with her -innate love of daintiness and beauty and the hardness of youth, despised -while she pitied the poor woman. - -'Is it--anything I can help--your father--Floss--you are -anxious--worried?' - -'Oh no,' said Hermie, 'I wasn't thinking of any one but myself.' She -leaned her head back, and had a sense of pleasure in her rolling tears. -'I suppose I'm not much more miserable than usual; but then I expect you -are miserable--every one is, I think.' - -'But not in the middle of the day, love,' the lady-help said. - -'Why not?' - -'Oh'--vaguely--'there isn't time, as a rule. One is so busy. It is a -different thing when you go to bed.' - -'What do you do then,' said Hermie, 'when you are miserable in bed?' - -Miss Browne thought a second. 'I think I say my prayers,' she said. - -'And if that does not cure you?' - -'I say them again.' - -'And if you are still miserable?' - -'I--I think I go to sleep then; one is generally tired.' She spoke -apologetically. - -Hermie leaned her head still farther back. 'Saying prayers would not -help me much,' she said. 'I am an atheist.' - -'What?' screamed Miss Browne. - -'An atheist,' said Hermie. 'It is very comfortable to be one. You have -only to think about eating and sleeping. Oh dear!' - -She arose languidly and administered water to Miss Browne, who was -gasping alarmingly. 'This room is hot,' she said. 'Go and lie down in -your own. You shouldn't have made me talk, if you didn't want to hear -things. Mind that bit of loose wood at the door.' - -Miss Browne, thus dismissed, went away like a chidden child, but her -eyes were full of terror, and her very knees trembled. She groped her -way to the sitting-room and poured out the frightful story into Mr. -Cameron's ears. - -He made his own way presently to the hot, cramped bedroom. Hermie had -let her hair down, and was sitting on the edge of the bed surveying her -poor little prettinesses tragically in the looking-glass. - -Her father sat down on the bed beside her, and disclaimed fatigue and -headache and everything else she urged upon him. - -'What is this Miss Browne tells me, little one?' he said, and almost -indulgently, so young, slight, and absurd she looked, to be questioning -eternity. - -Hermie twisted her wavy hair up into a hard plain knot. - -'I only said I was an atheist,' she said, and her young lips quivered -and her eyes grew wild. - -He put his arm round her. - -'How long have you been feeling like this, childie?' - -She burst into a passion of frightened tears. - -'Since yesterday morning,' she said. - -'Tell me about it,' he whispered. - -She swallowed a few sobs. 'I'm tired of saying prayers, nothing gets -better--nothing comes. It--it's easy enough to believe in God, if you -live in Sydney and have water laid on--and cool days and money and a -mother. But out here--oh, He can't expect us to believe in Him!' - -'I think a few of us do,' he said. - -'Us!' she repeated. 'You don't believe anything, do you, father? I've -never heard you say a word. I have thought for long enough you were an -atheist too.' - -He took his arm away and moved to the little window; it was almost ten -minutes before he turned round and came back to her. - -'Child,' he said, 'sometimes I think my mistakes are too many for me. I -have nothing to say to you. I dare not even say, Forgive me. Poor -little child, to have come to such rocks! I should have helped you long -ago. Only, you see, I had got in the habit of leaving these things to -mother.' - -'Mother did not often go to church,' said Hermie discontentedly. 'I -don't remember her talking religion much.' - -'She breathed it instead,' he said; 'she is the best woman in the world, -never forget that, Hermie. When we were first married I was full of the -young university man's talk--brain at war with established doctrines. -She never came over weakly to me, as some women might have done, she -never kept spotlessly aloof, indeed, she conceded me freely many of my -points. But she managed to make it plain to me that all these questions -mattered very little--Christ, and prayer, and love, and doing our -best--those were her rocks, and waves of dogma washing for ever on them -could not move them.' - -'Did she ever read any of those books of yours--those on the top shelf?' -whispered Hermie. - -'Ah,' said Cameron, 'you have been reading those, have you? Oh yes, she -was never afraid to read anything that was written, but she -distinguished between faith and creed. She said she did not try to -explain or understand God, only to believe in Him. She is quite right. -It is the hard names, the popular orthodoxies, the iron creeds, that -take the soul and heart and warmth out of religion. When you were -little, she did nothing more than show you God as your Father, and -Christ as your Saviour, to be tenderly loved and obeyed, and gone to for -refuge and comfort.' - -'No,' said Hermie. - -'No; it was her way. She wanted the love of God to be a living thing to -you all--a glad, warm, spontaneous thing, like the love you bore us, -only deeper. She would have no lines and rules and analyses of it while -you were small. It was not a thing she actually spoke about very often, -but white hours, find room for themselves at times--on plain Mondays and -Saturdays as often as on quiet Sundays, and she had a way of making the -influence of them run, clear, fresh, pleasant streams through the -mud-flats of life. Can you realise in any degree what it is to me to -find her daughter with such thoughts, Hermie?' His voice was very low. -Hermie pulled the pin from the plain tight knob, and let all her hair -hide her flushed face again. - -'If--if only I had known you thought like this!' she muttered. - -'Yes,' he said; 'it is a thing I shall never be able to put away from my -mind again, that I did not let you know. A man gets in the way of -keeping quiet things like these to himself, but I should not have -forgotten I had children. I knew Miss Browne was a good woman, whatever -her faults, and I felt that I might leave you to her. Don't think I am -excusing myself.' - -'It was not your fault, darling, darling,' Hermie said, and clung to -him; 'but think how miserable we are--all of us, even poor little Floss! -How can He forget us like this?' - -Cameron's blue eyes looked out at the blue sky. - -'Not to understand, only to believe. He does not lead us always through -green pastures. The severe and daily discipline makes us shrink, no -doubt. But we have to go on.' - -'Oh, darling, I do love you, I do love you!' wept the girl. - -'Tie up your hair, childie, and we will go down and sit among the roses, -if any are still alive. I am quite strong enough to walk.' - -He opened the door, and they went out together, and neither looked at -the sky. But here had gathered a brave cloud host, and there another -contingent came, determined, black-browed, strenuously fighting the -long-victorious sun, desperately clinging together. And over the -fainting earth flashed its lights, and through the heavens tore the -sudden thunder of its guns. - -And the battle was to it. - -Down came the sweet torrents of the rain, and the cracked, piteous earth -lay breathlessly glad and still beneath it. You heard the calves call -to their mothers, the surprised whinny of the horses seeking shelter. -You saw the sheep struggling to their feet and lapping the wet grass -with swollen tongues. - -You heard the birds making all sorts of new little cries and noises, as -they flew wildly for shelter--birds many of them that had been born and -grown to make nests for themselves, and never known the strange -phenomenon of rain. - -You heard the hisses and splutters of the bush fires, as the evil spirit -went out of them. - -You saw a lad come up from them, his beating bough still in his hand, -the lines of his young grave face all broken up, and the glad tears -bursting out, to meet the deluge of rain that beat in his face. - -You saw a small girl rushing out half dressed and heedless of the -torrent, for the exquisite pleasure of seeing the sheep drink. - -You saw a woman with thin, blown hair and a drab complexion saying her -prayers in her bedroom. - -Down where the roses were just recalled to life, Hermie was clinging to -her father, both wet through with the sweet blinding rain. - -'Oh, you didn't believe me, did you?' she cried. 'As if I could--as if -I could! It was just that the dust had got into my heart and choked me. -Oh, darling, I never really meant that dreadful thing! Dearest, you -don't think I meant it, do you?' Her tears were gushing out in streams. - -'I never believed it for one moment,' he said, and kissed her, and led -her back to the house. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - *Mortimer Stevenson* - - He was a man, take him for all and all.' - - -Morty came up to the selection the next Sunday--Mortimer Stevenson. - -'Glad to see you, Morty,' Cameron said. 'What's the news of the war? It -is a week since we have seen the paper. - -Mortimer fastened his horses' reins to the verandah-post, then drew half -a dozen papers out of his saddle-bag--a daily or two, a couple of -weeklies, one or two English special war numbers. - -'I'd rather you read for yourself,' he said, handing them to the older -man; 'it's not pretty enough to talk about much. Those Boers take a lot -of beating. Of course, it will be all right as soon as Lord Roberts -takes charge.' - -The crisp papers were in Cameron's hands; a few yards away an old canvas -chair stretched itself out invitingly. - -'Hermie, my dear--Miss Browne--here is Mr. Stevenson,' he called down -the passage of the little house. - -'Don't mind me, I'll just sit down here and have a smoke while you -read,' Stevenson said; 'don't disturb any one, perhaps they are busy.' - -He sat down on the verandah step, and began to fill his pipe, and -Cameron, relieved, opened his papers, and was in the Transvaal for the -rest of the afternoon. - -To look at, Stevenson was a typical young bushman. He had added inches -to his stature so rapidly, and breadth to his shoulders, that he was ill -at ease anywhere but in the saddle. His complexion was burnt to a deep -copper. Grey, good eyes looked squarely at you. - -Used to cities, you would not like his dress. A serviceable tweed suit, -country-cut, one of the brilliant ties, which, so the storekeepers -persuade the bush, are worn in Sydney, a soft brown hat with its -dangling, string-coloured fly-veil. - -His father was a vigorous old man of seventy; his type occurs again and -again on the out back stations. - -He had gathered great wealth during all those laborious years, and he -spent it, if not frugally, at least with full respect for its difficult -garnering. He had been a member of the Upper House, and his wife, -during her lifetime, had much enjoyed the dignity of seeing his letters -addressed, 'The Hon. Matthew Stevenson, M.L.C.' - -He had had but a rudimentary education, yet his plain common-sense and -clear intellect had made the loss only a slight one to him. To his -sons--six of them he had--he offered education, or at all events its -equivalent--the money for it--liberally, and three of them had taken -advantage of it, and gone finally into various professions in Sydney. - -The others--the duller three--had assimilated just as much of the tonic -waters as does the ordinary youth of eighteen; then they shook the dust -of Sydney off their feet, and returned thankfully to the station where -their hearts had always been. Mortimer was youngest of this latter -three, and the only one now unmarried. - -Bart came down the passage, and his eyes brightened at the sight of the -figure smoking on the verandah step. - -'Hallo!' he said, 'just the fellow I wanted. Look here, Daly gave me a -whole lot of new seed--Sheep Burnett I think he called it. Will it hurt -to sow it on that place where the sorghum was?' - -'Oh, any place will do, old chap; but you needn't waste your best -ground; it's great stuff, you know--it would grow in the Sahara. Just -sow it along with your grass or clover seeds.' - -'It comes up quickly, doesn't it?' Bart said anxiously. 'Do you think -it would make all down there look smooth and green and nice in a month?' - -Mortimer laughed. 'Are you taking to landscape gardening, Bart?' he -said. 'I never knew before you had an eye for effect.' - -Bart sat down on the step. 'It's no joking matter, Morty,' he said. -'My mother and Challis will be home in a month; we've got to make the -place look up a bit before they come. The governor's been making -bonfires of all the rubbish since breakfast--it does look tidier, -doesn't it?' - -Mortimer looked round. 'It's not the same place,' he said heartily, and -added for encouragement, 'And after all, perhaps they won't come, old -fellow; you know you've had a lot of false alarms.' - -'Oh, but this time it's certain,' Bart said, and not without -unhappiness; 'they've actually started by this.' - -Floss came clattering out in her rough boots. She sat down on the other -side of the family friend. - -'I knewed it was you when I heard Pup bark,' she said; 'you came last -Sunday, too, and the Sunday before that.' - -'Did I, Flossie?' he said. 'That sounds as if it were a Sunday too -many.' - -'Oh no, no one minds you,' she answered; 'if it were your father, now, -or the Revering Mr. Smith, it might be a nuisance; we'd have to put a -clean tablecloth on for them.' - -'And that sounds as if I am going to be asked to stay to tea, Floss?' -Mortimer said. - -'Of course you are,' was Flossie's reply. 'Miss Browne says it's the -least we can do, considering all the papers and things you give us. -Only she says she doesn't know how she's going to make the butter spin -out. We don't get it from the store again till Thursday.' - -'There, hold your tongue, Floss,' said Bart, 'you'll make Morty afraid -to take any.' - -'Oh no, he needn't be,' Floss said. 'Me and Roly's going to say we -don't like it under our jam.' - -Roly came stealthily from behind some trees. - -'Where is she?' he whispered. - -'It's all right,' Floss said; 'she's got to change her dress, and her -hair was pretty awful, so she'll have to do it again.' - -Thus reassured, Roly ventured to the step, and took up a position at -Mortimer's shoulder. He was attired in an orange and blue-striped -football jersey, and the most respectable pair of knickerbockers he -possessed. Mortimer had given him the jersey on his last birthday, and -it was the boy's dearest possession. - -'Why,' said Mortimer, 'what have you been after? Is Miss Browne laying -wait for you for stealing her jam?' - -'Oh no,' said Roly. 'It's only this,' and he pointed to his jersey; -'she doesn't think it's religious to wear football things on Sunday.' - -'Well,' said Floss, in the virtuous tone a clean pinafore made -justifiable, 'I don't think it is, either. Look at me. I learnt a -collect this morning.' - -'A what?' said Roly. - -'A collect,' said Floss. 'Collect for the thirteenth Sunday after -Trinity. Hermie wasn't sure if this was the right Sunday, only it was a -nice short one to begin with.' - -'Does Miss Hermie teach you your collects?' asked Mortimer, his head -turned away a little. - -'She wants to,' said Floss, 'but I don't know if she'll always be able -to find me. She was looking for Roly, too, this morning, only he was -playing Boers somewhere, so he got off.' - -'Wasn't playing Boers,' said Roly. 'I was putting a new name on our -gate.' - -'What a story you are!' cried Floss. 'I saw you creeping along with -father's guns.' - -'Wasn't!' said Roly. 'Hadn't I got this jersey on?' - -'That's nothing; you sleep in it--truly he does, Morty. As soon as -Hermie or Miss Browne go out of the room, he puts on the jersey over his -pyjamas. Why he hates school is 'cause he can't go in it.' - -'What name were you writing on the gate, old fellow?' asked Mortimer, to -save the situation. - -'Transvaal Vale,' said Roly; 'come on down and see--it looks great. I -rubbed Hermie's silly name off.' - -But Mortimer did not move. Dunks' Selection the place had always been, -and always would be called; but Hermie in piteous rebellion had written -years ago in violet ink on the sliprails, The Rosery. Mortimer would -not go and look at the poor little name defaced. - -Miss Browne came out, Miss Browne with her face shiny with recent -washing, her hair almost tidy, the better of her two colourless gowns on -her back. - -'Very glad indeed to see you--very sorry to keep you waiting so -long--hope you, your father is quite well--Bart, my dear, a chair--what -are you thinking of, to let Mr. Stevenson sit on the step?--very sad -about the war--Flossie, don't tease Mr. Stevenson, my dear--quite a cool -day--providential thing the drought has broken--hope you will stay to -tea.' - -These and sundry other remarks she delivered breathlessly, and at the -end put her hand to her side and gasped gently. - -'I shall be most pleased to stay, Miss Browne, if it will be putting you -to no inconvenience,' Mortimer said. - -'Most pleased--most happy--an honour--who is so kind, so -thoughtful--those English magazines--and she had never thanked him yet, -and those delicious chocolates--too good of him; most glad if he would -stay--uncomfortable house--unavoidable--bush, no comfort--he would -understand----' - -'He knows he's not to take more than two helpings of butter,' said Bart, -with a twinkle in his eye. - -'Bart, my dear--oh, my love--your mother--what would she say?--Mr. -Stevenson--what can he think?--my dear--oh, my love,' and the poor lady -withdrew in hot haste, to hide the embarrassment Bart had plunged her -into, and to laboriously prepare tea. - -'I see your father's come down generously,' said Mr. Cameron, glancing -up a moment from his papers. 'Matthew Stevenson--that is your father, -of course--five thousand pounds, and more if wanted, to the fund for the -Bushmen's Contingent.' - -'Yes, that's the governor,' Mortimer said. 'He's red-hot on the war. I -believe if he were five years younger, wild horses wouldn't keep him -back from volunteering himself. You must come up to Coolooli and have a -chat with him over it, Mr. Cameron.' - -But Cameron was deep again in the war correspondent's letter. - -Bart went off to feed the calves--Roly had vanished at the sound of Miss -Browne's footstep. - -'Did you know our mother and Challis was coming home, Morty?' said -Floss. - -'Bart just told me--yes, that will be very nice for you, Flossie. All -will be well, now, won't it?' said Mortimer. - -'Oh, you're like the rest, are you?' Floss said. 'Every one going to -live happy ever after, eh? No, thank you, not me; I'm always going to -hate them. They don't get over me. No, thank you. I know them--bring -me a doll, won't they? and "There you are, Flossie darling, sweetest, -come and kiss us." Not me. See my finger wet, see it dry, cut my -throat sure's ever I die, if I have anything to do with them. -Stuck-ups, that's what they are!' - -Mortimer gazed on the child, a little uncomfortable horror mixed with -his amusement; his bringing-up had been orthodox, and reverence for -parents was entwined with all his life. - -'Why, girlie,' he said, 'this is shocking! Your own mother!' - -'Challis's mother,' corrected Floss. 'Didn't she go off and leave me? -Lot she cared! I was only two, Lizzie says, and I might have picked up -anything, and eaten it and died. Even Mrs. Bickle minds her baby, -although she does get drunk at times. S'pose I'd had measles? or Roly? -We'd have died, or at least got dropsy, Lizzie says, having no mother to -nurse us. No, thank you--no getting round me with a doll. As for that -Challis, I'll give her a time of it--just you see.' - -'But--but--but,' cried Mortimer, greatly at a loss, 'your mother is as -fond of you as anything, of course. I expect it is very hard for her to -go so long without seeing you. She doesn't do it on purpose, old woman. -You see, Challis was so clever they had to give her a chance.' - -'How do they know I'm not clever?' demanded Floss. 'I believe I am. -You should have seen the man I drew on my slate this morning. Or how do -they know I couldn't play before the Queen? I'm up to "What are the -Wild Waves Saying?" and it's got two flats.' - -Mortimer had no answer for this; he could only gaze at her. - -There was another step in the doorway, and Hermie came out, a very -slender-looking Hermie in the let-down white frock that had made a woman -of her in a day. Floss leaned back and giggled as her sister shook -hands with the visitor. - -'He! he! he! She's put her long dress on,' she said. 'Morty, look! -it's as long as Miss Browne's. You'd think she never had short ones, -wouldn't you? She's 'tending she's growed up.' - -'Flossie,' said Mortimer, 'wouldn't you like to look at my watch? you -haven't seen the works for a long time.' - -'Me holding it then,' stipulated Flossie. - -'All right,' said Mortimer, and gave up his valuable timekeeper into the -bony little outstretched hand. - -'You spoil that child shockingly,' Hermie said. - -Floss looked up from the entrancing little wheels. - -'He spoils you worser,' she said. 'Look at the books and flowers and -chocolates he brings over and gives you, no matter how bad-tempered you -may be.' - -Hermie looked vaguely disturbed. - -'Spoil me--do you spoil me? Surely I'm too big,' she said. - -The man's heart leapt to his eyes. - -'Wish I'd the chance,' he muttered. - -'What did you say?' said Hermie. - -'Nothing,' said Mortimer, and began to smoke furiously again. - -'Morty,' said Floss, 'Morty, how many times does the littlest wheel turn -while the big wheel turns once?' - -'Thirteen,' Mortimer said recklessly.--'I hear your mother is coming -home, Miss Cameron?' - -'Yes,' sighed Hermie. - -'This is surely very good news?' - -Hermie gave a troubled glance around. - -'Y-yes,' she said. - -'Why, what a story you are, Morty!' said Floss. 'It doesn't turn -thirteen times.' - -'I mean thirty,' said Morty. 'Miss Cameron, I have three men loafing -around at the sheds, and can't find work for them to do. It would be -doing me a real kindness if you'd let them put in their time -straightening up this place.' - -'Thank you,' Hermie said, 'but we should not like to employ men we were -not paying.' - -'Not when they're eating their heads off in idleness?' implored Morty. - -'No, thank you,' Hermie said stiffly. - -'I beg your pardon,' Mortimer said dejectedly. - -'I should think you do,' cried Floss; 'it doesn't turn anything like -thirty times. I wouldn't have a watch I didn't understand. Here, take -it.' - -He pocketed it humbly. - -'I'd like to see the ground Bart spoke of sowing Burnett on,' he said, -plunging away from his mistake. 'Will you walk down with me, Miss -Cameron? It is quite cool and pleasant now.' - -Hermie rose to her feet, then remembered her shabby little shoes that -she had all this time been successfully hiding beneath her long dress. - -'Oh,' she said, 'it's too far. Floss will go with you, won't you, -Floss? I will go in and help Miss Browne with tea.' - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - *'I Love You'* - - 'The bird of life is singing on the bough - His two eternal notes of "I and Thou."' - - -It was after tea, and the long shadows of the dusk had fallen so gently, -so tenderly, that even Dunks' selection had a beauty of its own. - -Mortimer sat on the verandah and talked war to Mr. Cameron till his very -soul loathed the Transvaal. Then he was captured by Bart, and forced -into the dining-room to explain something in the _Town and Country -Journal_, and give his opinion on the merits of Johnson's Grass. - -And when he went outside again, Roly and Floss hung upon his arms and -begged and begged him to 'come with us a bit.' - -At eight o'clock he broke away from them, and stumbled through the dark -passage to the kitchen regions to seek Miss Browne. - -But here only an oil-lamp flickered in the breeze; even Lizzie was away -from her post, having gone before tea to walk to Wilgandra, in the -urgent need of a little pleasant human intercourse, ere she began -another grey week. - -There was a door open near by, and glancing in Morty saw Miss Browne, -seated at her cleared dressing-table so busily writing and so surrounded -by little papers and letters he came to a vague conclusion that she was -'literary.' - -'Miss Browne,' he called imploringly. - -She laid down her pen and hastened to the door to him. - -He seized both her hands, he pressed them, he wrung them as he stood, -labouring with his excitement. - -'Miss Browne,' he said, 'will you help me? You must help--oh, do not -refuse--she has gone down the garden alone--I think she is leaning on -the gate. I must go to her. I must go to her. Will you keep them -back--all the others--could you get them in a room and turn the key--how -can I tell her if they follow me like this?' - -'Tell her--who--what--why?' said the astonished Miss Browne. - -'I love her,' said the man; 'I love her with all my soul--I must tell -her; you will help me?' - -His face looked quite white; there was a moisture on his forehead, his -eager voice shook. - -Miss Browne was crying; she had taken one of his big hands and was -stroking it. - -'Oh, my dear, my dear!' she said. 'How beautiful, how very beautiful! -Oh, my love, how sweet--oh, how sweet, my love!' - -'You will help?' he said. 'You will keep those little beggars away?' - -'Leave it to me,' she said; 'you go to her, down in the garden, and the -dusk is here, and the moon beginning to rise! How sweet, how beautiful! -And she has on a white dress! Don't trouble about anything, my -love--just go out to her.' The happy tears were gushing from her eyes. - -'What a good sort you are!' he said, and wrung her hand, and patted her -shoulder, then went plunging out into the sweet darkness to tell his -love. - -He found her where the wattles grew thickest, leaning on the fence, her -flower-face turned to the young rising moon. - -'How did you know I was here?' she said. - -'I knew,' he answered, and a long silence fell. 'What are you thinking -of?' he whispered. - -'I don't--know,' she said, and a strange little sob shook in her throat. - -His arm sprang round her. - -'Oh,' he said, 'I love you--I do love you! Dearest, dearest, I love you! -Do love me, darling--I love you, I love you so!' - -Hermie was trembling like the little leaves around them--too surprised, -too stricken with the newness of the situation even to slip out of his -arms. The pleased young moon smiled down at them, the leaves whispered -the news all along the bush, an exquisite perfume of flowers and trees -and freshening grass rose up to them. How sweet something was--the -clasp about her waist, the kisses that had rained upon her cheeks, the -eager, beautiful words that still were beating in her ears! - -'Oh, I don't understand, I don't understand,' said the excited girl, and -burst into strange tears, and tried to move from his arms, and put a -startled hand to her cheeks, to feel what difference those kisses had -made. - -'Did I frighten you--did I frighten you, my darling, my little girl?' he -said. 'See there, don't tremble, I will take my arm away. It is too big -and rough, isn't it? There, there, I won't even kiss you; let me hold -your hand, there. You have only to understand that I love you, that I -have always loved you--ever since you were a tiny thing of twelve, and I -used to ride this way just for the pleasure of watching you. You were -like no other child here, so slender and sweet and white and pink, and -all that shining hair hanging round you. I think I wanted you always. -I wanted to pick you up and put you on the saddle in front of me and -ride away with you--away and away right out of the world. You will let -me, darling? You will try to love me a little? You will be my own -little wife?' - -Wife! One of the Daly girls had just been married to a boundary rider -near. Hermie had seen the lonely place where they were to live together -with no one else to break the monotony. - -Wife! All those dull, uninteresting women who came to call in Wilgandra -were wives, all those dull, horrid men in Wilgandra were their husbands. - -Be married; she, Hermie Cameron, like the girls in Miss Browne's books! -Perhaps it might not be so very bad--they all seemed to look forward to -it. - -But to Mortimer Stevenson! Oh no, none of them ever married any one -like that, the men there were all officers, penniless young artists and -authors, or at least earls. Most of them had proud black eyes and -cynical smiles, and spoke darkly of their youth. Or else they were -debonair young men with laughing blue eyes and Saxon curly hair. - -Mortimer! She had actually forgotten it was only Mortimer speaking all -this time, Mortimer Stevenson, who wore red and blue painful ties, and -grew red if she spoke to him, and knocked chairs over in his clumsiness, -and had never been anywhere farther than Sydney, and thought Wilgandra -and his father's station the nicest places in the world. - -A cloud came over the happy moon, the leaves hung sad and still; from -somewhere far away came the piteous wail of the curlew. - -Hermie freed her hand and found her voice. - -'This is really ridiculous,' she said petulantly. 'I suppose you are in -fun.' - -'In fun!' he echoed dully. - -'Yes, you can't really be serious. Think what a fearfully long time we -have known each other! I'd as soon think of being married to Bart, or -Bill Daly.' - -He winced at Daly--big, coarse, uneducated bushman. - -'If I waited a long time, couldn't you grow to love me?' he said. 'I -could stop doing anything you don't like; I--I would go through the -University like James and Walter did, if you liked.' - -The exceeding pain in his voice touched the girl's awakening heart. - -'Forgive me, Morty,' she said, 'it must seem very horrid of me. I -didn't understand myself at first----' - -'Perhaps--perhaps----' he began hopefully. - -'No, I am sure, quite, quite sure I could never love you,' she said -decidedly. 'I shall never marry, I have quite made up my mind. There is -no one I could ever care for enough.' - -'Have you anything particularly against me?' persisted Mortimer. 'I'd -alter anything; you don't know how I would try.' His voice choked. - -She could not instance his ties, his clumsy length of limb, his habit of -furious blushing. - -'You make it very hard for me,' she said. 'I--I wish you would go home; -I want to go to bed.' - -'Forgive me,' he said humbly. 'Forgive me; you have been very good and -patient with me. I will go at once.' - -Hermie looked for him to move. He took a step away from her--a step -back--a step away. The sad moon came out and showed her his blurred -miserable eyes, his working mouth. - -'Oh, I am sorry--sorry!' she cried. - -'May I kiss you--just once?' he whispered. - -She stood still, her head drooped down, till he lifted it, very gently, -very tenderly, and bent his head and put his quivering lips on hers. - -Her hand went gently round his neck a minute. - -'Poor Morty, dear Morty!' she said. Her breath came warm on his cheek -one second, and a feather kiss, a sweet little sorry kiss that made his -heart like bursting, was laid there. - -The next second she had slipped away into the darkness, and he was -stumbling to find his horse and carry his misery as far as he might. - -Hermie went a circuitous route round the back of the cottage, so anxious -was she to reach her bedroom without having her hot cheeks challenged by -the sharp eyes of Floss or Roly. And there on the back verandah, where -they never went, the two little figures were sitting, one at either end -with their backs against a post. - -'It's time you were in bed,' were the natural words that sprang to her -lips, when she found she might not elude them. - -Two laughs bubbled up. 'We're not going to bed for hours,' they said; -'we're having a 'speriment.' - -'A what?' said Hermie. - -'See this,' said Floss, standing up, 'we're both tied to the posts with -the clothes-line. Such larks! Brownie said she wanted to try a -'speriment on us, and see if we could sit still for two hours. If we -do, she's going to give me her little gold brooch, and Roly the green -heart out of her work-box.' - -'We can swop them at school for usefuller things,' interpolated Roly. - -'The best is,' giggled Floss, 'we like sitting still, we'd been running -about all day. And she forgot to tell us not to speak to each other, -and she didn't put us too far to play knuckle-bones. I've wonned Roly -three times.' - -But Hermie had gone in, an impatient doubt as to Miss Browne's sanity -crossing her mind. - -She found Bart climbing out of the dining-room window. - -'Did you go doing that?' he demanded. - -'What?' said Hermie. - -'Lock the door while I was reading.' - -'Of course I didn't,' Hermie said impatiently. - -'It's that young beggar Roly,' Bart said; 'I'll have to take it out of -him for this. He'd even jammed the window, and I'd no end or work to -get it open. I want to go and help father.' - -'Where is he?' Hermie said. - -'He's washing the paint-brushes in the cowshed,' said Bart. 'Isn't it -lucky? Morty says there are about three dozen tins of red paint at his -place, no earthly good to any one, and he's going to send them down in -the morning, and dad and I are going to give all the place a coat of -paint before mother comes.' - -Hermie went to her bedroom, shut the door, and sat down by the window, -glad of the sheltering darkness. - -But two or three feet away, at the next window, sat Miss Browne, also in -the dark, Miss Browne, now crying happily into her wet handkerchief, now -looking at the moon and whispering, 'Love, love, how beautiful, how -beautiful!' - -The sound of footsteps, however, in the adjoining room brought her -swiftly outside Hermie's window. - -'Hermie!' she cried in a breathless tone at the sight of the girl -sitting there in her white dress. 'That cannot be you?' - -'Yes, it is,' said Hermie; 'why shouldn't it be?' - -'Oh, my love, my love! It is hardly half an hour. I thought two hours, -at the least. My dear, my love, no one disturbed you? Oh, my love, don't -tell me Roly and Floss got loose?' - -'I don't know what you mean,' Hermie said shortly, 'but I can't help -thinking it is rather ridiculous to keep those children sitting there. -They ought to be in bed. I am going to bed.' - -'To bed--my love--my dear!' gasped Miss Browne. 'Where is he?' - -'Where is who?' asked Hermie impatiently. - -'M-M-Mr. M-Mortimer Stevenson,' said Miss Browne in a whisper. - -Hermie had her secret to hide. - -'What should I know about Mr. Stevenson?' she said coldly. 'I presume -he has gone home.' - -Gone home! All could not have gone well and happily in half an hour! -Miss Browne grew quite pale. - -Such a sweet half-hour it had been for her! For twenty minutes of it she -had thought of nothing but the white light of love that was going to -flood Hermie's life. But during the last ten minutes there had come to -her a thought of the material advantages that would accrue to the -girl--Stevenson would have four or five thousand a year at his father's -death. It had been very sweet to sit and think of dear little -flower-faced Hermie lifted for ever above the sordid cares of wretched -housekeeping. - -'My love--my dear,' she faltered, 'I--I am old enough to be your mother. -Could you trust me--won't you----' - -But Hermie, with the blind young eyes of a girl, saw nothing outside her -window but tiresome Miss Browne, crying a little into her handkerchief -(she often cried), stammering out sentences that seemed to have no -beginning or end (her sentences seldom had), twisting her fingers about -(she never kept them still). - -This, when the girl's excited heart wanted to be away from all voices, -all eyes, and go over the strange sensations, with the moon alone for -witness. - -'Miss Browne,' she said, making a strong effort not to speak unkindly, -'I have a headache to-night, and want to be alone. Would you be so kind -as to keep what you have to say till morning, and tell me then?' - -Nothing could have been swifter than the way Miss Browne melted away -into the darkness. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - *A Squatter Patriot* - - -It was eleven o'clock before Mortimer reached home, not that Coolooli -lay two hours and a half distant from the selection, but that he was -trying to ride and ride till the raw edges of his wound had closed -together somewhat. - -Finally he remembered his father would be waiting up for him--one of the -old man's fixed customs was to be the last one up in his house--and he -turned his mare's head in the direction of the sleeping station. He -rode up through the moonlit paddocks and the belts of bush, and wondered -a little, as he looked at his home, that the sadness of the place had -never struck him before. - -The house rose on the crest of a hill, convict-built, most of it, in the -very early days of the colony, and with a wing or two added here and -there. Large, thoroughly comfortable, yet it stood there with a certain -air of sternness, as if it knew what unhappy hands had laid its strong -foundations, what human misery built up its plain thick walls. - -No creepers clung to it and wooed it with their grace; no fluttering -muslins, fashioned by women's hands, blew about its plain windows. In -the wide garden that encircled it trees grew, and handsome shrubs, but -the flowers seemed to know themselves for strangers there, and came not. -Mortimer's eyes went to the twin hill, half a mile away. - -How often had he raised a house on that! Not a grim, plain one, like -this his home, but a large sunny cottage, with wide verandahs and large -bright windows, and a garden where all the sweet flowers in the world -ran mad. - -Near enough the big house for the old man, left to himself, not to feel -lonely; far enough away for Hermie to be unquestioned queen, and free as -the winds that blew. - -Oh, the happy hours he had wandered on that farther hill, raising that -happy home to receive his love! There had even been a moonlight night -or two when he had furnished it--furnished it with deep chairs and wide -sofas and delicious hammocks, all for the little light-haired girl who -worked so hard on that wretched selection to nestle into and rest. He -had begun to work harder and give deeper thought than was his wont to -the management of the station; there would be plenty of money for an -income, he knew, but he wanted even more than plenty; he wanted the -little hands that had always been so afraid to spend sixpence, to revel -in the joy of flinging sovereigns broadcast. He had been -waiting--waiting to tell her, it seemed for years--waiting till she was -just a little older and a little older. - -But the long frock to-day had told him she was a woman, and he had -rushed to know his fate; and now all was over. - -He put his saddle in the harness-room, and turned the horse out into the -moonlit paddock. He went in through the side door, down the wide hall -where the lamps still burned for him, and into the dining-room. - -His father was sitting at the big table drinking very temperately at -whiskey and water, and reading a paper. - -'I'm sorry to have kept you up, dad,' Mortimer said. - -'That's all right,' said his father, 'it's not often you do it.' - -'No,' said Mortimer. - -The old man pushed the spirit-casket across the table. - -'You look as if you've got a chill,' he said; 'take a nip.' - -The son poured himself a finger's depth, and drank it off, his father -watching him from under his shaggy eyebrows. - -'Did Luke or Jack come up this afternoon?' asked Mortimer. - -'Jack and his wife,' said the old man. 'Luke went to Sydney yesterday, -Jack says, to watch the sales himself.' - -'Take Bertha with him?' - -'I rather think the young woman took him. Don't believe she's the wife -for any squatter; Macquarie Street's the only run she'll ever settle on, -with the theatres and dancing halls within cooey.' - -'Oh, well,' sighed Mortimer, 'Luke can afford it, and he seems happy -enough. Anything fresh about the war? You seem to have all the papers -there.' - -The old man's eyes gleamed, his hand trembled as he reached for an -evening paper, and opened it. - -'See here,' he said, 'Buller's made a fatal mistake, a fatal mistake. -He's advancing on Ladysmith by this route, wheeling here and doubling -there, and having a brush or two on the way. Now, what he ought to have -done is plainly to have gone along by night marches up here, and taken -up a strong position here. See, I've marked the way he ought to have -gone with those red dots. You don't look as if you agree.' - -'Oh,' said Mortimer, 'I don't know anything about it. But I should say -those Johnnies at the head of things know what they're about better than -we can out here.' - -'Not a bit, not a bit,' said the old man excitedly; 'it's always the -looker-on who sees the most. He's just rushing on to his doom, and -those brave chaps shut up in that death-trap'll never get as much relief -from this attempt as they would if I sent old Rover out. You mark my -words and see. This range of hills is the key of the position, and -until those thick-headed generals can be brought to see it, there'll be -defeat after defeat. Did I tell you Blake and Lewis and Walsh and -Simons came to me, and asked to volunteer?' - -'Whew!' said Mortimer. 'I don't see how we'll get along without Blake. -Did you give your consent?' - -'Consent!' cried the old man. 'If the place went to ruin, d'ye think -I'd keep the fellow back? I gave him a cheque, and I promised to look -after his wife and brats if he fell; that's what I did.' - -'But it's unlucky Walsh wants to go too,' said Mortimer; 'he'd have been -the very fellow to take Blake's place. We could have better spared -Doherty.' - -'That mean-spirited dog! A lot of volunteering there is in him. He'll -take good care to keep his cowardly carcase out of bullet range.' - -Mortimer looked thoughtful, and poured a little more whiskey into his -tumbler. - -'I suppose we must get fresh men on in their places straight away,' he -said; 'we don't want the place to suffer.' - -'Hang the place!' shouted the old man; 'let it go to ruin if it likes. -Every man that has the pluck to come and tell me he'll go and shoot at -them scoundrels out there, hang me, it's a cheque I'll give 'im, and be -a father to his brats if he's got any, and keep his place open till he -comes back. And a horse to each--the best I've got on the place--hang -me, two horses.' - -'It's very generous of you, father,' Mortimer said, a little unsteadily. -'I see, too, by yesterday's paper, you are giving five thousand pounds -to the fund. I--hardly knew you felt as strongly about it as this.' - -The old man sprang up, and began to thunder about the room. - -'Feel strongly about it--strongly! If I was only ten years younger, I'd -do more than feel strongly! Me very bed's like stones the nights the -cables show no victories; the food in me mouth turns to dust. Feel -strongly!' - -Mortimer left the table, and stood at the window looking out at the -moonlight that made snow of the twin hill. He did not know he drummed -on the window pane until his excited father roared to him to stop. Then -he turned and went across the room to where his father was sitting again -at the table, gazing with furious eyes at the cables that told of -Buller's line of march. - -'Father,' he said, and put his hand on the old man's shoulder, 'will you -give me a couple of horses? I don't know that I want the cheque.' - -Old Stevenson trembled. 'You're fooling me,' he said. - -'I wouldn't fool when you're so much in earnest,' Mortimer said. 'I'm -afraid I'm a slow-witted chap. It never occurred to me before to-night -to volunteer. Now it seems the one thing I'd care to do in all the -world.' - -The old man breathed hard. - -'I'm not as young as I was, Morty,' he said quaveringly; 'I--can't take -disappointments easy. You're not just saying this lightly? You'll -abide by it?' - -'The only thing that could stand in my way,' said Mortimer, 'would be -your objection. That is removed, since it never existed; so it only -remains to find out the date of the sailing of the Bush contingent. -Thanks to your subscription, there'll be no difficulty in getting me in, -for I know my riding and shooting will pass muster.' - -'Morty,' the old man was clinging to the young one's arm, 'Morty, I'd -given up the hope of ever seeing this day. Six sons I had--six, and not -a puny, poor one among them. That's what held me up when the war got -into me veins first, and I had to face it that seventy was too old to -fight. It took some facing, lad. After that I just waited and waited. -And none of you spoke. I kep' reading the Sydney news, to find that my -sons there was going. None of their names was in. Dick, I could ha' -forgave him--p'r'aps--as he's six childers and a wife; but James, a -doctor, no end of chances to get in. And Walter, the best shot and best -horseman ever come from out back. Never a word that Walter had blood in -his veins. I thought it might be funds stoppin' 'em--they might be -feared to leave their businesses, thinking they'd suffer. No need of -that, I thinks, and sends them a cheque a-piece--a solid thousand each. -Does that fetch 'em? Not it. They writes back, very useful, come in -nicely. Jack here, married to a wife, wouldn't mind going--see some -life; but wife cries and clings, and he gives in. Luke! No son of -mine. Oh, I'll not cut him out my will, or do anything dirty by him, -but don't never let him give me his hand no more. Cries down his own -people, upholds the dirty scoundrelly Boers, and hopes they'll win their -fight; dead against the Britain that his own father comed from. My only -lad left at home----' - -'Well, that laggard at least is off to shoot his best,' said Mortimer -lightly. - -'Morty,' said the old man, and pressed his hand, 'you'll ha' to forgive -me. I've had hard thoughts of you, Morty.' His faded eyes were -suffused. - -'Don't let's think of that, dad,' said Mortimer. 'What horses do you -think I'd better take?' - -'In the morning, in the morning,' said Stevenson. 'I only want to sit -still to-night, and thank God I've got one son that's a man.' - -Mortimer looked at the creased, illumined face, the wet eyes, the old, -working mouth. His heart swelled towards him. - -'Dad, old fellow,' he said, 'I'm hard hit. I love a girl, and she won't -have me.' - -His father gripped his hand. - -'Poor chap, poor chap!' he said. 'I know, I've been through it. I -loved a girl before I married your mother, and I met her daughter the -other day, and it was the same as if it had been yesterday.' He looked -at his big son with new eyes. 'The girl's got hanged bad taste,' he -said. - -'You'd have liked her, dad,' Morty said. 'Not like the girls round here, -big, strapping women; very slender and sweet-looking, her skin's as pink -and soft as that baby of Jack's.' - -'Happen I know her?' said his father. - -'Her name is Hermie Cameron,' Mortimer said. - -'That thriftless beggar's daughter!' was on the old man's lips, but the -look on his son's face checked him. - -'Yes--a pretty child,' was what he said instead, and thanked Heaven that -her taste had been so bad. - -'See here, dad,' Mortimer said awkwardly, 'of course it's not in the -least likely I shall get hit---but of course war's war, and there's a -chance that one may get knocked over.' - -'I don't need telling that,' said the old man quickly. - -Mortimer pressed his shoulder. 'It's this, dad,' he said. 'I want to -ask you a favour The Camerons--they're so hard up, it--it makes me -fairly miserable.' - -'A cheque, lad,' said the father eagerly, 'of course, of course. Would -a thousand pounds do? You shall have it to-night--this minute.' - -He was moving to get his cheque-book, but Morty detained him. - -'No, no, dad,' he said, 'you don't know poor Cameron; he's the most -unfortunate fellow in the world, but he's the last man who would take a -present of money.' - -'I could offer it as a loan,' suggested the old man. - -'No, he wouldn't have even that, I'm positive,' Mortimer said. 'I've -tried a time or two myself, but he's choked me off jolly quickly.' - -'Then what can I do, boy?' the father said helplessly. 'Believe me, I'm -willing enough.' - -'I know, I know, dad. All I want to ask you is to keep an eye on them, -and if you can do them a turn, do it. The mother's coming from England -in a month or so, and I'd give my head to be able to make the place look -up a bit. Cameron and his boy are fairly killing themselves to do their -best, but you can guess what their best is when there's only labour and -not a sixpence to spend.' - -'You leave it to me, leave it to me,' said Stevenson. - -'And one other thing,' said Morty. 'Of course I won't, dad, but if I -should come a cropper, will you let some of my share go to the little -girl I wanted?' - -'She shall have every penny of it,' cried the old man; 'hang me, it's -the least I can do.' - -They gripped hands. - -'Good-night, boy!' - -'Good-night, dad!' - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - *R.M.S. Utopia* - - -'There,' said Challis, 'that is exactly the middle of the sheet, mother. -Just as many again, and we're all kissing each other and going mad.' - -She held a piece of note-paper in her hand, and had just carefully -marked out with a red pencil one more of the thirty-three days of their -voyaging. - -'That leaves just sixteen,' said Mrs. Cameron. - -'And a half,' said Challis, 'and Mr. Brooks told me the captain says we -may be two whole days late, so we'll count seventeen, darling, and not -disappoint ourselves.' - -'There is the captain now, talking to Mrs. Macgregor and Lady -Millbourne,' said Mrs. Cameron. 'Run and ask him, dear, if it is true. -I can't bear the thought.' - -'Oh, mother,' said the little girl, and hung back, looking with nervous -eyes at the group. - -'Girlie, you must get over this silly shyness,' said Mrs. Cameron. 'I -think you get worse every day, instead of better. Run along at once.' - -The girl rose and walked slowly down the long deck. Some children -rushed to her. - -'Come and play, come and play,' they said. 'It's rounders, and we want -another on our side.' - -'Don't ask her,' said a boy, 'she's a stuck-up--never plays with any -one.' The voice reached Challis, and coloured her cheeks. - -'You will be on our side, won't you?' a little girl said. 'We don't -know what to do for another.' - -'I--I don't know how to play. I'm very sorry--if I could I would,' -Challis said. - -'Oh, but you can't help knowing,' urged the small girl. 'All you've to -do is hit the ball and run. Mamma's deck-chair there is one rounder, -and the barometer thing's another, and that life-buoy's the third, and -here's home. Of course you mustn't hit the ball overboard.' - -'Oh, please,' said Challis, 'won't you get some one else? I should -spoil the game. Oh, I couldn't play--please,' and she broke away from -the hand, and heard 'stuck-up' again from the boy as she moved away. - -Used to the fire of a thousand eyes, the girl shrank nervously from -disporting herself before half a dozen idle watchers. She liked the -quiet corners on the deck where no one could see her; she had a habit of -lying on some cushions by her mother's side, and pretending to be -asleep, just to escape being talked to. - -A group of ladies drew her amongst themselves before she could pass. - -'The sweet little thing!' said one. - -'Have you been dreaming a Wave Nocturne up in your corner?' said -another. - -'Don't tease the child,' said a third. 'Darling, we're getting up a -concert for to-morrow evening, and we're going to give the money to the -Patriotic Fund when we get to Sydney. You will play some of your lovely -pieces for us, won't you? You know we couldn't have a concert without -the aid of the famous Miss Cameron.' - -'I am afraid mother will not allow me to again,' Challis said. 'She -said yesterday was to be the last time.' - -'The last time! Oh, why--why?' chorused the ladies. - -'She said something about wanting me to rest now,' said poor Challis, -flushing. - -'Oh, but just two or three little pieces,' persisted the promoter of the -concert, 'for the wives of the brave boys going to the war! Oh, I know -you won't refuse us, will you? That pretty little thing you played for -the funds of the Sailors' Home on Monday--what was that?' - -'The Funeral March from Chopin's Second Sonata,' said Challis shyly. 'I -will ask mother. I am sure, as it is for the soldiers, she will allow -me,' and she edged out of the group. - -A lady lying on a lounge beckoned to her. - -'How are you, my dear, to-day?' she said. - -'Quite well, thank you,' was Challis's answer. - -'You are looking pale, I think. Your mother should give you quinine. -Don't you ever take anything before you play to your big audiences?' - -'No,' said Challis. - -'Your mother should see you have a quinine powder before you begin, and -just before going home a dessert-spoonful of malt extract. It would -fortify the system immensely.' - -'Would it?' said Challis, a little wearily. - -'Is that little Miss Cameron?' said another lady, coming up. 'Now I -think Mrs. Goodenough might really introduce us. Ah, now we know each -other, and I am very proud--very proud indeed to shake hands with -Australia's celebrated player. I heard you in the Albert Hall two -nights before we left London, my dear. You play -magnificently--magnificently.' - -Challis stood with gravely downcast eyes, and never said a word. - -'I wonder could you spare me a photograph, my dear,' continued the lady, -'one of those in a white frock that are all over London? And I should -like you to write your name across it. Will you?' - -'We have not any left--we gave the last away,' said Challis, and with a -little good-bye bending her head--something like the grave quiet bend -she gave her audiences--she moved along on her errand. - -'So that's your player,' the flouted lady said. 'Well, I don't think -much of her. Not a word to say for herself. I suppose she is greatly -overrated; it is mostly advertisements, you know--wonderful nowadays -what can be done by advertisements.' - -Challis reached the captain at last. Lady Melbourne had a pleasant word -for her, and asked nothing but how she was enjoying _Treasure Island_, -which was in her hand. Mrs. Macgregor merely inquired after her mother's -headache. - -'Captain,' Challis said, 'are we really going to be two days late? -Mother is very anxious.' - -'Why, we are all hoping it will be more than that,' said Lady -Millbourne. 'A perfect voyage like this should last for ever. I want -to persuade the captain to break the shaft of his propeller, like the -Perthshire did, and let us drift for forty days.' - -'Then mother and I would steal the captain's gig and row home by -ourselves,' Challis said with a little shy roguery that dimpled her -mouth, and made you think she was pretty after all. - -'I never loved a dear gazelle,' said the captain, 'but I had to land it -days before I should have had to, if it had only been a tiresome -elephant. My dear little fairy-fingers, I have to give you up two days -before the time. This will be the quickest run I've made this year.' - -The glad colour leapt all over the girl's face. 'Oh-h-h!' she cried, and -broke away from them, and went bounding back along the deck to her -mother, just as any of the children might have gone. - -The delightful news necessitated giving all the rest of the morning up -to happy chat. They drew their chairs close up together, sheltered from -over-much observation by the angle of the deck-house. Mrs. Cameron had -no more headache, _Treasure Island_ fell flat and forgotten on the -deck.' - -[Illustration: 'NOW LET'S JUST GO OVER IT ALL AGAIN,' SAID CHALLIS.] - -'Now let's just go over it all again,' said Challis. 'Father'll come -first. I don't want to kiss any one till I have kissed him. Well, -what's he like? No, don't you say, I'll say. He'll have a -moustache--no, I think he'll have a beard--yes, a beard. Not a long -one, just a short one, and rather curly. And his eyes have a nice -laughing look in them, just the nice look like M'sieu de Briot's, who -said there was nothing in the world worth worrying about. You said, -didn't you? that daddy hated worrying over things. I can't help -thinking he'll have a brown velveteen jacket when he comes to meet us, -like Mr. Menel's, at Fontainebleau, and paint all over it. But of -course he won't. Let's see, he'll have a grey suit and a shiny hat, like -Mr. Warner. No, he mustn't have that--that's not like daddie at all. -No, I'll tell you; it's very hot at Wilgandra, so he'll have a nice -white linen suit and a white helmet, and he might--he might be holding -up a big white umbrella lined with green--you know, mamma, like that -nice man who came on board at Malta.' - -Mrs. Cameron was leaning back, her eyes shining, a fond smile on her -lips as she listened to the girl's prattle. - -'Then there'll be Hermie, and I know she's lovely. Don't you think she -will be? You said you always thought she would grow up very beautiful. -Oh, isn't it dreadful that we've never had a photo of them? Such lots -of mine sent to them, and never any of theirs! It's like drawing their -faces with your eyes shut. I think Hermie will have her hair in a thick -plait. I suppose she goes to picnics and dances and everything, and -always knows what to say to people. Mother, I don't think I shall ever -get to know what to say. I'm fourteen, and nothing will come into my -head to answer people. A lady said to me this morning, "You play -magnificently." Now what can you answer to that? I really felt I'd -like to say, "Yes, don't I?" just to see how she would look. Only I was -afraid it would be rude. If I'd said, "Oh no, I don't, you're -mistaken," she would have thought I was mock modest, wouldn't she? But -Hermie, yes, she'll always know what to say. I can sleep in her room, -can't I? You said there wouldn't be any other. It will be like Ellen -and Edie Fowler we met on the trip to Dover; they always had their arms -round each other, and used to tell each other everything and everything. -Hermie and I will; we'll whisper and whisper all night, just like they -did.' - -The steward came up with eleven-o'clock tea and the glass of milk that -Challis always drank. Mrs. Cameron left her cup to grow cold, Challis -set her tumbler in an insecure place, and a lurch of the ship sent it -flying. - -'Never mind, I couldn't have drunk it,' she said, then as the man came -back, 'I am so sorry to give you that trouble, steward. If you like to -bring a cloth, I'll wipe it up myself.' - -'Well, about Bart,' said the mother, 'what will Bart be like?' - -'Oh, Bart,' said Challis, 'I just feel as if we'll rush straight -together, and never come undone again. That's the sort of feeling you -have when you're twins. I feel I'd like to give him everything and sew -his buttons on and let him bully me. You notice the Griffithses here. -They're twins, and she does everything he tells her, and he gets -everything for her. It's lovely. I hope Bart hasn't forgotten we're -twins.' - -'And Roly?' - -'Roly? I'm not sure of Roly. I can hardly see him at all. I think, -p'r'aps, he's like that little boy at our table who wears Eton suits and -tries to walk like the boatswain. All I can remember about Roly is one -day we were eating water-melon in the paddock, and Roly ate his slice -away and away, till there was just a green circle round his head.' - -'And Flossie--my little baby Floss?' - -'Darling little Flossie, I almost love her best of all. She's got very -goldy hair and a teeny little face, and she's as little as Lady -Millbourne's little girl. And she likes being carried about, and she -can't dress herself, and I shall dress her, and fasten all the dear -little buttons, and tie her sashes. And I shall put her to bed myself, -nobody else must, and I'll tell her stories and stories. And every day -there'll be something new for her out of my box. There are fifteen -things for her, mother, not counting what she's to go halves with Roly -in. Isn't it a darling little tea-set? I never saw such sweet little -cups. And won't she like the little dolls from the Crystal Palace? I'd -really like to play with them myself. And the big doll we got in the -Rue de Crenelle. I must get on with its frock to-morrow, mother, or it -never will be done.' - -On, on went the ship through the secret waters. New stars came out on -the great night skies, new breezes played in the rigging. On, on, and -the long days dropped away, somewhere, somewhere, beyond the edge of the -sea. On, on, and the happy eyes saw at last the dear frown of the -Australian coast-line. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - *The Bush Contingent* - - 'Armed year--year of the struggle! - No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible - year. - Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipped - cannon-- - I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.' - - -Cameron was in Sydney again--the first time for seven long years. He had -come down almost a month before the date upon which the Utopia was -advertised as due, with the desperate hope of getting something to do -that might yield him enough money to buy a new suit. - -Up on the selection he wore soft shirts and old tweed trousers almost -all the time. - -When it came to a question of finding him starched shirts and a decent -suit and hat in which to face his wife, Hermie and Miss Browne were -nonplussed. - -Finally they discovered one suit that had not been taken, piecemeal, to -work in; but the moths had also discovered it. Sponge and press and -darn as Hermie might, it still looked disreputable; the shirts were -ragged, there was no hat that was not hopelessly spoiled with the sun -and dust and rain. - -It forced itself upon Cameron that there was but one thing to do--he -must borrow a few pounds from some one. - -And there was but one man he knew who would lend it to him--Mortimer -Stevenson. Hermie had never told her secret. He groomed Tramby up a -little, and put on a linen coat and hat, and set out in the direction of -Coolooli. He hoped he might not meet the father; he was quite conscious -of the fact that the business-like, successful old man looked upon him -as a shiftless beggar. They knew each other slightly; Stevenson had -ridden in two or three times when passing the selection, and stayed for -an hour or two talking stock and crops and the war. Once or twice -Cameron had been for dinner to Coolooli while shearing was on, and there -were chances to learn successful methods. But he shrank with all his -soul from encountering the old man this morning. - -Two or three aboriginal women were coming back from a journey to the -house, cloths full of stores and broken food slung over their shoulder. -Stevenson forty years ago had had to break up a big camp of them on the -land he had just taken up, and drive them farther west. Ever since he -had not felt justified in refusing food to any of their colour. - -Cameron stopped the women, to ask if they had seen Mortimer riding away -that morning. - -'I say, Mary,' he said, 'you been see that one Mr. Mortimer?' - -'Ba' al mine see 'im that one young pfeller Stevenson walk about,' said -the most ancient of the women. 'Old pfeller Stevenson 'im up there. -You gib it tik-a-pen, you gib it plenty pfeller 'bacca.' - -Cameron threw her a bit of precious tobacco, which she proceeded at once -to cut up and cram into her unsavoury-looking pipe. Then he rode on; -Mortimer might by chance have gone out somewhere on the run before the -women had reached the station. Half a mile nearer to the house a -sundowner had been put on to mending a fence. At present he was smoking -and looking at it occasionally. - -'Going up to volunteer, mate?' he said, as Cameron rode through a gate. - -Cameron disclaimed the honour. - -'Take a tip and do it,' the fellow said. 'The old chap is off his nut -just now, and is jolly well flinging his money round--him as was too -close to give a fellow tucker without turning him on to axe-sharpening -first. You'll get your fare to Sydney and a moke and pocket of tin -handed over to you afore you've finished of telling him you want to -join.' - -Cameron inquired good-humouredly why under such exceptional -circumstances he himself did not volunteer. - -He grinned. 'Guv'nor's knowed me on and off for twenty year,' he said, -and fell to looking at the work before him again. 'Seems to think I've -had too much bush experience. Had a try on, of course, but Mister -Mortimer he put the stopper on me. I'm cursing my luck for not waiting -till he'd gone.' - -'Gone!' said Cameron; 'why, where's he going?' - -'He went larst Monday--you must be a just-come not to know,' the man -said; 'he's goin' off to glory along o' the Swaggies Army.' - -Cameron turned his horse's head and rode slowly back to the selection. - -He took a picture or two, and tried to sell them in Wilgandra, but they -were still frameless, and he only raised a pound by the sale of both. - -It was his neighbour Daly who helped him most; he saved him his fifty -shilling railway ticket by sending him to Sydney in charge of a dozen -trucks of sheep. - -Landed there after the almost intolerable journey, he tried desperately -for work--even beat up an old friend or two, who looked askance at his -shabby appearance. One offered him a pound which he could ill spare, -having fallen on hard times himself, the other wrote him half a dozen -useless recommendations to various business men. - -Cameron hung around the quay in a sort of fascination; no pilot boat -went out but he did not tremble, no great ship came round Bradley's Head -but he felt it bore his wife on board. The transports sent from the -Cape for the Bush Contingent--The Atlantian and the Maplemore--were -already anchored out in the stream, the great numbers painted on their -sides adding an unusual note to the shipping on the smiling harbour. -Launches and heavily weighed boats bearing timber for the horse-boxes -were continually putting off from the quay to cross the intermediate -stretch of water to where they lay. - -The bustle and movement woke Cameron to life again, and the knowledge -that he must do something, if it were only to take a header into the -plentiful water; not here at the quay where a thousand eyes would see, -but from one of the quiet bays or headlands the harbour has so many of. - -Then he pulled himself together again, recognised it was want of food -that had begot such cowardice in him, and spent his last shilling on a -good meal. After that he tramped out to Randwick to the camp, and asked -for Private Mortimer Stevenson. - -The sentry jerked his head in a certain direction, and Cameron made his -way to where some ten thousand perhaps of Sydney's citizens, women and -children, had crowded, as they crowded almost every afternoon, for the -novelty of seeing the bushmen drill. - -It was an odd, unmilitary spectacle. Uniforms were not yet served out, -and there seemed no regularity as to height. Here a sunburnt fellow -from 'out back' drilled in a tattered flannel shirt and a pair of -ancient moleskins that had seen several hard shearing seasons. Next to -him was some wealthy squatter's son in a well-cut light grey suit, then -a rough fellow with a beard half a foot long, moleskins again, and an -old red handkerchief tied round his throat, then a lad, a fine -well-grown fellow in the white flannels he played tennis in on his -far-off station. None of the pomp, the _eclat_ of militarism was -there--not even the discipline; the men gossiped cheerfully with each -other even while they stood in their ranks, they laughed at the girls in -the crowd--even threw kisses to them. They were a fine, -independent-looking lot, and you knew at a glance at them that they -would think no more of carrying their lives in their hands than most -people think of carrying umbrellas. But you marvelled how they were to -assume in so few weeks' time the well-groomed, spick-and-span, automatic -appearance you had hitherto associated with the word soldiers. - -Cameron watched the different squads for a little time, and felt proud -of Mortimer when he found girls and men were pointing him out and -saying. 'That one, look! the fourth from the end; he's a -splendid-looking fellow, isn't he?' 'See that fourth chap, that's the -sort of man we want to represent us.' - -But the drilling and the hoarse cries of the hardworked sergeants seemed -endless, and Cameron wandered on and watched the riding and shooting -tests which separated the genuine bushmen from the counterfeits, who -swarmed here, as easily as the winnow separates the grain from the -chaff. At last the squads broke up, and the men mixed with the crowd or -went off, mopping their steaming faces, to their tents or the canteen. - -Mortimer broke loose from the men around him, and went instantly to -Cameron, whom he had quickly seen while drilling. He carried him off -direct to his tent. - -'I'm awfully sorry to have kept you waiting so long,' he said. 'Here, -try this deck-chair, it's more comfortable than that bench. And what -will you have to drink? Oh, I know, you like lemon squash.' He turned -to a rough-looking fellow at the door. 'Go down to the canteen, Brady, -like a good fellow, and get a jug of lemon squash. Here's the money.' -He turned back to Cameron. 'I'd have given anything to get away when I -saw you, but you can guess what it is out there.' - -'Yes, yes,' said Cameron, 'it doesn't matter; it was all interesting. I -have been looking about.' - -Mortimer gave him a sharp look. - -'Is all well up there?' he said. 'It isn't often you come down.' - -'Nothing's wrong,' said Cameron, 'I came down to meet my wife, that's -all.' - -'Of course, of course,' said Mortimer; 'stupid of me. I was reading -about it only this morning in the paper--about the big welcome the -citizens intend to give your little girl. There is to be a launch--the -Government launch, isn't it?--and the mayor and no end of people are -going up the harbour to meet her.' - -'Are they?' said Cameron. - -'You've been consulted about it, surely?' said Mortimer warmly. -'They're not doing all this without referring to you?' - -Cameron straightened himself a little. - -'I've had no fixed address since I came down,' he said. 'They've -overlooked me, I suppose, because they don't know I exist; I hardly do, -you know.' - -'Are any of the others down with you?' asked Mortimer--'Bart or Roly or -any of them?' - -'Oh no,' said Cameron. 'Some one has to mind the landed property -against my return.' - -'And are they all well?' pursued Mortimer. 'Roly--wasn't Roly looking a -little thin before I left?' - -'Oh no,' Cameron said, 'he's right enough. The girls feel the life more -than he and Bart. My eldest girl seemed very off colour when I left?' - -'Not typhoid?' burst out Mortimer. 'I saw in the paper it had broken -out in Wilgandra----' - -'Oh no, we're too far for that. Nothing but the heat. Was that Timon I -saw among the horses?' - -'Yes, I brought him and the governor's favourite roan down--he made me -have him.' - -'Mortimer--I'm compelled to ask--I cannot do without--my -wife--Challis--suit--make them ashamed----' Cameron's voice choked. - -'Confound that Brady!' said Mortimer, springing up and upsetting his -chair; 'takes as long to get a lemon squash as if I'd sent him to town -for it. If it had been a bottle of whiskey, now, no delay then; might -come in for a spare glass himself. You r'mber Brady, rouseabout up at -Coolooli, gives a home-touch to see him about. He volunteered the same -time as I. I say, I'm off duty now for the rest of the day--may as well -come back to town and have a bit of spree. Brooks, I say Brooks, go and -see if there's a spare cab, there's a good fellow.' Another coin went -into another rough fellow's hand. - -Cameron found himself driving back to town by Stevenson's side before he -had collected his thoughts--or even had his lemon squash. - -Half the way Mortimer rattled on about the day's work in camp, the -transports, provisions for the comfort of the horses, the prospect of -the contingent's success. - -'By the way,' he said all at once, 'I want you to do me a favour. The -governor's been too free with his cash for me--not safe to have too much -about, you know--tempt some poor devil. D'ye mind taking some of it and -looking after it for me--just for a year or two till I get back? Use -it, you know; you might use it now instead of drawing any out of your -own account, then when I come home you can pay me back. Awfully obliged -it you will; had a couple of pounds stolen out of my tent yesterday, and -have been going about with fifty pounds on me since. I'll get you to -look after thirty of it; the governor's cabled no end of money to a bank -in Durban for me, for fear I'll run short.' - -Half a dozen crisp notes were thrust into Cameron's hands, and Mortimer, -hot and red in the face, was rattling on again about the horse-boxes for -the voyage, and how they should have been made this way, and not that -way, and about the wisdom of telling the men to bring their own saddles, -and about that egregious ass the public, who seemed to think the Bushmen -were so thin-skinned that they could not bear a word of command, unless -it was put in the form of a polite request. - -'Isn't it tommy-rot?' said Mortimer. 'We're not a pack of sensitive -girls. We enjoy the discipline, and recognise we have to be licked into -some sort of order, unless we want to remain a mob.' - -Cameron was very quiet, but he gripped Mortimer's hand on parting, and -cleared his throat to try to say something. - -But the young volunteer found he must be off in violent haste. - -'By George,' he said, 'haven't another minute; promised the colonel I'd -go out and kick up a row about the horse-boxes,' and his big loose -figure plunged back to the waiting cab. 'You'll come and see me off, -all right, so long'; and the cab woke to life and moved smartly off, to -lose itself in the stream of vehicles going towards the quay. - -Cameron, a lump in his throat, turned towards the General Post Office, -to see if there were further news from the little contingent at home. -The last letters from Bart had been disquieting; Small, the butcher, it -seemed, had transferred the mortgage he held on the selection to old Mr. -Stevenson. 'And Daly says,' Bart had written, 'it's about the worst -thing that could have happened, Stevenson's so close-handed. Small often -used to give you time, but he says Stevenson never will.' A second -letter followed. Stevenson had foreclosed, but was willing for a year -or two, until a tenant he had in view was ready to occupy, that Cameron -should remain on the place. In the meantime, however, he, Stevenson, -must be at liberty to make any alteration or improvement he saw fit to -the property. - -The present letter was excited in tone. 'After all, dad,' the boy wrote, -'I believe it's the best thing that could have happened. The place is -looking up no end, there are quite ten men at work on it, so the chances -are the mater and Challis won't quite die of the shock of seeing it. -And what do you think? You know that calf we gave Hermie two years ago? -Well, I never knew there was good blood in it, did you? It's the last -thing you'd think to look at it. But that Stevenson knows a thing or -two. He comes down here and pokes about pretty often, and he saw it, -and what did you think? Offered me ten pounds down for it! I couldn't -believe my ears. Don't you remember I tried to sell it when you were -ill, and Small offered two for it? But I wasn't going to let on I was -so green as not to know it was a good sort, and I said straight that we -could not let it go under fifteen. He looked at me in that queer, sharp -way of his, and he poked at the calf a bit, and then said, "Say twelve -ten." But I'd got my mettle up by that. I knew if a close-handed, hard -chap like that offered twelve ten, it must be worth quite twenty-five. -I just turned round and went on digging up the potatoes for dinner and -said, "Fifteen pounds," for all the world like Small does at the sales. -He went round to Dimple and began poking at her again, and examining her -like anything, and then he said, "Fourteen pounds, sonny." I'd got -enough potatoes out for Miss Browne by then, so I put them in the basket -and just said, "Good morning, sir," and pretended to be going. - -'Then he began laughing fit to kill himself, and in between the laughs -he said, "Fifteen," and I said, just like Small, "She's yours, and -you've got a bargain." And he laughed again, and said, "I have." I -hope you're not vexed, dad, at me doing this on my own. I've been -feeling very anxious ever since, for she must have been a really -valuable little thing--he's not the man to be deceived; they say he's -the best judge of stock in the country. I told Daly about it, and he -wanted to know if Stevenson was drunk at the time. He doesn't drink at -all, does he? But I thought you'd agree that the fifteen would be more -use to us now than twenty-five later, and that's why I closed with him. -I'm sending five down in this, thinking it will come in usefully for -you. And Hermie and Miss Browne have gone off to Wilgandra to get new -dresses and cups and sheets and whips of other things with the rest. You -should have seen their list. The mater and Challis'll think we're no -end of swells after all.' - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - *Home to the Harbour* - - 'City of ships! - City of the world! (for all races are here, - All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) - Proud and passionate city--mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! - Spring up, O city--not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, - warlike! - War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!' - - -Down through the excited waters of the harbour came the great ship -Utopia, the fussy little tug running on ahead. - -Away near the Heads the stretching blue had danced almost as unfurrowed -by the lines of boats as outside, where the ocean's ways lay wild. - -But as the ship came down, down closer to the city, a stately untroubled -belle on the arm of her hot, nervous, fidgety little partner, many of -the passengers felt with astonishment they had never seen so many -watercraft in all their lives before. Rowing boats--scores and scores -of them! They looked like flies on an agitated surface of translucent -honey. Sailing boats! Surely not one stitch of canvas owned by the city -was out of use. Poised, waiting, up and down, everywhere, you felt -there was going to be a storm and these were the white gulls come in -flocks to flutter and dip and rise till it began. The ferry-boats! They -went their hurried journeys to and from--across to North Shore, to -Mosman's, and Neutral Bay, to Manly, and you could fancy they were -looking over their shoulders all the way and longing to come back. The -ocean-going boats, leaning at the Woolloomooloo wharves or anchored out -in the stream, they were black with eager people, and waved from every -point long strings of brilliant flags--the flags of half the world. -America was there, shaking out her Stars and Stripes from a mail -steamer, a San Francisco timber-boat passing along to a berth in Darling -Harbour, and a transport come to take stores for the army in the -Philippines. - -From one of the men-of-war in Farm Cove floated Japan's white flag with -its red chrysanthemum; France had her war-ship, with its red, white, and -blue ensign, also in the cove. All the others, half a dozen of them, -floated the white ensign of England. - -Up at the quay lay the mammoth Friedrich der Grosse, Germany's black, -red, and white ensign flying in the wind amid her gay strings of -bunting, and round the corner, in Darling Harbour, among the boats that -had come down heavily laden from the rivers, the boats from all the -other colonies and Fiji and Noumea. Russia and Norway both were -represented. - -And the city--had the City of Blue Waves gone mad? - -As the Utopia made her slow progress up the harbour, those on board were -able to catch a breath of the excitement from the land. - -The wharves at Woolloomooloo seemed a black mass of humanity; the -windows of the warehouses were lined with faces, men and small boys had -taken up vantage-points on scaffolding, cranes, the very roofs of the -wharf buildings. On the green park-like slopes of the Domain thousands -were patiently waiting, white and gay coloured parasols and dresses -enlivening the sombre garments of the men. - -Challis stood at the side of the boat with trembling knees and rounded -eyes. Mrs. Cameron was beside her, very pale, struggling hard for -composure, putting her hand to her throat secretly now and again, to -smooth the lumps that seemed to be rising there. A warm reception she -had had no doubt her child would have; indeed, the Melbourne papers she -had seen had said big preparations were to be made for her reception, -for was not this the city of her birth, the eager, open-handed city that -had made it possible for the world to judge of her genius? But the -mother's wildest thoughts had never dreamed of anything like this; -royalty itself had never on any of its journeyings been welcomed in more -magnificent fashion. - -She paled and paled--she slid down her hand, and caught and held tightly -in it one of the small thin hands of her gifted child. - -Yet, great as the honour undoubtedly seemed, had the power to change -things been hers, she would have swept the wharves clear of all that -strange-faced crowd, and have had, standing there alone, looking up at -her, the husband her heart was throbbing for, the children she yearned -for, and yet would hardly know. - -The lady who had begged the photograph pressed her way up. - -'What does it all mean? Did ever you see such excitement? Is it really -as Mrs. Graham says--the welcome for Miss Cameron? I never saw anything -to equal it in my life. My dear, my dear, you are the most fortunate -girl in the world. I am proud to have shaken hands with you, honoured -to have sat at the same table. See, here is my travelling ink-pot and a -pen, write me your autograph, darling.' - -Mrs. Goodenough bustled up and caught at the mother's arm. - -'Such excitement is enough to kill her; give her two of these quinine -tablets, and keep these in your pocket, to give if you notice a sign of -flagging. It will be a most exhausting day for her. And you are -pale--here, I have my flask of tonic--you must, you must indeed take -some. You will never bear up through all the congratulations, if you do -not. Well, well, I must say I have never seen anything like this in my -life.' - -Challis stood as white as if carved in marble; sometimes her little soft -underlip quivered, sometimes she gave an almost piteous glance round, as -if seeking an impossible escape. She had had warm welcomes and even -cheers and a little bunting in many towns, but what was this she had -fallen upon? - -The gangways were hardly down before there hurried on board from the -wharf a gentleman in a tall hat, and two others with the ungroomed, -long-haired appearance of the musician the world over. One of them bore -a moderate-sized bouquet of white flowers, and another a small harp of -roses that looked a little dashed with the sun and dust. - -'Miss Cameron, Miss Cameron!' was the call echoed all along the deck. -The captain himself came up and took the little girl and her mother down -to the men. They were warmly shaken hands with, their healths and the -voyage asked after, and the flowers presented. Then one of the -musicians began to read an address couched in the most flattering terms, -but half-way through the tall-hatted gentleman tapped his arm and -whispered and looked at his watch. And the musician nodded and turned -over the leaves of the address, and shook his head doubtfully and looked -hastily also at his watch. - -'My dear Miss Cameron,' he said, and rolled the big paper up, 'I shall -really have to keep this for a more opportune time. We had thought the -Utopia would not have been here until four this afternoon, when all our -arrangements would have gone well. But now the mayor and the Euterpe -Society, and all the musical bodies in the town are of course engaged in -seeing the Bush Contingent off. We expect the procession any -minute--indeed, it must be nearly in Pitt Street by this.' - -Mrs. Cameron said a few graceful words, in which she begged them not to -waste time now; she was assured by all their kind speeches of the -welcome her daughter had in this her native city, and she expressed her -sense of the good fortune that had awaited them, inasmuch as the Utopia -had arrived in time to see an event of such national importance as the -departure of the Bush Contingent. No one could have guessed at the dear -fatuous notion she had been nursing in that sensible head of hers until -a moment back. - -As for Challis--Challis put her head over her fast-fading harp and -laughed, laughed uncontrollably a minute or two. Then she stretched out -her hand and touched one of the musician's sleeves. 'Couldn't we get -off and see the procession?' she said. - -The musician looked at her eagerly, admiringly. 'Just what I was going -to suggest,' he cried. 'Come on, come on--we've got a carriage out here -for you, and if we've any luck we'll just get up into Macquarie Street -in time.' - -He and his friends swept the two voyagers off their feet, and carried -them with the pushing throng to the gangway. None of the passengers had -any time to look at them; all were a little off balance at the time, -rushing about with faces broken up into tears and laughter, kissing and -throwing arms round those they had been long parted from, wildly -imploring stewards for gladstones and handbags from their cabins. - -In the crush Challis whispered to her mother, 'Oh, aren't I glad it's -not for me!' in a tone of fervent thankfulness. - -When they were down on the wharf, the rapturous meetings on all sides -sent their eyes hungrily searching the crowd again for their own home -welcomers. But there seemed no one, no one, look as they would, and -they went slowly down the company's wharf with the welcomers the city -had sent to the hired open carriage outside. - -Challis and her mother sat facing the horses, the tall-hatted gentleman -and one musician sat opposite to them, the other went on the box. It -had been the committee's intention to bid the coachman wear white -favours, in honour of the visitor's youth. But the item had been -forgotten, and the man wore instead three of the Contingent medals boys -were selling in the streets. The carriage made a snail's progress along -the quay crowded with the emptyings of the ferry-boats, and slowly, -slowly climbed up to Bridge Street, which was on the line of march. The -multitude looked at the vehicle. - -'Who's the kid?' shouted a youth. - -And a bright young Australian yelled: - -'The colonel's kid--going to meet her pa and say good-bye.' On which -the human sea lifted up its lungs and hurrahed wildly, till something -new came along to attract its interest. - -So Challis had her cheers. - -But in Macquarie Street all traffic was suspended, and a hoarse, -red-faced man in some sort of a uniform charged at the open carriage, -and ordered it to go back, as if it were no more important than a -broken-springed buggy with one horse. - -'Have to take yer up Castlereagh Street, ladies,' said the driver -regretfully. 'If yer'd been 'arf an hour sooner, we'd have just got up -to the 'ospital, and yer'd 'ave seen it all fine.' - -'Oh,' said Challis eagerly to the musicians, 'see! see that lovely heap -of wood--look--over there--those women are getting off--there would be -lots of room for us. Oh, do let's get out!' - -In three minutes the little party was sitting, clinging, or standing on -a pile of timber outside a half-built house, and the carriage had -backed, backed away to take a clear course up deserted Castlereagh -Street. - -The sudden roll of a drum sent its electric vibration through the tense -multitude. The cry of, 'Here they come!' raised falsely a dozen times -during the last two hours, now had the positive ring in it that carried -entire conviction. - -'Oh, look, mother! See here come the horses! Doesn't it remind you of -the Jubilee crowd in London?' said Challis. - -But Mrs. Cameron pushed roughly at her shoulder. 'Come here,' she said -hoarsely; 'change places with me. Don't fall--there, hold fast. Let me -get lower down.' - -A man was fighting his way through the throng--a grey-bearded man in a -well-cut light grey suit and a white helmet; and such was his -determination that five minutes after Mrs. Cameron had seen him he had -worked his way through twenty yards of solid crowd and was standing just -below her. - -Mrs. Cameron turned to the musician who had been at much pains to secure -a little room for himself on the timber. - -'Mr. Jardine,' she said, 'will you please get down and give up your -place to my husband? I--I have not seen him for six years.' - -Jardine climbed down cheerfully--but also of necessity. Cameron pulled -himself into the vacant place. - -They were side by side at last, and neither could speak; they just -looked at each other with white faces--looked, looked. - -Finally their hands went together. - -A choked little voice came from above after a minute or two. - -'Me too, daddie--speak to me too.' And it was then he remembered his -child as well as his wife was come back to him. - -He reached up and squeezed the eager hand, he put his other hand round -her little shoe and squeezed that too. Challis leaned down and kissed -the top of his helmet. - -'I said you'd have a helmet on,' she said, with a hysterical little -laugh. - -His hand went back to his wife's. - -'Is there no way of getting out of this rabble?' she said. - -'You might be crushed to death. There's nothing for it now, but to sit -still till it is over.' - -'Why--why weren't you on the wharf?' - -'I was--of course I was--I saw you both plainly just as they put the -gangway down. But there was an accident: a little child near me was -knocked down by a luggage truck, badly hurt, at the moment: there seemed -no one else to give the mother a hand. By the time I'd got him up and -into a cab and found a fellow willing to go with her to a doctor's, you -had gone. They told me the carriage had come up Bridge Street. I have -been fighting my way and looking for you ever since.' - -'The children?' said the mother. - -'All well, quite well; I couldn't bring them.' - -'No. Oh, to get out of this hateful crowd!' - -'Here they come,' Challis said; 'no, they are only policemen.' - -The fine horses and men of the mounted police rode by, then a small body -of Lancers; after these marched some two hundred sailors of the Royal -Navy, and perhaps half that number of Royal Marines. - -Then the Bushies. - -And now the crowd took the reins off itself, and gave head to its -madness. It hurrahed itself hoarse; it waved its arms, and its -handkerchief, and its hat, and its head; it flung flowers, and flags, -and coloured paper; it hung recklessly from roofs, and walls, doors, -chimneys, fences, lamp-posts, balconies, verandah-posts, and it yelled, -'There's Jack,' 'Good-bye, Joe,' 'Come back, Wilson,' 'Shoot 'em down, -Tom,' 'Hurrah, Cooper!' 'Luck to you, Fogarty,' 'There's Storey,' -'Hurrah, Watt!' It handed up drinks to the thirsty horsemen, it pressed -handkerchiefs, cigars, and sweets indiscriminately upon them. - -In return the sunburnt Bushies waved their helmets and little toy flags; -one held up a small fox-terrier, another an opossum by the tail; they -rode along with one arm free for handshaking all along the route, threw -kisses to the excited women, even at times leaned down and kissed some -tip-toe eager girl in a white dress and a wonderful hat. - -They looked as military as one could wish now; Cameron was amazed to -think this was the same material he had seen drilling. A finer body of -men had never passed down the streets of any city. They sat their -magnificent horses magnificently; you knew there was nothing they could -not do with the splendid beasts. The khaki uniform and khaki helmet, -and the sunburnt ruddy faces made a healthful, workmanlike study in -brown. - -'That's the dog Bushie,' said Cameron to Challis. 'Every one in the -colony is interested in him; the men say he will be very useful.' - -The crowd yelled, 'Bushie, Bushie--hurrah! good old doggie,' as the -intelligent sheep-dog came into sight. - -'Here's Stevenson--see, the man on the left, Molly,' Cameron said; 'our -best friend. Good-bye, Mortimer, good luck! Good-bye, old fellow, -good-bye.' - -Mortimer waved his helmet gaily. - -'What a fine fellow!' said Mrs. Cameron, and what a good face! Who is -the old man?' - -'Why, it's old Stevenson. Yes, just like him to do that,' Cameron -answered. The old squatter had ridden alongside the Bushmen the whole -of the line of march. His face was working with excitement; every time -a cheer went up from the crowd he cheered too, standing up from time to -time in his saddle and waving his soft felt hat. He kept beside his son -as much as he could; he was almost bursting with the pride of his -position. - -Challis's eyes were full of tears. - -'Oh,' she said, 'what a very dreadful thing if that nice man should be -killed!' She was quite captivated by the sunny smile Mortimer had given -their group. - -'There's not a better fellow in the world,' Cameron said warmly. - -The khaki died away in the distance, the prancing horses were gone, the -sound of the band grew fainter and fainter. - -Yet a little time, and the transports would be plunging through the -Heads with them, carrying them forward as fast as might be to dye the -veldt red with their own blood or that of the Boers. - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - *Heart to Heart* - - 'We will not speak of years to-night; - For what have years to bring, - But larger floods of love and light, - And sweeter songs to sing?' - - -They were in a quiet room at the hotel at last. They had lost sight of -the tall-hatted gentleman and one musician entirely; the other had said -thoughtfully that he would not intrude. - -'This is not the way we meant to welcome your daughter, Mrs. Cameron,' -he said, laughing, as he clung by one hand to the timber, 'but, as you -see, we're all mad together to-day. By to-morrow we shall have calmed -down a little, and there will be a deputation and everything in order. -You'll be at the Australia, of course?' - -'Yes, I have rooms waiting for them,' Cameron said quietly. - -So the pleasant, long-haired fellow drifted away, and Cameron, at the -first chance, steered his little family out of the thinning crowd, and -found a cab to take them to the peace of the hotel. - -They took their hats off. Waiters seemed to think eating was a -necessity, and brought in a meal, and stood, two of them, to help serve. - -Mrs. Cameron turned her head. - -'We would rather wait on ourselves,' she said. 'We have everything that -we shall need, thank you, so you may go.' - -Cameron drew a relieved breath, though he would as soon have thought of -dismissing the men himself as of calmly ordering one of those -magnificent colonels out of his way during the afternoon. - -'Now we can be cosy,' Challis said, and sat down on her father's knee, -instead of using the chair the waiter had placed for her. 'Are we like -what you thought?' she asked. 'Someway I can't think now how I could -have fancied you would be any different. Oh, I'm sure you're just like -what I thought, only----' She paused then, and a little sensitive flush -ran up into her cheeks. She had almost said, 'Only your beard is grey.' - -But her eyes had gone to its greyness. - -'Yes,' he said a little sadly, 'I didn't wait for you, Molly, did I? We -always said we would grow old together, but I have left you far behind.' - -He hardly knew his wife. Time seemed to have turned back for her. -There was not a wrinkle on her skin, the sharp winters had given a bloom -like girlhood's to her cheeks, and the varied life and rest from -domestic worries had brought the spring back into her blood. - -The wife who had gone away had been shrinking, careworn; she had worn -shabby bonnets of her own trimming, dresses she had turned and turned -about again. This one had the quiet, assured manner of a woman -accustomed to travel. She wore a tailor-made fawn coat and skirt, whose -very severity accentuated their style. There was the hall-mark of Paris -on her bonnet of violets. - -Cameron sent a fleeting thought of gratitude to Mortimer, who had made -it possible for his own clothes not to blush beside such garments. They -were a quiet little party, and Challis did most of the talking. Cameron -looked at his wife when she was occupied with the tea-cups; her -searching eyes fastened on him when he turned to speak to his little -daughter. - -Once, when he passed a plate to Challis, she noticed his hands against -the snow of the tablecloth--hands she did not know at all, so rough and -weather-marked and deeply brown they were. But she asked no question; -instinctively she felt there was something to be told to her, and she -hung back from the knowledge, knowing the telling would be pain to him. - -'Oh dear,' said Challis, 'if only you had brought Bart down, too, -daddie, and he was sitting just here on this chair next to me!' - -'I thought it was Hermie you wanted most,' the mother said. - -'Ah, Hermie! I want Hermie to sleep with. No, not to sleep with, for -we sha'n't shut our eyes at all, but just to lie in the dark and talk -and talk.' - -'Roly wanted to come,' Cameron said. 'He's war mad, of course. He's -painted the name Transvaal Vale on the sliprails.' - -'On the what?' said Mrs. Cameron. - -Cameron went darkly red. - -'The--gate,' he said. - -'What else does he do? I want to know about Roly,' Challis said -eagerly. - -'He wears a football jersey most of the time,' said the father, 'and is -to be met at any hour of the day hung all over with the table-knives and -the tin-opener and the cork-screw and the sharpening-steel. Also, he -carries round his neck a string of what I think he calls double bungers. -These are his cartridges. And he came possessed of an old tent in some -way--the railway navvies gave it to him, I believe--and he has pitched -it just outside the back door, and sleeps in it all night.' - -'Oh dear, oh dear! The night air; he will catch a dreadful chill!' -cried the mother, used now to English nights. - -'Not he! He's a hardy little chap,' said Cameron. - -'More, more,' said Challis. 'He's great fun, I think. Tell some more -about him, daddie.' - -'A neighbour, young Stevenson--you remember the Stevensons of Coolooli, -Molly?--gave him half a crown the other day, and of course he went off -to Wilgandra and laid in a stock of crackers. He made a rather -ingenious fortification that he called Spion Kop, and invited us all out -to see it. You don't know Darkie, the cattle dog, of course--we've only -had him four years; Darkie naturally came too. He's rather a curiosity -in his way, old Darkie; seems to have a natural love for fire, and goes -off his head with excitement whenever a cracker is let off or the boys -make a bonfire. Well, he made enough noise barking and yelping over -Roly's display to satisfy even that young man. Presently Roly Put a -whole packet of his double bungers on the top of his fort, and--what he -did not tell me till afterwards--a quantity of blasting powder he had -purloined from the navvies. Then he put a lighted match near a long -piece of string, and cut down to us as hard as he could. Just at the -critical moment, when we were getting our ears ready for the big -explosion, Darkie gave a frantic bark of delight, bounded to the fort -and seized the whole packet in his mouth. There wasn't time even to -shout at him; there came a tremendous explosion, and the air seemed full -of stones and earth and Darkie. The old fellow must have been blown six -feet up in the air. I think we all shut our eyes, not liking the -thought of seeing the poor old dog descend in a thousand pieces. But -when we opened them he was down on the ground barking and yelping with -more furious delight than ever, and except for a badly singed coat and a -burnt tongue, not a bit the worse for his elevation.' - -Mrs. Cameron was looking disturbed. - -'He seems to do very dangerous things,' she said. - -Cameron laughed. - -'That's what Miss Browne says,' he answered; 'but he always turns up -safe and sound.' - -'Miss Browne?' repeated Mrs. Cameron. - -Cameron's eyes dropped to his plate, and he drank deeply at his tea, to -put off the moment of his answer. - -'Who is Miss Browne?' his wife asked again. - -Cameron moved his eyes to a button on her coat. - -'I was obliged to change lady-helps,' he said. - -Mrs. Cameron's face expressed absolute alarm. - -'Miss Macintosh--is not Miss Macintosh still with you? You did not tell -me. Why did she go? How long has she been gone?' - -Cameron looked white. 'Some--little time,' he said; 'she--went to be -married.' - -'And is this other--is Miss Browne as good? Oh, it would almost be -impossible. Have you had to change much?' - -Cameron reassured her on that point. Miss Browne had been with them -ever since Miss Macintosh left. - -'But how long is that? You don't tell me,' she cried. - -Cameron looked at a lower button. - -'Some--time,' he repeated faintly. - -'Jim,' she cried, and almost sharply, 'have you been keeping things from -me? How long has Miss Macintosh been gone?' - -He lifted his eyes and looked at her. The day of reckoning had come. - -'She left six months after you went,' he answered. - -The news held Mrs. Cameron speechless for three minutes. - -'This other person--Miss Browne--is she as good?' she asked at length. - -Cameron breathed hard, and cut a slice of bread. - -'She does her best,' he said, 'but she is not--very capable.' - -'Jim,' said Mrs. Cameron, 'is there anything else? Have you lost your -position?' - -He bent his head a little. He merely nodded, and she might have thought -it a careless nod, only her eyes suddenly saw the trembling of his -work-marked hands. - -'Challis,' she said, 'go away--leave us alone.' - -The child put down her spoon and fork, and vanished. - -Cameron stood up, looking fixedly at the carpet, waiting with bowed head -for her questions. - -[Illustration: 'HAVE YOU HIDDEN ANYTHING ELSE?' SAID MRS. CAMERON.] - -'Have you hidden anything else?' she said, 'Are any of the children -dead?' - -'None of them are dead,' he said. - -'Are any of them deformed or hurt in any way?' - -'None of them are hurt--they are in good health,' he said. - -'Have you ceased to love me?'--her voice was losing the note of fear -that made it hard and unnatural. - -He looked at her, and his eyes swam. - -Her arms were round him, she was kissing him, kissing his wet eyes, his -trembling lips, stroking his cheeks, crying over him. - -'You are afraid to tell me--me, your own little wife--something that -does not matter at all. What can anything matter? We are all alive, -and we love each other as we have done always. Darling, darling, don't -look like that! Put down your head here, here on my breast--my husband, -my darling! This is Molly, who went all through the ups and downs with -you; you never used to be afraid to tell her anything.' - -He tried to speak, but sobs shook him instead. - -'Hush!' she said. 'There, don't talk, don't try to tell me. I know, -darling. You lost the position, and you couldn't get another, and -you're all as poor as poor can be. Pooh! what does that matter? You -have none of you starved, since you are all alive, and the end has come. -Poor hands, poor hands,'--her kisses and tears covered them,--'have they -been breaking stones that the children might have bread?' - -'Molly,' he said, anguished, 'your worst thought cannot picture what I -have brought them to.' - -She trembled a little--Hermie, little Floss, the boys! - -But she laughed. - -'They are alive--they are together, and not in the Benevolent Asylum. -My darling, I don't mind in the very least.' - -'Molly,' he cried, 'you cannot dream how bad it is! It is Dunks' -selection; we have been there four years!' - -She trembled again, for she had seen Dunks' selection, and the memory of -it was yet in her mind. - -But again she laughed. - -'It will have made them all hardy,' she said; 'I can see it has done so, -or Roly wouldn't be sleeping out of doors.' - -'My wife,' he said, 'my wife, my wife!' - -They clung together. - -'The past is gone,' she whispered. 'I will never leave you again.' - -'My wife, my wife!' - -'Together now till death; nothing else shall part us, nothing else.' - -'My wife!' - -Her tears rained down, mingled with his, and fell away into the greyness -of his beard. - -They clung together, and the room and the world faded. They clung -together, and there was no one in all space but themselves and God--God -who had given them into each other's arm once more. - -Challis came to the door--she had knocked twice, to tell them that the -luggage had come from the ship--then she turned the handle, for she -thought they had gone out. - -But those faces! Those faces of the father and mother, wet, uplifted, -almost divine! - -Very softly she closed the door again, and stole away. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - *The Rosery* - - They cling in the moonlight, they kiss each other. - "Child, my child!" and "Mother, mother!"' - - -Bart was on Wilgandra Station to meet them--Bart, healthy-looking and -sinewy, if thin; he wore white flannel trousers, a white linen coat, and -a new straw hat with a new fly-veil attached. Mrs. Cameron had looked -when her husband cried, 'There's Bart,' with eyes that expected to see -an out-at-elbow lad, possibly barefoot, probably ill-developed. But -there was nothing she would have changed. - -'Of course they all wanted to come to meet you,' the boy said, when the -first glad greetings were over, and the great panting, shrieking train -had become just a quiet black thread climbing the side of the next rise. -'But I didn't want to crowd the buggy.' - -'The buggy!' his father said. 'I was just going into the hotel to get -one. I'm glad you thought to order it.' - -'It's Mr. Stevenson's,' Bart said. 'He sent it down this morning for me -to meet you in,' and he led them with much satisfaction to the handsome -roomy sociable he had in waiting. Their own solitary equipage, the -shabby cart drawn by Tramby and driven by young Daly, was in readiness -for the many boxes. - -Once, in carrying the luggage to the cart, Bart and his father found -themselves alone on the station for a moment. Bart gave a laughing -glance from his father's to his own apparel. - -'Isn't it a lark?' he said. 'I feel quite shy of myself, don't you?' - -'Do the girls look nice?' Cameron said anxiously. - -'Spiffin,' said Bart, 'and Miss Browne's got a new dress, and even -curled her hair. I say, have you told mother about Miss Browne?' - -'Yes, she is quite prepared.' - -'And she knows about the selection?' - -'She knows about the selection.' - -'We've--we've been tidying up a bit, dad. I think you'll find it's a -bit--er--tidier.' There was a flush on the boy's cheek, a look of -suppressed excitement in his eyes. 'Let's get on now; the horse doesn't -like to stand, and everything's in.' - -They drove up the road that wound out of civilised Wilgandra away to -parts where the bush took on its wild character again, and rolled either -side of them in unbroken severity and loneliness for miles. - -But it was early winter now, and the thankful land lay smiling and -happy-eyed beneath a cooler sky. Even the newest clearings flaunted -rich carpets of grass, green as grass only springs where a bush fire has -purged the ground for it. The air was fragrant with the bush scents -that rise after rain. A cool, quiet breeze swayed the boughs of the -ocean-waste of trees, here and there it lifted the long string of -warm-coloured bark--autumn's royal rags--that hung from the silvered -trunks. - -Cameron was driving, and mechanically turned the horse's head at the -place where he had always turned for the sliprails of his selection. - -And there were no sliprails! - -He turned an astonished glance at Bart, but the boy's eyes only danced. - -'I'll get down and open the gate,' he said demurely, and jumped down -while his father stared at the neat white gate with The Rosery painted -on in black letters. Could this be Dunks' selection that stretched -before the head of the horse that bore them slowly along? This the -grey, dreary place that had cast its colour over the souls of those who -looked at it. A drive ran up from the gate to the house, not a smooth, -red gravelled drive by any means, but it was cleared and stumped now all -its length and width, and went with pleasant windings between the trees. - -A low white two-rail fence divided the bush and sheep ground from the -land about the house; the small orchard showed freshly ploughed up and -trenched between the trees; a vegetable garden was laid out, and the -peas and beans were above the ground already. The flower-beds near the -house were dug and weeded, as if they had been beds in the Botanical -Gardens; and dahlias, little sunflowers, and cosmea of all shades made a -gay mass of colour. The pixies' hands had even attacked the cottage; -Cameron himself had given it a coat of red paint that had much altered -its forlorn aspect; these new hands had carried the coat of paint even -over the dreary galvanised iron roof, had 'picked out' the chimneys, and -windows, and verandah-posts with white, added a seven-foot verandah all -round, and knocked a French window into the walls here and there. - -'Why,' cried Challis, 'it's the sweetest, darlingest little place I ever -saw! Oh, I never want to go away from it again!' - -Mrs. Cameron was looking with eyes full of pleased surprise. - -'Why, Jim,' she said, 'why, dearest, it is really very nice, very nice -indeed, so peaceful-looking. You did not prepare me for anything like -this.' - -Cameron swallowed a lump in his throat. - -'I didn't prepare myself,' he began; but his wife's hand was fluttering -to the fastening of the sociable door, and her ears were no longer for -him, for Hermie and Roly were running out to meet her. - -Such a rushing into arms, such kissings, such a choking of laughter and -tears! Mrs. Cameron held Hermie to her and from her, and to her again, -and marvelled to find her almost a woman. - -'My pretty girl, my pretty girl!' she said, the fond tears starting, and -Hermie blushed herself into even lovelier colour than before. - -Challis kissed her sister and clung to her a moment, then stood away shy -and pink, almost crying. Hermie's hair was done 'on top,' her dress was -long, so long; she was very pretty and sweet-looking; but oh, there -would never be any whispering and whispering in bed--she was far too -grown up for that. - -Roly came up to the sister and submitted the edge of his left ear to her -kiss. He looked at her critically. - -'Did the Queen cry when you came away?' he said. - -'I didn't notice,' said Challis. 'She was in the garden when I went to -say good-bye, and she waved her handkerchief when I got back to the -house--perhaps she had been crying into it.' - -'Floss, Floss! I want my baby,' the mother's voice was saying. - -Hermie looked about her distressed. - -'Will you take no notice just yet, darling?' she said. 'She is -very--shy, but she won't be able to stay away long; she's hiding -somewhere.' - -'Well, look here,' Roly said, 'I suppose she'll be wanting to come out -here and see you----' - -'Who?' said Challis, who also was looking longingly for the little girl -she was going to put to bed at night. - -'That Queen-woman, of course,' said Roly. 'Look here, you can tell her -straight before she comes I'm not going to take my tent down for her. -You can let her have Miss Browne's bedroom, and you can't see it from -that window. Miss Browne's got a cheek. Wanted me to take it down just -for you and mother, cos she says it's untidy.' - -'Why, we're dying to see the tent, aren't we, mother?' Challis said. - -Mrs. Cameron's arm went round her boy's shoulder, and her lips down to -his round, closely cropped head. He dodged skilfully. - -'Come and see the tent,' he said. Then a gush of gentler feeling came -up in his little boy-heart, and he moved up to her again and rubbed his -head on her arm. 'If you like,' he said, 'I'll let you sleep out in it -to-night, but not her,' and he pointed a finger at Challis; 'she'd get -messing about and trying to tidy up.' - -He dragged them round to the back of the cottage, where the tent stood, -a most dilapidated spread of ragged canvas. - -'Look here,' the owner said, nearly bursting with pride, 'up there, -that's the fly, keeps it cool. I can sit in it on the hottest day.' - -'No one else could,' laughed Bart. - -Roly took no heed of the depreciation. - -'See that? That's my water-bag; hang it in a draught, and it's as cool -as you like.' - -'No,' said Bart again, 'only as _you_ like.' - -'See this? Keep my meat in it, flies can't get in, hang it up out of -the way. Here's my gridiron--here's my frying-pan.' - -'Why,' cried Hermie, 'Miss Browne's been looking for the frying-pan all -the morning!' - -'Let her cook her things in the oven,' said Roly. 'See this? It's my -bunk, made it myself--just legs of trees, and you stretch canvas on it. -No sheets for me, only this blue blanket----' - -The blanket moved convulsively, a little brown bare foot was sticking -out of one end of it, a strand of straight light hair showed at the -other. - -'Flossie!' the mother cried, and made a rush at the bunk. - -The small girl sat up. - -'Go away!' she said. 'Go away! I won't be kissed. I'm not your girl. -Keep your old dolls for yourself.' - -'Flossie,' cried the mother, 'Flossie!' and tried to gather her up as if -she had been two instead of seven, and tried to kiss her; but Floss -covered her face tightly with her bony little hands. - -'Floss,' said Cameron, 'don't be ridiculous. Kiss your mother, and why -are you not dressed?' - -Hermie was looking ready to cry. Had she not herself put the child a -clean white frock on, and tried to curl her hair and seen her into shoes -and stockings? And here was the naughty little thing barefoot, and in a -ragged print frock! - -'Kiss your mother,' Cameron said sternly, the surprised pain on his -wife's face angering him against the child. - -Floss turned a sullen little face to her mother, but her lips did not -move. - -'Now kiss Challis,' the father said; for the mother, stooping over the -child, had hidden it from him that he had only been half obeyed. Challis -came forward to put a loving arm round the ragged shoulder. But Floss -struggled to the ground, dived under the bunk, dragged at one of the -tent-pegs, and was out and flying off to the bush like a wild rabbit -before any one could stop her. - -'Go and fetch her back, Bart,' Cameron said, extreme annoyance in his -tone. - -'It was to be expected,' Mrs. Cameron said, but she looked a little -white. 'We mustn't force her; you must let me lay siege to the fortress -my own way.' - -They went into the cottage, and Miss Browne showed herself--Miss Browne, -with her usual strands of hair in little tight curls round her forehead, -and a ready-made blouse and skirt of white pique vainly endeavouring to -accommodate itself to her figure. - -'Oh dear!' she said, 'most ashamed, most grieved, Floss, peculiar -disposition, soon come round, hope a pleasant journey, hot, dusty, must -be hungry, Roly, ashamed, grieved, most untidy tent, unwilling to take -it down, like to wash and take hats off, bedroom, show the way, dinner, -hoped they would like it, not what they were accustomed to, holes in -curtains, had not had time to mend them, must excuse table, afraid not a -good manager, ignorant many things.' - -'Everything is very nice,' Mrs. Cameron said. 'I am quite sure you have -always done your best. Mr. Cameron has told me how hard you have -worked, and you must let me thank you for it. There, there, I am afraid -you have overtired yourself preparing for us. Don't trouble any more, -we are going to shake down into place at once, Challis and I, and forget -we have ever been away.' - -'Oh, my love,' said Miss Browne, 'my dear, oh, my love!' and went away -into the kitchen, and wept happily all the time she helped Lizzie to -dish up the dinner. - -'Be quick,' said Roly, as the travellers went to a bedroom to take off -their hats, 'there's fowls for dinner. It's Bluey, and Speckle, and -Whitey. Whitey'll be the fattest, he was mine.' - -'Oh dear,' said Hermie, as she shut the bedroom door, 'I wish he hadn't -said that. Now father won't eat any. He never eats meat at all, but he -likes poultry unless any one says anything like that. He says he likes -to think of dinner just as dinner, and hates to remember the things have -once been walking about. Now it won't be roast fowl at all to him, but -just Whitey.' - -'I don't think he heard,' said Challis; 'he was looking at the roses on -the dinner-table, and saying, "I hope they didn't break my Souvenir de -Terese Levet when they plucked these."' - -Hermie laughed. - -'Dear old dad!' she said. 'Mother, I don't know how he could have done -so long without you if it had not been for his roses.' - -'I must go down and see them,' the mother said, and tossed her bonnet -off hastily. 'See, he is already going out to them. Is there time -before dinner, darling? Plainly he can't wait any longer.' - -She went through the long window on to the verandah, and caught him up. - -Challis was taking off her hat, brushing her hair, removing the signs of -travel with a dainty deftness born of so frequent journeys. Hermie's -eyes followed her everywhere. They saw a girl not tall for her fourteen -years, slender, not over strong-looking. Soft light hair fell away down -her back, curlless, waveless. The greyish, hazel eyes were full of quiet -shining, the face was thin, yet soft and childish, the mouth sensitive, -a little sad. - -'Oh,' she said, 'the smell of the soap, Hermie! I can see the other -bedroom so well--the Wilgandra one, and your bed was near the fireplace, -and mine had white tassels on, and there was a pink vase on the -washstand for our tooth-brushes.' - -Hermie looked in slight bewilderment at the pieces of common household -soap that her sister held; she did not realise that the girl had seen -and smelt nothing but scented since she went away, and that this plain -yellow piece was pungent with the old days. - -'Where am I going to sleep, Hermie?' said the little girl, and her heart -throbbed with the hope that Hermie would cry, 'With me, of course.' - -'Bart is going to sleep out in the tent with Roly,' Hermie said, hanging -up the well-cut little travelling-coat with a sigh for its style. -'You'll have his room.' - -'Where do you sleep?' Challis ventured. - -'Dad and Bart built me a little room across there,' said Hermie. - -'And Floss?' - -'Her cot is in Miss Browne's room.' - -Challis was glad bed-time was still some hours off; she had never yet -slept in a room all to herself, but did not like to tell Hermie so. - -Roly banged at the door. 'There you go,' he said, 'grabbing everything, -Hermie. She wants to come out and finish looking at the tent.' - -'Finish looking at your grandmother!' laughed Hermie, then blushed -vexedly. That was such a favourite phrase of Bart's she unconsciously -fell into it herself; but what would Challis think of such slang, -Challis, who was used to the conversation of cultured, travelled people? -Challis, who looked such a little lady in her well-cut English-looking -clothes, and spoke with the clipped, clear pronunciation her mother had -insisted upon all these years? - -Challis, of course, would think her a boor, an uneducated, unrefined -Australian back-blocks girl. Well, whose fault was it if she was?' She -turned to her sister coldly. 'If you have finished we may as well go.' - -Challis followed her meekly. - -'Flossie,' said the mother, going into a bedroom when it was eight -o'clock at night, and the rebel had come in and put herself to bed, -'I've just been unpacking my box and found this for Hermie. Do you -think it is pretty?' - -She held up the daintiest of hats. - -Flossie looked at it, then squeezed her eyes up tight. - -'Don't want to see it,' she said. - -'We are unpacking the boxes,' the mother said; 'I thought you might like -to put your dressing-gown on and come and watch.' - -'Don't want to watch,' said Floss; 'haven't got any dressing-gown.' - -Mrs. Cameron was standing in the bedroom doorway. She held out a box of -fascinating doll's tea-things. - -'Those are rather pretty, aren't they?' she said. 'We almost decided on -a blue set, but then these little pink flowers seemed so fresh-looking -we took it.' - -Flossie sent a devouring gaze to the beautiful boxful through the bars -of her cot. Then she squeezed her eyes up tightly again. - -'Wouldn't look at them,' she said. - -The mother went away, and the darkness deepened in the room, and Floss -lay gazing with hard eyes at a patch of light thrown from the -living-room lamp upon the ceiling. - -Her heart swelled more and more; she pictured miserable scenes in which, -while the rest of the family flaunted about in silk, she, Floss, was -attired in rags and had crusts only to eat. - -'Only,' she muttered to herself, 'I won't eat them, and then I'll die, -and p'r'aps she'll be sorry.' - -There was a movement in the room. - -'I think I'll lie down quietly on your bed for an hour, Miss Browne,' -the mother's voice was saying; 'it will do my head good. Yes, thank -you, I have the bottle of lavender water here; I never travel without -getting a bad head.' - -Miss Browne shook up the pillows and left her; this idea of making -capital out of the headache was her own. 'Flossie never can bear any -one to suffer,' she said. 'I always remember when I first came here, -and she was only about three, some one cut a snake in half along the -road. And what must the child do but rush from us and pick up one -half--by the mercy of God, the tail half! You remember, Hermie? Bart, -my love, you can't have forgotten that shocking day? She came running -back to us crying dreadfully, and with that horrible thing in her hands. -"Mend it, mend it!" she sobbed "oh, poor sing, poor sing, mend it -twick!"' - -So Mrs. Cameron went to lie on the bed far from Floss, and to sigh -occasionally, once or twice to moan, as indeed she could, for her -headache was severe. - -At the sighs there were restless movements in the cot; at the first moan -the little figure climbed over the rail. - -'I don't mind bathing your head,' she said, her voice a little unsteady. -'Is it hurting you much?' - -'Yes,' sighed the mother, 'it is very bad.' - -Floss dipped her handkerchief in the water-jug, and kept laying it -softly on the aching forehead. For ten minutes Mrs. Cameron allowed -herself to be thus ministered to, and presently the child sat down on -the bed, almost within the arm that yearned to circle her. 'Would you -like me to fan it?' she whispered. 'Fanning is good.' - -'I would rather you laid your little hand on it,' said the mother. - -The little hand lay there instantly. - -'I think a kiss on it would do it more good than anything else,' -whispered the mother, 'just a little one, sweetheart, sweetheart.' - -'I couldn't,' quavered Floss. 'I promised faithfly and somenley.' - -'Promised who?' - -'Me.' - -'What do you mean?' - -'When you say, "See my finger wet, see it dry, cut my throat suresever I -die," you've got to keep to it.' - -'And you promised yourself like that that you wouldn't kiss -me--me--mamma, who has been away for years and years breaking her heart -for her little baby.' - -'Oh,' gasped Floss, the fortress nearly down, 'but we might have got -dropsy, truly, dropsy and deafness, me and Roly; May Daly's mother says -so; you gen'ally get them after measles.' - -'But you didn't, you didn't, Tiny. I prayed and prayed over the seas to -God to take care of you all for me, and I knew He would. See how well -and strong you all are! But ah, I never thought Tiny would break my -heart like this.' - -Her voice quivered--fell away; Floss, putting up an uncertain hand -through the darkness, found the cheek above her quite wet. - -'Mother!' she cried, and was face downward in a minute sobbing -relievedly on her mother's breast. - -When they had lain together happy and quiet for a little time, the -mother stirred to go, for Miss Browne must come to bed. - -Floss gave her a final hug. 'I do love you,' she said. - -'My baby,' murmured the mother. Floss shook back her straight hair and -climbed off the bed and got into her own. - -'But I'm not going to let that Challis off,' she said. 'I'll just have -to take it out of her.' - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - *Crossing the Veldt* - - 'Why criest them for thy hurt? Thy pain is incurable.' - 'Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.' - 'Thus saith the Lord, Such as are for death, to death - and such as are for the sword, to the sword.' - _Jeremiah_. - - -His good horse under him, a thunder-clouded sky above, a strange country -astretch on every side, Mortimer was off, despatches in his pocket from -his own colonel to the colonel of an Imperial regiment stationed some -hundred and thirty miles away. - -The day hung heavy from the sky, the land lay sad hearted and -patient-eyed beneath it. - -Yet now for the first time in all the weeks he had been on African soil -Mortimer felt at home with his surroundings, even happy in them. The -tumultuous days that lay behind him--he felt that some other, not he, -had been living them. The frantic excitement of the send-off, the days -at sea, the storm or two, the troubles with the horses, the uneventful -landing on the unfamiliar shores, the hurried packing off up country by -train, the feverish days and nights in camp at the bewildered little -village that saw the armies of the greatest nation on earth swarming -about its quiet fields, his first patrol and the fierce whizz and rattle -of marvellously harmless bullets from a deserted-looking kopje, his -first battle, with its horrid nightmare of flashing lights and -thundering guns, its pools of blood, its contorted human faces, its -agonised horses writhing in the dust--these were all nothing to him now, -but the coloured bits of glass one shakes about in a kaleidoscope. - -The smell of tents and of spent gunpowder was no longer in his nostrils; -the brown earth alone sent up its homely odour, and he drew the breath -of it in with thankfulness. Such a quiet country; silent little farms -asleep in the afternoon's sunshine, their crops long since ready, but -gathered only by the birds. The cottages, some of them empty of all -signs of habitation, some of them with their doors carefully locked on -all a woman's treasure of furniture and homely things. - -Here and there the sheep had not been driven off, but cropped placidly -at the plentiful pasturage. Mortimer's heart went out to the brown soft -things. - -On and on he rode, finding his way with a bushman's instinct for the -right path. - -The sky grew grey and more grey. - -Up from the west rolled a great woollen cloud that drooped lower and -lower till it burst with a sudden fury over the land, as if shrapnel -shells charged with hail had exploded in mid-air. Mortimer put up his -collar, and ducked his head to the heavy ice-drops that struck him on -every side. He looked in vain for shelter; the veldt rolled smooth and -gently undulating in all directions, and no tree was anywhere. To the -left a kopje loomed in the darkness ahead, to the right he had seen when -on the last rise the white gleaming palings and lights of a farm. He -pulled his watch out, and just made out in the rapidly falling darkness -that it was eight o'clock. His colonel had advised him to camp for the -night somewhere, lest he should lose his way in the darkness, and start -off again at earliest dawn. He rapidly resolved to make the farm his -halting-place, should, as was most likely, it prove to be unoccupied. -The rumour that two lines of defence would join across this part of the -country had swiftly cleared the sparsely occupied place. The thought of -camping among the rocks of the kopje he did not entertain, having by -this the same firmly rooted distrust of that kind of geological -formation that the British soldier will carry henceforth in all ages. -He forced his plunging horse along; the terrified beast was trembling in -every limb with fright at the blinding lightning. - -The sound of voices on the road made him push forward harder than ever, -his hand going swiftly to the pocket that held his revolver; then he -found it was women's voices he heard, a woman's cry of anguish came -after him. He wheeled his horse round, and went back slowly, almost -feeling his way in the darkness. - -A flash of lightning showed him a cart with a fallen horse, an old man, -and three girls. - -'What's wrong?' he asked. - -The old man began to explain rapidly in Dutch, but a girl who was -stooping over the horse rose up and came to him. - -'Our horse has been struck,' she said in perfectly good English; 'one -wheel was struck too, and blazed for a minute, but the rain has put it -out.' - -'Are none of you hurt?' said Mortimer. - -'None; it is wonderful!' said the girl. - -'Then run along all of you as hard as you can,' said Mortimer. 'There's -a farm and shelter I think quite close. I'll take the old man up on my -horse.' - -'We can't leave the cart,' said the girl. - -'Oh, confound the cart!' said Mortimer, struggling with his plunging -horse. 'You can get it after the storm is over.' - -'We have some one in it,' said the unemotionable voice of the girl. 'He -is dead.' - -Again the anguished cry of one of the other girls rose through the rain. - -Mortimer rode round the cart twice before he could think what to do. - -'Whose farm is it? Is any one living on it?' he said. - -'It is ours,' said the girl; 'we were almost home.' - -'Who is at the farm--how many?' Mortimer said, having no inclination to -run the risk of being made a prisoner before his despatches were safe. - -'My mother, we girls, our grandfather here, and some children.' - -'I think I had better put up my horse in the shafts,' said Mortimer, -'though I much doubt if he'll go.' - -'It is no use, the wheel is broken,' said the girl. 'We were just going -to carry him home, only they will not do anything but cry. Anna, Emma, -for shame! What use are tears? Come, we are strong; let us carry him -out of this rain.' The girls still moaned and wept, however, and she -spoke sharply again to them, this time in Dutch, the language in which -their lamentations had been. - -'See here,' said Mortimer, 'I will take him up on my saddle.' He -dismounted and went to the cart and felt about nervously. The -English-speaking girl lifted up a rug, and there on pillows on the cart -lay a dead young Boer. - -'Are you sure he's dead?' Mortimer said. The hands, though wet with -rain, were hardly stiff, the body had some faint warmth. - -The girl was helping him to lift. - -'He is quite dead,' she said. 'He was wounded and going down by train -to a Hospital. But as he passed this place, his home, he made them put -him out on the station, and send for us to take him home. We brought the -cart and pillows, but he had died in the waiting-shed before we got -there. We are taking him home to bury.' The other girls shrilled loudly -again. 'Anna, Emma,' she said, with more sharp words in Dutch. Then, -excusingly, to Stevenson, and with pity in her voice, 'He was to have -married one of them, the other is his sister.' - -Mortimer got the dead man up before him, held him with one arm and rode -slowly, the girls and the old man hurrying by his side. The farm lay -about a quarter of a mile away. The English-speaking girl opened the -gate. - -'There is a ditch all the way up; don't stumble in it,' she said. 'I -must go on and warn his mother.' She ran forward in the darkness. A -turn in the path, and the lamplight from the farmhouse sent out its rays -into the night. Some children, small boys chiefly, clustered at the -door; in front of them stood the girl and another woman, fifty or sixty -years old. - -Mortimer with their aid lifted his burden down, and laid it on a bed in -an inner room. He gave a fearful glance at the elder woman, the man's -mother. She was a big woman, not fat, like the Boer women generally -are, but of angular outline, and with sharp high cheek-bones, and brown -piercing eyes. - -She was of English parentage, married in early girlhood to a Boer -farmer, and become mother of one daughter and six sons. Her husband had -fallen with the handful at Jameson's Raid; two sons had with their -life-blood helped on the British reverse at Modder River, one lay buried -on the field at Elandslaagte, one at Magersfontein, one had been flung -in the river at Jacobsdal, here was the sixth come home to her. - -She turned from the bed a moment to her niece, the English-speaking -girl, who had been a teacher in Johannesburg, but had come to her aunt -for refuge at the beginning of the war, and remained as mainstay of the -farm. - -'Take those shrieking girls out of my hearing, Linda!' she said. 'Let -no one come in to me.' She closed the door of the bedroom in their -faces. - -Linda turned away. - -'I must get some hot drinks,' she said. 'Grandfather and the girls will -take cold. Where are you going?' - -'Oh, I'll get along now,' said Mortimer. - -'Nonsense!' said the girl; 'you must dry yourself and eat and drink.' -She moved towards the kitchen. - -'Oh,' said Mortimer, 'I'd better go. Just think, I might have been one -of the lot who knocked that poor chap over.' - -'We cannot stay to think of that,' the girl answered. 'You helped us; -you must stay till the storm is over.' - -'But,' urged Mortimer again, 'how will _she_ feel?' and he glanced at -the closed bedroom door. - -'Oh, she understands,' said Linda; 'her feeling is not against -individuals. Your soldiers have eaten and rested here three or four -times, for we are almost the only people left. We stay because we have -nowhere to go, and we none of us care what happens.' - -Mortimer went to the door. - -'I must see to my poor horse,' he said presently. - -The girl summoned the stolid-faced little boys--sons they were of the -sons who were slain. She gave them a lantern, and bade them show the -strange guest the stables. Then she ran to the kitchen herself. - -Mortimer was twenty minutes drying down his horse, feeding it, making it -comfortable, for the fate of his despatches rested on its welfare. Then -he went back to the kitchen. - -The mother was there. She had left her dead after a few minutes, to -busy herself with the task of getting all the wet figures into dry -garments. She was mixing drinks, hot, strong drinks that made the girls -blink and choke even while it restored them. She had the grandfather -wrapped in rugs, sitting closest of all to the fire. - -When Mortimer stood in the doorway, dripping helmet, dripping khaki -suit, she moved towards him. - -'Drink this,' she said, and gave him a deep mug of hot liquid. - -He swallowed it gratefully, for the cold seemed in his very bones. - -'Here are some clothes,' she said, and picked up a rough farming-suit -that she had laid in readiness on a chair--'here is a room.' She -stepped across the passage. 'Change at once, and hand me your wet -things to dry.' - -Mortimer obeyed her, and, after doing so, sat down on the bed to await -the call to eat of the food the girl Linda was preparing. - -And then outraged nature took her revenge. He had not slept for -fifty-six hours; he had been in the saddle eighteen hours of yesterday, -and twelve of to-day. It was three hours before he knew anything more, -and then it was only his cramped position on the bed that woke him; -except for that he would have slept the clock round. - -He sat up numbed, his heart beating suffocatingly. Where were his -despatches? What clothes were these he wore? He fell to his feet, a -groan of horror bursting from him. What was this he had done--raw, -careless, culpable soldier that he was? He had never taken the -envelopes from the clothes he had handed the woman--the woman whose -sons' and husband's deaths lay at his country's door, still unavenged! -Two strides took him down the hall to the kitchen, his face was like -ashes. All the little house lay still as the tall, thin young farmer -who, in the front room, was taking his rest for ever from the ploughing -of fields, the sowing and reaping of crops, the blind and strenuous -guarding of his land and liberty at the command of those in the high -places. - -The fire still burnt brightly in the grate. Linda sat before it so -plunged in mournful thought she did not hear the young bushman's -footfall. - -Across one side of the fire a clothes-horse stood holding the draggled -skirts of the girls, the grandfather's moleskin clothes, the familiar -khaki of the uniform he had disgraced. - -His hand clutched the coat convulsively; beads of sheer terror stood on -his forehead. Then he sat down suddenly, the passion of relief bringing -the tears of relief to his eyes. - -The papers were there untouched; the long envelopes with the red army -seal upon them stuck up out of his breast-pocket in full view! That -woman, the mother whose sons were dead, that clear-headed young girl, -they must both have known the importance of the papers, yet neither had -laid a finger upon them, since he was their guest, their helper! - -Linda smiled at him in a pale way. - -'You have come to say you are hungry,' she said. 'I went to your room -twice, but you slept so soundly I thought the food might wait.' She put -a dish before him, meat and vegetables mixed up together. 'This is hot, -at least, and nourishing,' she said. - -He thanked her, his voice still thick from agitation, then ate while she -went back to her morbid gazing at the glowing fire. - -'Do you know it is twelve o'clock?' he said presently. 'Won't you go to -bed? I am afraid you have sat up to keep this fire alight for the -food.' - -She pushed back the thick hair from her forehead. No one could call her -pretty, but the clear eyes and the patience and strength of the young -mouth struck one. - -'I think I was trying to see the end of the war,' she said, sighing; -'but it takes better sight than mine.' - -'You?' he said pityingly. 'Have you lost any one very near--nearer than -these cousins?' - -She blenched a moment. - -'One of them,' she said. 'I had been married to one of them--a week. -We will not speak of that.' - -He begged her pardon, his throat thick again. - -She fought her lip quiet. - -'Oh,' she said, 'it is the same everywhere; our lovers, our husbands, -our sons--all gone from us! Some will come back, of course, but crushed -and mutilated. A little time, and your army will only have a handful of -women to contend against.' - -'We, too,' he said, 'we have lost our brothers, our fathers, our sons. -Everywhere we have women mourning.' - -'Yes,' she said, 'I suppose so.' She sat silent a little time. 'But -then it was you who came,' she urged again. 'We used to be quiet and -happy in our own way, even if we were unprogressive and unintelligent. -It seems, to a woman, we might have been left alone.' - -'Ah, but,' he said, 'there were bigger issues than that at stake. You -have read--I can see that you have read--you must know why we are -fighting.' - -'Somewhere at the top,' she said, with a wan smile, 'there may be a -few--a very few--on both sides who know. But our men don't know. They -have been told they will lose their liberty and homes if they don't -fight; that is all any of my cousins knew, and they went off to death, -not cheerfully, but because there was nothing else to be done. Your -men, of course they come because they are sent, and they fight their -best because they are brave and obey orders. We have been -insolent--isn't that what you say of us?--and we must be crushed. But -some of you must know the rights of it all. Think how much wiser you -are than we. You read while we plough. Those of you who know should -stay behind.' - -'No,' he smiled; 'that is not our way either. We are no different from -you. We pay a few great men to do the thinking for us, and if they say -it's got to be fighting, then, whatever it seems to us individually, -collectively we just shoot.' - -The fire burnt lower and lower; it was the only light in the room, for -the oil-lamp, exhausted, had died out. Outside the rain still fell in -straight soaking sheets over the thatched roof of the little house. A -wind moaned restlessly over the empty country; you fancied it was lost -and full of woe, because it had no trees to wander through. Once or -twice a horse whinnied, once or twice there came through the night the -inexpressibly mournful sound of the bleat of a sheep. You felt the rain -was like no other rain at all; it seemed as if the land, swollen-eyed, -was weeping in the quiet of midnight for its unutterable woes. - -The girl's head drooped back against the wall. Sleep had claimed her; -but, by the anguish of the mouth and the pitiful stirring of the breast, -you knew it was but to show her the body of her young husband, cast with -a score of others in a trench, all wet with red. - -Stevenson sat, a cold sweat upon his brow; he felt he was the only soul -awake on all the frightful continent. - -Then through the silence of the house came a woman's voice reading the -Bible--the mother seated a foot away from her quiet son. The thin wood -offered no resistance to the sound of her voice. - -'"Gather up thy wares out of the land, O thou that abidest in the siege. -For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the -land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it. Woe -is me for my hurt! My wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my -grief, and I must bear it."' - -The sound of the voice pierced into Linda's wretched slumbers. She -opened dilated eyes, and stared wildly at Mortimer. And the voice went -on again: - -'"My tent is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone -forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent -any more, and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds are become -brutish, and have not inquired of the Lord: therefore they have not -prospered, and all their flocks are scattered. The voice of a rumour, -behold it cometh, and a great commotion out of the north country, to -make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling-place of jackals."' - -'Oh,' said the girl with a sobbing breath, 'it is only aunt, of course; -she often reads aloud like that. But, oh, I have had such dreams--such -frightful dreams!' - -The voice went on. - -'"O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man -that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, correct me"'--the tone of the -voice fell a little--'"but with judgment; not in Thine anger, lest Thou -bring me--to nothing."' - -'I dreamt--I dreamt,' said the girl, pressing both hands on her -throbbing heart--'ah, I could never tell you what I dreamt!' - -'Hush,' said Mortimer, 'don't try, don't try! Won't you go to your -room, and try to sleep in comfort?' - -She looked at him with distended eyes. - -'I daren't,' she said. 'O God, I never shall dare to sleep again!' - -The voice rose; the horrible exultant thrill in it made the flesh creep. - -'"Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the -families that call not on Thy name: for they have devoured Jacob, yea, -they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his -habitation."' - -The girl staggered to her feet. - -'I will go and sit with her,' she said; 'she should not be alone.' - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - *A Skirmish by the Way* - - -At earliest dawn Mortimer was up and away again. - -Linda had risen up and prepared breakfast for him; quiet, capable, -busied with frying-pan, fire, the setting of a place at table; he looked -at her as she moved about the kitchen, and wondered had not the sight of -her face of agony last night been a dream? She even rallied him a -little. - -'You must eat well,' she said, as she put fried eggs and bacon before -him--the pleasantest meal he had eaten since he had left Sydney; 'you -don't want to be out another night with those despatches of yours -loose.' - -'I want shooting,' he said, his forehead burning. - -'Oh no,' she said, 'you are young yet to it all; you will have plenty of -time to learn carefulness before the war is over.' - -'I hope so,' he said. - -'I am afraid so,' she assented. - -Something struck him. That soldier-farmer in the quiet front room--who -was to bury him? who dig his grave? - -'If I had thought,' he said, 'I would have done it myself the--the -grave, you know--instead of having breakfast. You girls cannot do it. -Is the old man strong enough? I would do it now, but my time is not my -own.' He looked at his watch. - -'I have sent the three little boys to Du Toit's farm,' she said, 'five -miles away, to ask them to send two of their Kaffir boys down. All of -ours have gone off.' - -He shook hands with her when he was going, thanked her for all she had -done. - -'It is nothing,' she said; 'we have to thank you, yet we don't, you -notice. It is war-time. Good-bye.' - -The grey air freshened as the sun climbed foot by foot up over the great -kop to the east. The night's storm had left the veldt fragrant as our -own bush after rain. The deserted farms looked at him, a mist of sleep -and forgetfulness in their eyes. Those every-day fences, those gates -made for farmers to pass through, farmers' daughters to lean on watching -for their lovers, farmers' children to swing on--was it possible half a -dozen regiments had gone crashing through and over them, hastening to -headquarters only a week before? - -Mortimer looked at the healthy land with a bushman's appreciative eyes. -He wondered now many sheep the farms held. A Boer prisoner at the camp -had told him the country carried a sheep to six acres, an ostrich to -twelve, and a horse to twenty. He speculated loosely on the chances -there would be for an army of drought-ruined Australian settlers to come -here after the war with modern implements and knowledge, and astonish -these pastoralists, who were a century at least behind Europe in the way -of agriculture. - -'Even Cameron's ahead of them,' Mortimer thought, his mind reverting -sadly to the poor little selection at Wilgandra that bounded Hermie's -life. - -A heavy waggon went past drawn by a span of mules, and driven by a -Kaffir, who cracked a whip of such length that the ordinary stockwhip -was nowhere beside it. - -A bent old man, with a cart of vegetables and a horse too decrepit for -the war, crept by. Smoke in a place or two went up from the chimneys of -the scattered farmhouses. The continent was awake. - -Riding yesterday, Mortimer had never known when he might run into a Boer -picket, but the farther he went now the danger lessened--in another -dozen miles he ought to be somewhere about the beginning of the line the -British had made to defend a railway. And after that his ride would lie -through country dotted over by the British army. - -He pushed on; his horse was fresh and ready again after the night's rest -and a couple of good feeds; his own spirits, chiefly owing to his -excellent breakfast, began to rise again and push his carelessness from -the chief place in his mind; he grew aflame for a chance to prove his -courage, and respect himself once more. Before he left the camp it had -been held that a big engagement was certain in a very few days; his mind -leapt forward to it now with a keenly sharpened appetite, and he beheld -himself making famous his country's name by impossible feats of -strength. - -Crack! To the left of him a firearm went off; the bullet passed clear -over his head, and rattled on some loose stones as it fell. - -He glanced round less in fear than astonishment. At the spot the veldt -was singularly clear, and the nearest kopje was far beyond rifle-range. -Whir! A second shot struck his helmet, a third grazed his shoulder! -His horse plunged and reared; he spun it round and faced a clump of -karoo bushes twenty yards to his left, the only place from which the -shots could have come, and even these seemed absurd, for no shrub was -more than two or three feet high. He raised his revolver; his finger -was at the trigger. Then he saw three small faces over the edge of one -of the bushes--three that he knew; they were the stolid, secret-looking -little boys who had lighted him to the stable last night. - -[Illustration: HIS HORSE PLUNGED AND REARED.] - -'The little sweeps!' he muttered, but moved his finger from the trigger, -even though he kept the revolver cocked at them. - -'Do you want me to blow the brains of all three of you out?' he called. -'Lay down those guns this minute, or I will.' He was close up to them, -and a sharp glance among the sparse bushes showed him that beyond these -small youths he had no other attackers. At the sight of British might -in the concrete form of a mounted soldier standing right over them, two -of the lads instantly laid down their ponderous old style weapons. The -third essayed another shot, but his rifle kicked and the bullet went -wild. - -'You young beggar!' said Stevenson; 'put it down this instant.' - -The lad obeyed sullenly; he was the eldest of the three, and yet not -more than twelve; a thickset boy with a heavy, brooding face and fine -eyes. - -'And what's the meaning of this little performance?' said Mortimer. - -Two of the boys had very little knowledge of English, but the eldest had -been quick to pick it up from his grandmother and Linda, who had just -become his aunt. - -'You killed our fathers,' he said doggedly. 'They've taken all the good -guns with them, or we wouldn't have missed like this.' - -Mortimer had no doubt of it; as it was, the shots had landed so near to -the mark that it was plain what was the Boer boys' pastime at present. -There was something about the three small lads that reminded Mortimer -irresistibly of Roly--Roly, hung all over with the kitchen cutlery, or -prowling about the bush with a broken-barrelled gun, Roly lying face -downward behind a great ant-bed and picking off his foes at a lightning -rate. He found it hard not to smile. - -'Hand me up those guns,' he said to the eldest boy. - -The boy gave him a stubborn glance, and it needed the discharge of a -cartridge over his head to bring him to obedience. Then he handed the -poor old musket up sullenly to the conqueror. - -'See here,' Mortimer said, 'you'll make fine soldiers by-and-by. Don't -go and get yourselves into trouble while you're young, and so ruin your -chances. If it had happened to be some one less in a hurry than I am, -he'd have marched you over and seen you among the prisoners, just to -keep you out of mischief.' - -'He'd have to catch us first,' said the boy, with a defiant smile. - -'There is such a thing as putting a bullet into the legs,' said Mortimer -gravely. 'But now cut along and fetch those Kaffirs for your aunt.' - -The boys turned round and struck off dejectedly in a new direction; they -had come three miles off the road their aunt had sent them by to execute -this plot, secretly formed by the eldest boy, for killing off one at -least of the enemy. - -When Mortimer looked round again, they were mere specks on the veldt. - -'Poor little beggars!' he said, smiling as he thought over the adventure -again. He flung two of the rifles into the river; the third he carried -with him as far as the British camp, and gave it to some one of the -ambulance there, promising a five-pound note if it were kept safely till -the end of the war. - -'Roly'll go off his head at such a trophy,' he thought. - -He handed in his despatches not many hours later, with no further -adventures. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIX* - - *The Mood of a Maid* - -'Do you know what it is to seek oceans, and to find puddles, to long for -whirlwinds, and have to do the best you can with the bellows? That's my -case.' - - -Bartie had gone up to Coolooli for the afternoon. Old Mr. Stevenson had -taken a great fancy to the boy, and prophesied that he had the making of -a fine squatter in him. - -Stevenson had ridden in to the selection on his way from Wilgandra. It -was not often he passed the neat new gate in these days without turning -in. He always felt a pleasant glow of conscious virtue, as his eyes -marked all the improvements that had so suddenly sprung up. - -'Me boy's pleasing me,' he would mutter. 'It wasn't much to ask.' - -He told the surprised Cameron that it was his fad to leave none of his -property unimproved, and that he was merely making the trial on this -particular selection, to see what might be done with a small holding. -Cameron was rather relieved than otherwise that he no longer owned the -place; the money he had borrowed on it at different times was almost -equal to the sum he had paid for it at first. With such a landlord it -was a much less responsible thing to be merely a tenant, especially as -Stevenson, since he had foreclosed, would accept no rent, professing -that he was getting the place ready for some one who could not take -possession for a year or two, and that it was a convenience to him for -Cameron to stay on the place and keep it in order. The long-established -character of the man as hard and close kept any suspicion from Cameron -that he was being helped out of kindness. - -The old man had come in this afternoon to carry Bartie up to Coolooli -with him, to show him the new invention he was about to try for the -destruction of rabbits. Bart rushed off to get his horse ready while -Stevenson stayed talking of the war and his son to Mrs. Cameron. It was -quite a surprise to her when she learned much later that the old man had -five other sons. This one at the front was the only one he ever spoke -about. - -He liked talking to this practical, sensible mother of the family. He -felt amazed that such a shiftless fellow as Cameron should own such a -treasure, and he felt, as he looked at her, that the salvation of the -family would have been assured after her arrival, even if he himself had -not lent a hand. With Hermie his manner was unconsciously somewhat -aggressive, and she shrank from the rugged-faced old man who looked at -her so sharply from under his bushy eyebrows. He saw her one day as he -passed her in the verandah, reading a book fresh from London. Mrs. -Cameron saw to it that the poor girl had time now for such rest and -recreation. - -'Can you make soap and candles?' he said, stopping suddenly in front of -her. - -It was not likely such arts had been learned on Dunks' selection. - -'No,' said Hermie. 'At least, we did try once with the fat to make -soap, but it went wrong.' - -'How would you instruct your men to corn beef or make mutton hams?' - -Hermie looked at him distressed. - -'I have never done any,' she said. - -'Humph!' he growled, and went to untie his horse, muttering, 'A pretty -wife, a pretty wife!' to himself. - -This particular afternoon Bart went off in high spirits, Challis -watching him wistfully from the verandah. - -Hermie was--oh, who knew where Hermie was? Wandering up and down among -the roses perhaps, her eyes soft with tears--Challis had found her like -that two or three times--or reading poetry in some quiet corner in the -paddocks, or writing it in the secret solitude of her bedroom, or on -Tramby's back riding, riding with dreamy eyes down the road to the -sunset. Wherever she was, she did not want Challis. - -Mrs. Cameron was with her husband. Up and down the path they walked, -his arm round her waist, her hand in his, talking, talking a little of -the future, not at all of the quivering past, mostly of the tender -all-sufficing present. Challis, who had had such sweet monopoly of her -mother for so long, missed it exceedingly now, while readily acquiescing -that the turn for the others had come. She looked from the verandah -with yearning eyes. It seemed months instead of weeks since she had -poured all her hopes and imaginings and longings and queer little -fancies into that ever-ready ear. - -Roly? Roly was killing his Boers down in the paddock, or wheeling heavy -loads of earth to make kopjes in the bush. He would tell her to 'clear -out of the way of lyddite shells,' if she sought him out. - -Floss? Floss, who hated a needle, was sitting on the grass making, with -incredible labour, a pincushion for the mother she had begun to love -with an almost fierce affection. Challis would have liked to go and help -her, but the child, if she pricked her fingers till they were empty of -blood, would have no stitch set in it that was not her own. Furthermore, -all the dreams on the Utopia were dispersed. Challis had never buttoned -one of the little girl's garments, never tied a sash, never brushed out -a curl. The small woman had dressed herself independently ever since -she was three, and indignantly scorned all help; she hated sashes--her -straight light hair she raked herself. And though she accepted in an -offhand fashion the toys Challis had chosen with such love and interest, -she kept up an inexplicably warlike attitude towards her, and deprecated -her on every possible occasion. Her hands--'Pooh! Well, I would be -ashamed to have hands that colour! S'pose you never take your gloves -off?' 'Frightened to walk in the bush 'cause of snakes! Well, some -girls are ninnies!' 'Never been-on a horse--'fraid to get on Tramby! -Why, she--Floss--had galloped all over on Tramby without a saddle when -she was only four!' - -Challis, sensitively aware of her own want of courage to explore and -grow familiar with these bush things, got into the habit of shrinking -away when Floss came on the scene. - -There seemed no niche left for her in this home she had looked forward -to; that was what it was. The place, rightly hers, had filled up -entirely during her long absence. - -No one understood her, or tried to. They took it for granted that her -genius and her life abroad had lifted her to a higher plane than the one -on which they themselves lived. It might be very cultivated and -beautiful up there, but they were not familiar with it, and therefore -did not take any interest in it. - -The girl tried hard to get on to their plane, and be interested in their -things; but they knew she was trying hard, and it merely irritated them. -Let her stay where she belonged. - -It was so lonely, too--so very lonely. Used to the pleasant uproar and -friendliness and excitement of cities, this little clearing in the great -silent bush oppressed her intolerably after a week or two. - -She had been a little ill before leaving Sydney. The doctors had said -her nervous system was completely run down--a shocking thing in a child! -They advised complete rest for several months, and expressed their -opinion that the quiet bush life at Wilgandra and roughing it with -children, who would take her out of herself, would be the best possible -thing for her, and the triumphal career could be resumed later on. - -So there were to be no concerts yet, no happy strivings to interpret -Chopin's varying moods to a breathless audience, to reach up with -Mendelssohn to his pleasant sunlit heights, to go down with Wagner to -strange depths that stirred her soul. She was to practise very little, -to appear in public not at all. The papers expressed their regret at -her illness, and said a kind thing or two. After that her name had no -mention in them. - -One paragraph she had read had touched her to the quick. Some -interviewer who had been to see her in Sydney wrote in his paper, 'Thank -Heaven, she is not pretty! Her chances are hereby much greater.' - -Poor little Fifteen! Her pillow was wet that night. She felt she had -much rather he had said, 'She has no genius, but she is very pretty.' -She longed for Hermie's shining wavy hair, for the sweet blue of her -eyes, the pink that pulsed about her cheeks. Who cared if you could -interpret the waves and storms of Lizst's rhapsodies, and let the keen -little rifts of melody in between the thunder until the almost -intolerable sweetness made the heart ache? Who cared that Leschetizky -himself had taught you and had tears in his eyes once, when you had -played to him the wind in the trees just as he himself heard it? What -did all these things matter? Every one went home from your concerts and -forgot all about you. Oh, surely it were better to be so exquisitely -pretty that all who saw you loved you on the spot! - -She looked at herself again and again in the glass that night. Until -that wounding paragraph, she had never given one thought to her looks; -the sensitive small face, the grey eyes drenched with this new tragedy, -the fair straight hair falling over her shoulders--not pretty, not -pretty, and all the world knew it now! - -She drifted in from the verandah to the living-room, where the piano -stood open as Hermie had left it, when, imagining Challis out of hearing -an hour or two ago, she had sat down to it for a few minutes. But the -cheap tinkling stuff that comprised poor Hermie's _repertoire_--the -jingling waltzes, the pretty-pretty compositions of Gustave Lange and -Brindley Richards, 'Edelweiss' and 'Longing,' 'Warblings at Eve,' and -such--they set her ear horribly on edge, though she would rather have -died than have said so. It were less torture to hear Flossie thumping -conscientiously away at 'The Blue Bells of Scotland' and 'We're a' -Noddin'.' - -The very piano was a heartache; it was seven years since it had been -tuned, and despite the careful dusting of Miss Browne, the silverfish -led a gay existence in its interior, and ate all the softness and depth -from the notes. - -But this afternoon the girl, with that vague misery tugging at her -heart, was driven to it; nothing else could ease her. She put her foot -down on the soft pedal, to keep the discordant jangle away, and avoiding -as much as she could the B that was flat, and the D that was dumb, and -the F sharp that Roly had torn off bodily, she worked off the gloom that -oppressed her with Beethoven and Bach. - -Roly came in. He was arming himself for a new attack on Ladysmith; he -had the kitchen poker and the stove-brush, the tin-opener, a knife from -a broken plough, a genuine boomerang, the corkscrew, the gravy-strainer, -and the carving-knife, disposed about his person, and he came into the -living-room, his eye roving about in search of fresh implements of -warfare. Nothing seemed to appeal to him, however, and he was going out -again discontentedly when he noticed his new sister had dropped her -hands from the keyboard, and was resting her forehead there instead. - -He approached her with some awe. - -'Can you play with your head too?' he asked; then he noticed there were -tears running down her cheeks. 'Don't cry,' he said; 'I'll run out and -ask mother to let you off. Did she say you'd got to practise an hour? -Oh, I'll soon get her to let you off!' - -Challis smiled faintly through her tears. - -'It's all right,' she said; 'don't disturb mother. No one told me to -practise.' - -'Well, you _are_ a muggins!' said the uncouth bushikin. 'Catch _me_ -setting myself a copy or a sum! Why don't you go out and play?' - -Challis let a new tear fall. - -'I don't know how to play at anything,' she said. 'I never had any one -to play with.' - -Roly's breast swelled with magnanimity. - -'Look here,' he said, 'you can be Cronje if you like. Here, you can -have these two for your weapons.' He handed her the stove-brush and the -corkscrew. 'Come on down here, I'll soon show you how to do it.' - -Challis shook her head. - -'No,' she said, 'I'm fifteen; it's too late to learn now. I'll just -have to go on playing and playing at concerts. And who cares when -you're playing your very best, and have practised one composition six -hours a day? Who cares?' She looked at him miserably. - -'Look here, Chall,' he said, a most brotherly, kindly tone in his voice, -'it's only because you play such fat-headed things, that's why they -don't care. I can't listen to them myself. Often when I've been digging -my garden outside the window, and you've started to play, I've just had -to go away. If you'd learn some nice-sounding pieces now, instead of -things like Flossie's scales, only worse! There's Peter Small's sister, -down in W'gandra, you ought to hear _her_ play; she can play "Soldiers -of the Queen," and "Sons of the Empire," and "Absent-Minded Beggar," and -"Girl He Left Behind Him," and all those things, and she jumps her hands -about, and runs up and down, and crosses them just as much as you do. -If you like, I'll ask Peter to get her to lend you them; I'm friends -with Peter just now.' - -Challis smiled and dried her tears. - -'I mightn't be able to play them, Roly,' she said; 'so I don't think -I'll trouble you to ask.' - -'Oh,' said Roly encouragingly, 'you'd soon pick them up. You could -watch her a few times, and notice how she does them. But I'll have to -be going now, Challis, if you don't want me. I'll be down in the bush -at the back, if you want to come and have a try to play. Don't let on -to Brownie that I've collared this.' He pointed to the gravy-strainer -that adorned his breast. I'll bring it back all right.' - -Left alone once more, Challis wandered about the little house. Miss -Browne's door was half open, to let in the evening breeze. Miss Browne -herself, her day's work finished, was sitting at the table writing a -multitude of letters with a happy flush on her cheeks. - -Challis looked on wistfully. - -'Would you mind if I came in and sat with you?' she said. - -Miss Browne dropped her pen and jumped up to welcome her. - -'My dear, my love, why, you know you may; most pleased, most delighted, -whenever you like--honoured, most delighted.' - -Challis stepped into the little room. - - - - - *CHAPTER XX* - - *Miss Browne* - - 'I shall have no man's love - For ever, and no face of children born - Or tender lips upon me. - Far off from flowers or any love of man - Shall my life be for ever.' - - -What was it that broke the barriers down? The wet eyelashes of the -little music-maker? The droop of her soft mouth? Or came there across -that poor room one of those divine waves of sympathy and understanding -that wash at times from a richly endowed soul to a lonely stunted one? - -Miss Browne found herself telling anything and everything that had -happened in her life, and even the things that might have happened. Not -that the whole of them made a sum of any account, if you condensed them; -but, told ramblingly and with pauses for tears, they fell pathetically -on the young listening ears. - -Thirty-eight grey years! Life in this country town and that country -town, in this crowded suburb or on that out-back station or selection--a -hireling always. The first twenty-five had dragged by under English -skies that even in summer had no sun for a motherless, fatherless girl, -pupil-teacher from the age of fourteen. She bore twelve years of it -patiently enough, and indeed would have borne another score, but two -friends, stronger, more restless souls than she, though chained to the -same life, told her they were going to break through it all, strike out -of the stagnant waters of suburban England into the fresh, glittering -sea the other side of the world. - -They were saving their salaries to pay their passage to Australia. -Governesses were royally paid out there, they had heard, and more than -that--they whispered this a little ashamed--husbands grew on every bush. - -Miss Browne scraped and saved for a year, cheerfully shivering without a -winter jacket, happily heedless of the rain that came through the holes -of her umbrella. If it had been a question of economising in her diet, -she would have brought herself down to a crust a day, in her eagerness -to make a plunge into a different life, but fortunately governesses are -'all found.' The three women cheerfully cramped their bodies -third-class for the voyage, letting their souls soar boundlessly in the -pleasant evenings on deck. - -They came to their new land, saw it, and after a few years were -conquered. Almost the same conditions of life, the same sickening -struggle of a multitude of educated women for one poor place, the same -grey outlook. One found a husband; he took her to some heaven-forgotten -corner of North Queensland, where she had for neighbours Japanese and -Chinese and Javanese, and he drank, as the men all do in those forgotten -corners, where alligators are to be found on the river-banks, and -coloured labour crowds out the white man's efforts. She bore him six -children in eight years, and then died thankfully. The second woman -went into a hospital and became a nurse; for the last five years she had -been in Western Australia, kept busy with the typhoid in Perth. Once in -a while she wrote to Miss Browne; once or twice she had eagerly said she -was 'all but engaged,' but later letters never confirmed the hope, and -now a dull commonplace had settled down over the correspondence. - -Miss Browne drifted from place to place, place to place; there was -nothing she was capable of doing really well, and no land has a -hospitable welcome for such. - -'It is a funny thing,' she said to Challis, 'but, however hard I try, I -never seem able to do things like other people can.' Her eyes stared in -front of her. 'If it had been your mother now in my place, she could -have managed; she is made of the stuff that never goes under. But you -would have thought any one like I am would have been sheltered -and--cared for--as so many women are cared for.' - -Challis stroked her restlessly moving hand. - -'Sometimes,' she continued--her voice dropped, her eyes stared straight -out before her--'sometimes I can't help feeling as if Providence has -pushed me out to the front, and quite forgotten to give me anything to -fight with.' - -Then she pulled herself together reprovingly. - -'Of course, that attitude is very wrong of me,' she said. 'It is only -very seldom I think that, my love.' - -Challis squeezed her hand sympathetically. - -'It will all come right some day,' she said, with the large vague -hopefulness of the very young. - -'That's what I have always told myself,' said Miss Browne; 'but you must -see, my love, if--if it does not come right very soon, it will be too -late. I am thirty-eight--there, there is no need to mention it to -Hermie or the rest of the family, my love.' - -'But thirty-eight is not old,' said Challis, so eager to comfort, she -left truth to take care of itself. 'Think what lots of people are -fifty, and they don't think themselves a bit old.' - -'But who will marry you after you are thirty-eight?' said poor Miss -Browne, unable to keep any ache back to-night. - -'Oh,' said Challis, 'lots of people don't get married, and they are as -happy as anything.' - -Miss Browne's lip quivered. - -'If I had been asked,' she said, 'then I should not mind so much. But I -am--thirty-eight, and no one has--ever asked me.' - -Challis put her arm round the poor woman's neck; she stroked her cheek, -patted her shoulder. - -'Of course,' Miss Browne said at last, sitting up with tremulous, -red-eyed dignity, 'there is no need to tell Hermie that, my love.' - -'But you must have lots of friends,' said Challis, looking at the number -of envelopes lying on the dressing-table. The colour ran up into Miss -Browne's face. She half put her hand over the letters, then drew it -back. - -'If I told you about these, you would think me so foolish, my dear,' she -faltered. - -'Oh no, I wouldn't!' said Challis. 'Now I know you so well, I seem to -understand everything.' - -Miss Browne got some little papers out of a drawer, English penny -weeklies devoted to 'ladies' interests.' She turned to the Answers to -Correspondents pages, 'Advice on Courtship and Marriage.' - -'Those marked with a little cross are the answers to me,' whispered Miss -Browne. And Challis read these three marked paragraphs: - - -'_Fair Australienne_ writes: "I am the only daughter of a very wealthy -squatter, and have two lovers. One is a squatter on an adjoining -station, the other an English baronet travelling in Australia. If I -marry the baronet, I must leave my father, who loves me dearly; but I -care for him more than I do for the squatter. What would you advise me -to do?" - - -And the 'Aunt Lucy' who conducted the page had replied: - - -'Marry where your heart dictates. Could you not induce your father to -live in England with you?' - - -'_Sweet Rock Lily_.--"I am eighteen, and, my friends tell me, very, very -beautiful. I am governess in a wealthy family, and the son is deeply in -love with me. If he marries me, he will be disinherited. What should I -do? I love him very much. And will you tell me a remedy for thin hair?" - - -'The editor's answer is: "Try to overcome the prejudice of the family, -_Rock Lily_, and all will go well. Bay rum and bitter apples is an -excellent tonic." - - -'_Little Wattle Blossom_.--"I am seventeen, and only just out of the -schoolroom. I am passionately in love with a young handsome man, who -loves me in return; but my parents are trying to force me into a -marriage with an old foreign nobleman. They have even fixed the wedding -day, and I am kept a prisoner. What would you advise me to do?" - - -'The editor's answer is: "You cannot be forced into a marriage in these -days. Refuse firmly. In four years you will be of age. In answer to -your second question, your friend had better try massage for the crow's -feet and thin neck."' - - -Challis read in extreme puzzlement. - -'I hardly understand,' she said. 'How do you mean--these are to you?' - -'It is only my foolishness, my love,' said Miss Browne, gathering them -up again; 'but I get a great deal of pleasure out of it. The days the -mail comes and I get the papers, I am so excited I don't know what to -do. You get into the way of feeling it really is yourself.' - -But this phase of Miss Browne was beyond Challis's comprehension, and -she only looked doubtfully at the papers, so Miss Browne was swift to -change the subject. - -'These letters,' she said, 'are to the Melbourne and Adelaide art -societies. I should like to tell you about this, my love. Your father, -about four years ago, painted a picture, and something happened that -made him try to burn it. Well, we managed to prevent that, and I got -hold of it and hid it away. He has forgotten all about it now, imagines -I sold it, but I haven't, and it occurred to me lately to write to -several artists and describe the picture to them, and see if they would -buy it. I did not mention your father's name; just said it was by a -friend of mine--you will forgive me for the liberty, my love?' - -'But didn't you send the picture?' said Challis. 'They could hardly -tell from a description.' - -'I had no money,' said Miss Browne, sighing 'I made inquiries at -Wilgandra, but it would cost so much to have it packed and sent to -Sydney. And there is the risk of losing it. I was _very_ careful over -the description; it took me five long evenings to write--I left no -detail out.' - -'And what happened?' said Challis. - -Miss Browne flushed. - -'Courtesy seems dying out,' she said. 'Not one of them answered. It -might have been any lady writing--they could not know it was only I.' - -Challis asked more questions about the picture. She asked to be shown -it, and waited patiently while Miss Browne disinterred it from under the -bed, and took off the old counterpane with which it was wrapped. - -'I have never seen any great picture-galleries,' said Miss Browne, 'but -I know there is something about this that must be good. It could not -work up the feelings in me that it does, if it were just an ordinary -picture. Look at the man's eyes, my love--isn't the hopelessness -frightful?--and yet look at him well. You just know he'll keep on -trying and trying till he gets there.' - -Challis gazed at it for a long time. - -'Yes,' she said slowly; 'that is how it makes me feel. I feel I want to -beg him to stop trying, and lie down and go to sleep. But it wouldn't -be any use. You feel the storm will last for ever, and the captain will -go on trying for ever to get to wherever he has made up his mind to get -to.' - -'Your father intends it to represent the Flying Dutchman,' said Miss -Browne. - -'Oh yes!' Challis said. 'Of course. I ought to have known. But it is -just like this picture--just as sad. And I play it too. Wagner, you -know,--Der fliegende Hollander,--it makes you want to cry.' - -'My love,' cried Miss Browne, 'you say you know an artist in Paris. -Why, surely that would be the very thing! I believe they are all -jealous of him in Sydney. Write to your friend. He would take notice -of a letter from you. Write to him, and send the picture too. You can -afford to, and it is not likely to go astray, since you know the exact -address. Suppose we start to do it now?' - -Challis sprang up with shining eyes. It seemed the loveliest plan in -the world. - -'It shall be our secret, you dear, dear thing!' she cried. 'We won't -tell a single soul in the world--not even mother. Let's write it down -that we promise.' She pushed pen and ink to Miss Browne. 'Write on -this paper,' she said, '"I promise Challis Cameron faithfully I won't -tell any one in the world."' - -Miss Browne wrote the compact down, smiling. - -Challis seized the pen. - -'I promise Miss Brown faithfully I won't tell,' she wrote. - -'Oh, my dear, my love!' said Miss Browne distressed. 'My love, how -careless of you! I spell my name with an "e." I never thought you would -forget, my love. No, don't add it on there; it looks as if it were an -afterthought. Please write it again. We have always spelt our name with -an "e," my love.' - - - - - *CHAPTER XXI* - - *The Morning Cables* - - 'With rending of cheek and of hair, - Lament ye, mourn for him, weep.' - - -Bart came clattering at a great pace up the path with the mail. It was -the midday dinner-time; and such pleasant appetising foods were the -order of the day now, boylike he did not care to be a moment late. - -He took the saddle off, laid it down on the verandah, drove the horse -down to the first paddock, and hastened in to the dining-room. - -His father was just unfolding the daily paper he had brought, and -opening it to find the war cables. - -'Read them out, Jim,' said Mrs. Cameron, looking up from her task of -apportioning the peas and cauliflower and potatoes. - -Cameron read out the headings: - - - '"DESPERATE FIGHTING AT KRUG'S SPRUIT." - - "GALLANT ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE GUNS." - - "OFFICERS SERVING THE ARTILLERY." - - "FIFTEEN THOUSAND BOERS IN ACTION." - - "BRITISH UNDER A GALLING CROSS-FIRE." - - "BRITISH CASUALTIES." - - "CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY BY A NEW SOUTH WALES PRIVATE." - - "LOSSES OF AUSTRALIAN TROOPS."' - - -The last two headings sent Cameron's eyes hurrying down the long column -to seek details. - -'Oh,' he said, 'poor lad, poor lad! Oh, I'm sorry for this--sorry for -this!' - -'Not old Morty,' said Bart--'not poor old Morty, dad?' Yet even as he -spoke he knew it must be, for who else of all the contingent had they a -personal interest in? He pushed his chair back and went to his father's -shoulder. His eyes read the meagre paragraph, and burnt with swift -tears for his friend. - - 'CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY BY A NEW SOUTH WALES TROOPER' - -was the heading of the cable. Below it said: - -'During the engagement, Trooper Stevenson, of the N.S.W. Bush -Contingent, made a most gallant rescue. He galloped to the assistance -of General Strong, whose horse had fallen, and bore him under a scathing -fire to a place of safety. General Strong escaped unhurt, and obtained -another horse, but while galloping after his troop through the dusk, -Stevenson was hit by a bullet, and killed instantaneously.' - -'Just the sort of thing old Morty would do,' Bart said, his throat -thick. - -'I am thinking of the poor old man,' said Mrs. Cameron. 'It will kill -him. Jim, you had better go up; you might be able to do something. -None of the other sons are at home.' - -'I'll go, certainly,' Cameron said; 'but it won't kill him. His pride -in the lad's courage will keep him up.' - -'I say,' said Bart, 'he won't have got the paper yet. That fellow -Barnes was waiting for the mail while I was, and he had been drinking -frightfully. It'll be hours before he gets back. I saw him turn in to -the Golden Fleece as I came along.' - -A strange stifled cry came from the end of the table. It was no use; -Miss Browne had fought desperately to keep her self-control, but nature -was too strong for her, and she was struggling with a piteous fit of -hysterics. - -Mrs. Cameron went round to her, got her to the sofa, opened the neck of -her dress, administered cold water, spoke firmly and decidedly to her. -There was nothing in the poor woman's cries for a long time, and she -only pushed at Mrs. Cameron, as if trying to force her away. Finally a -word came from her choking throat: - -'Hermie!' she cried, and pointed to the open door. 'Go--to--Hermie.' - -Where was Hermie? Mrs. Cameron looked round in surprise. It seemed -only two minutes since she had been cutting the bread, and laughing at -Roly because he had arranged his plate as a battle-field, with the peas -for the army, the cauliflower as a kopje, the mashed potatoes in dots -for the tents, while a slice of beef made the enemy's laager, and a -gravy river flowed between the troops. Why had she left the table like -this? - -'Go--to--Hermie!' gasped the shivering, sobbing woman on the sofa. -'I--am--all right--quick, quick!' - -Where had the girl gone? No one but Miss Browne had even noticed her -chair was empty. - -Mr. Cameron armed himself with another tumbler of cold water, and came -across to the sofa. - -'I will look after Miss Browne,' he said. 'You go to Hermie; perhaps she -was a little faint.' - -'Down--the--path,' gasped Miss Browne, 'near the wattles, most likely.' - -Mrs. Cameron made her way down the path, looking from left to right, a -puzzled expression on her face. The girl was nowhere to be seen. She -looked among the roses, in the various shady corners, beneath the trees. -Finally she came to the thick-growing wattles near the fence, and a -gleam of blue cambric showed through the leaves. The mother went in -among the bushes, and found the girl face downward on the ground, -sobbing in so bitter and heartbroken a way that she was quite alarmed -for a moment. Then a wondering comprehension came; her girl was almost -a woman. Was it possible she had cared for this friend of the family in -a different way from Bart and Floss and Roly? - -'My poor little girl!' she said, and sat down on the ground beside her, -and lifted the bright head that had been Morty's perpetual delight on to -her knee. - -But Hermie pulled herself away, and rose wildly to her feet, and ran -this way among the bushes with her broken heart, and then that way. - -'Oh,' she sobbed, 'go away, go away--I want to be alone! Oh, it is my -fault!--I want to be alone--oh, mother, mother!'--and she came back to -her mother's side, and fell down beside her again, clinging to her -piteously. The mother said nothing at all--just stroked her hair and let -her weep as she would, and soon a little calmness came back to the girl. - -'Oh,' she said, 'if you knew how I loved him, mother!' - -'Did you, my darling?' said the tender mother, and never showed the ache -that was at her heart because her child had kept so great a thing as -this from her confidence. - -'Ever since he went I have been loving him,' Hermie said, 'and yet when -he told me, I sent him away, and he was so miserable. I am sure that is -why he went to the war.' - -'And you thought you did not care for him, then?' said Mrs. Cameron. -'Well, darling, that was not your fault.' - -'Oh, it was--it was!' said Hermie. 'You don't understand, of course. -You never could. But I shall be miserable now all my life!' - -'You found you had made a mistake, and you cared for him after all?' -said Mrs. Cameron. - -'I didn't know quite how much till to-day!' sobbed Hermie. 'I have kept -thinking of him and thinking of him ever since he went; out now--oh, now -it is too late! I know I shall love him till I die.' - -The mother's heart ached, as all mothers' must do when their children -have to stand alone in a grief, and there can no longer be any kissing -of the place to make it well. - -'It seems as if I have been blind,' went on the girl, sometimes wiping -the tears away and hiding her swollen eyes, sometimes letting them -trickle unchecked down her cheeks. 'I can't tell you how silly and -small I have been--thinking men ought to be just like men in books, and -never looking at what they really are. Oh, he was so good, such a brave -fellow; ever since he has gone, people are always telling different -brave or kind things he has been doing ever since he was a boy. And, -just because he wore clothes and ties I didn't like, and sometimes -knocked things over, I----' - -Her voice choked, and she fell to sobbing again heart-brokenly. - -Mrs. Cameron was silent again for a space; but when as the time went on -the girl seemed to abandon herself more and more to her grief, she rose -to her feet and drew the sobbing figure up also. - -'There is a hard task before you, dear one,' she said, 'but I know you -will do it.' - -Hermie gazed at her helplessly. - -'His poor old father does not know yet, for Bart tells me his man Barnes -is still drinking in Wilgandra. I want you to go up to Coolooli and -break it to him.' - -'Me?' gasped Hermie. 'Me?' - -'Yes, you, my dear. You cared for his son; it will establish a bond -between you, and make it a little easier for him.' - -'Oh, I couldn't!' cried the girl, shrinking back, actual alarm on her -face. 'Oh, it is cruel of you to even ask me, mother! Why should I do -such a thing? Surely it is hard enough already for me!' - -'Because you are a woman, my dear, and must always think of yourself -last,' the mother said quietly. 'How soon can you be ready to start?' - -One glance the girl gave at her mother's face that was so quietly -expectant that she would do the right thing. Her head lifted a little, -and her mouth tried to compose itself. - -'I have only my skirt to put on,' she said; 'I can do it while Bart -saddles Tramby for me.' - -Up to the cottage she walked again, and put on the neat blue -riding-skirt her mother had lately made her. She bathed her red eyes; -she drank two tumblers of cold water, to take the choking from her -throat. - -'Father will go with you,' the mother said, coming to the door; 'but -when you get to Coolooli you can ride on ahead.' - -Through the pleasant winter sunshine they rode, up hill, down dale, -across bush stretches where Mortimer's horse had worn a path for them. -Coolooli faced them at last, secret stern-looking, with its curtainless -windows, its garden barren of sweet flowers. It was the first time the -girl had been so near her lover's home. - -She was among the trees now that lined the drive leading up to the -house; her father had dropped behind, and was to follow on in half an -hour. - -Her heart seemed fluttering in her throat; a deadly sickness possessed -her. - -The old man was standing at a table on the verandah; he had a great map -of the Transvaal spread open before him, and, with small flags stuck in -it here and there, was following his son's footsteps. - -He turned at the sound of the horse's hoofs. When he saw the rider he -went down instantly on to the path, to help her to dismount. - -'Well, little missie,' he said, 'it's not often you ride this way.' He -looked at her colourless cheeks keenly. 'What is the matter--can't you -jump down?' - -She absolutely could not, and he had almost to lift her off her saddle. -He tied the horse's reins loosely round the verandah-post, and looked at -her again from beneath his shaggy eyebrows. He told himself he knew -what was the matter. The family was in difficulties again, and had sent -this particular member of it as an emissary to borrow money. Well, this -freak of his son's was going to cost him dear. Still, the little thing -was trembling dreadfully, and evidently did not like her task. He put -his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. - -'Out with it, lassie,' he said; 'how much do you want?' - -Hermie clung to his arm--her very lips were white. - -'Mortimer has been very brave,' she said; 'he has done something -magnificent.' Her voice fell. - -'My lad!' he cried, in a changed tone. 'Where? show me--I haven't seen -the paper yet.' - -She clung to it. - -'You will be very proud of him,' she said 'All Australia is talking of -him to-day.' - -He pulled vigorously at the paper; his creased old face had a strangely -illumined look; his hands were trembling with eagerness. - -'I knowed it,' he said; 'he always had grit. I've kep' expectin' this. -Well, I'll lie quiet in me grave now, whenever the Lord up there likes.' - -'Yes,' the girl continued, and gave him the paper. 'All the world is -proud of him to-day, so that must help you. He gave his life to save -the general's.' - -The old man drew a curious breath, and sat down on his chair; he opened -the paper and read the paragraph. Then he read it again, and again, and -again, until his eyes had carried the news to his brain twenty times at -least. - -'It was a fine thing to do,' he said at last. - -'Yes,' said Hermie. - -'No other Australian's been mentioned like that.' - -'No,' said poor Hermie. - -'It was a fine thing to do,' he repeated. He got little further than -that all the time the girl stayed; even when Cameron came up, all -a-quiver with deep sympathy, he still only said, 'It was a fine thing to -do.' After an hour or so, he looked at them expectantly. - -'I suppose you'll have to be getting back?' he said; and Cameron and -Hermie rose at once. - -He saw them down the steps, and even helped Hermie on her horse again. -Cameron rode on. - -'Good-bye, missie,' he said. Then he shot an almost aggressive look at -her. 'You ought to be fine and set up that a fellow like that loved -you.' - -'I am,' said Hermie bravely. 'I shall be proud of it just as long as I -live, Mr. Stevenson.' - -He softened a little, then looked suddenly old and very tired. - -'I want to be alone now,' he said. 'But I don't mind if you come up -again to-morrow.' - -With that he went back to the house, the paper still in his hand. But -the next day, when she went, she found him pacing the place like a -wounded tiger. The servants told her he had been very quiet all the -morning and the previous evening, and had told them all several times -about the fine thing his son had done. But Barnes had brought in the -day's papers an hour ago, and he had been raging like this ever since. -The girl found him with bloodshot eyes and clenched hands, walking the -big verandahs. - -'Go away!' he shouted when he saw her. She turned and went into the -house at once, to wait the passing of the mood. She stood at the window -of one of the handsome rooms, and looked with dreary eyes out to the -twin hill that lay bathed in the clear sunshine half a mile away, and -never knew how often Mortimer had sat at that same window, smoking his -after-dinner pipe, and building his sunny cottage for her on the bright -hill-top. - -Presently the old man came in to her. - -'Take the paper from me,' he said quaveringly, and held it out to her. -'If I read it any more, I'll lose me reason!' - -The girl looked startled. - -'I didn't know there was anything new to-day,' she said. 'Bart told me -he had lost our paper on the way.' Her eyes, large with fear and grief, -tore through the cables they had kept back from her at the selection. - -'Private Stevenson,' said a paragraph, 'did not die instantaneously. He -was shot through the jaw and through one lung, and dragged himself to a -rock, leaving a long trail of blood behind. He must have lingered in -frightful agony all night, for when his body was picked up by the -ambulance, it was found that he had written the word "Cold" on the -ground with his finger.' - -'Dear God, how can they do this?' Mrs. Cameron had cried, when she saw -the paragraph. 'Have they no sense of pity or decency, that they print -these frightful details? This is more terrible a thousandfold for those -who loved him than the plain news that he was dead.' - -The poor little girl, who had gone up so resolved to be calm and brave, -screamed out uncontrollably at the cruel news, then buried her head in -her hands to keep the moans back. - -The old man brought her a glass of water from the sideboard. - -'Let's tear it up,' he said, and rent the horrid news in pieces. 'Let's -only remember the boy did the right thing, and died like a man.' - -He found himself comforting the girl who had come to comfort him. She -found herself telling him with streaming eyes how she had loved his boy -and thought of him, even though at the time he asked her she had said, -'No.' - -'If only he could have known!' she sobbed. 'Perhaps, perhaps he was -thinking of me part of that night when he--was cold.' - -The next day there was another cable about the affair. - -'The trooper who saved General Strong's life at Krug's Spruit was -Private Mark Stevenson, of the Queensland Contingent, not Mortimer -Stevenson of the New South Wales, as reported yesterday.' - -Hermie tore along the road to Coolooli to rejoice with the old man, -since before she had gone to grieve with him. - -He was sitting on the verandah looking very shaken and bewildered, and -reading the third cable as often as he had read the first. - -'I--hardly understand,' he said feebly. - -Hermie had seized his two hands, and was shaking them joyously. - -'He is alive--alive!' she cried. - -He looked at her piteously. - -'Didn't he do that fine thing at all?' he said. - -'No,' she cried. 'Some other man did it, thank God! He is alive, -alive--Mortimer--he is not dead! - -He drew his hands out of her eager ones a little pettishly. - -'They should be more careful with these cables,' he said. - -'Oh,' she cried happily, 'we will forgive them anything! He is -alive--alive!' - -'But he never did that fine thing,' he repeated sadly. - - - - - *CHAPTER XXII* - - *Conclusion* - - 'Let one more attest - I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and - all was for best.' - - -Life, so long a hopeless tangle, smoothed itself out at last for the -little family. Challis was well again, and had gone off to give a series -of concerts in the respective capitals of each colony; gone off in high -spirits, touched with sweet responsibility, inasmuch as she was the -bread-winner for the family. Mr. Cameron went with her this time, and -her mother stayed thankfully at home on the selection. And Australia, -despite the fact that she neither recited 'The Absent-Minded Beggar,' -nor yet had 'Sons of the Empire' in her _repertoire_, gave her so warm a -welcome everywhere that in three months she was back again at The Rosery -with a fresh thousand pounds put to her credit in the bank. - -This pleasant sum was to pay passages across the sea for all the family. - -For, warm-hearted as the big overgrown young island had proved, its -eager, easily roused enthusiasm would soon be turned upon some other -object, and there would be no permanent opening for the girl-musician. -She must go to the little, pulsing, crowded island the other side of the -world for that. - -Mrs. Cameron had the plan of campaign all in readiness in her head. -They were to find an ideal house in a pleasant countrified suburb just -out of London, and Challis, accompanied by her father, was to fulfil her -English engagements from there. - -When she went abroad, they would all, when possible, go with her, and -make headquarters in some inexpensive French or German village. The -benefit of a varied life like this would be incalculable to the young -ones, after the stagnant years at Wilgandra. - -Bart was to go to an English public school the moment they touched land -after the voyage. He had but three or four years left now in which to -crowd all his school education, and he was eager to begin. In general -education and the making of moral fibre, Wilgandra had done a better -work than Eton or Rugby could ever hope to do. - -'But I shall come back and be a squatter,' he always insisted. 'No -other life for me.' - -'If he sticks to that,' old Stevenson said to his father, 'send him back -to me. I'll give him a start, and be thankful to do it. He's got the -stuff in him to make the kind of man this country wants.' - -Then he fell to chuckling over the memory of the calf that Bart had sold -him, and so started the intimacy between them. - -Hermie was to travel as much as possible, take lessons in various -subjects from good masters, and go on with her general education under -the able guidance of her mother. And there were picnics and dances and -all manner of brightness for her in her mother's campaign, to counteract -the grey monotony of her earlier girlhood. - -And, when the war was over, one in khaki would step in and take the -young life into his keeping, and make all the sunshine for it that a -boundless love makes possible. - -On his far battle-fields Mortimer knew now the little girl's heart was -his own. His father had written to him one of his characteristic -letters. - -'I'm glad to hear, my boy, you're still alive, but it was a fine thing -that other fellow Stevenson did for his general. I take pride that my -name's the same. But perhaps you'll get a chance yet to do the same -thing. I've been looking round, and I think the hill over the way will -make the best place for your house, and I daresay two or three thousand -a year would keep you going for a time, as she's not flighty and used to -fine things, like Luke's wife. It's a pity she can't make soap and such -things, but maybe she can learn; she may favour her mother, who seems a -sensible body, more than that fool of a father of hers. I'll give the -little baggage credit, at all events, for being fond of you. A nice job -of it I had with her, when we thought it was you killed instead of that -fine fellow Mark Stevenson. She was nearly crazy, because she said you'd -never know how she loved you.' - -[Illustration: ONE OF HIS FATHER'S CHARACTERISTIC LETTERS.] - -So Mortimer fought the rest of his battles with a light heart, and many -a night, when the veldt slumbered restlessly beneath its covering of -white, harmless-looking tents, he lay happily awake, thinking of the -green twin hill at home and the bright cottage that was going to crown -it. - -'But I shall insist that he travels about with you for a year or two -before you settle down,' said the mother; 'it will do you both good. And -he must bring you for a visit home to us at least every three years.' - -The girl went on her way, shyly, sweetly, learning all she might to fit -her for the high office of woman and wife. - -Miss Browne? - -At first Mrs. Cameron had almost obeyed the natural impulse to dismiss -her kindly, give her a handsome present of money, and help her to find a -comfortable situation. But the vision perpetually haunted her of the -poor woman with a strand of dull hair blown loose, and her blouse and -skirt not quite meeting, and her face moist with perspiration, toiling -in one hot country town after another, getting sparks in her eyes, -cooking other peoples' food, dragging fat babies out for a walk, -battling helplessly with naughty small boys and girls, and distractedly -saying to them, 'My love, my dear.' - -This while she and her own family, their eyes turned eagerly to a -glowing future, sailed thankfully away from all the misery and monotony -of the past. - -She could not do it. The woman seemed to stand right in their path, a -moral responsibility for all their lives. - -So while Mr. Cameron was away with Challis on the Australian tour, she -filled in all her spare time undertaking a mission to Miss Browne. Her -first battle was to make the woman respect herself, trust herself. She -ordered some clothes for her, well-cut coats and skirts, warm-coloured -home dresses with soft lace to hide the bony neck and wrists. She gave -deep thought to a style of doing her hair, and having found it, kept her -to it, insisting that she should give plenty of time to curling those -helpless strands and brushing them and getting them into good condition. -She encouraged her to form her own opinions on things, and teased her -gently out of her little eccentricities of speech. She applied herself -energetically to making her capable and efficient in the branches of -housekeeping which all these years she had so hopelessly muddled. The -mission was sheer hard, exhausting work--there were times when it seemed -almost desperate; but women have battled far harder and with far less -hope of success with the Island blacks or the far Chinese, and here was -her work come to her hand. - -'Why,' cried the changed woman, at the end of a day that had seen the -accomplishment of a most respectable pie-crust, an almost invisible -patch on a coat, and a hard piece of music mastered, 'I shall be able to -ask for ten shillings a week, I am sure, when I go to the registry -office again; I never used to get more than five or six until I came to -Mr. Cameron, and I am sure I was not worth the ten he used to pay me -then.' - -'My dear,' said Mrs. Cameron, 'you have finished with registry offices. -I want you to come to England with us, and help me with Floss and Roly.' - -This decision she and her husband had only just arrived at; to leave her -behind, even improved as she was, would mean she would soon sink back -without stimulus into her dreary ways. So Challis gave yet one more -concert in a country town, to pay for the extra passage money and -frocks, and the future they left to look after itself. She had a -relative or two in England who might give her a home; if not, well, -unless life went very crookedly again, they would always keep a corner -for her themselves wherever they lived. - -But before they had been in London six months the pleased Fates relieved -them of their anxiety. - -Next door to them in the pleasant home they had made was a widower, just -getting over--and without overmuch difficulty--the loss of a wife who -had insisted upon managing his very soul as well as his house, and his -two children and his very respectable cheque-book. - -His small ones were running wild--he noted the contrast between them and -Floss and Roly, whom Miss Browne seemed now to manage so admirably. The -intimacy increased; the change from his past, overruled existence to the -companionship of this gentle lady-help, who deferred humbly to his -opinions, and asked his advice, and was curiously grateful for the -smallest attention, was such a restful novelty to him that he offered -her his hand and heart and lonely little children forthwith. - -And now that Fortune, so long harsh and uncompromising, had taken to -flinging gifts at the family with unstinted hand, it did not leave -Cameron himself out of its scheme of sudden generosity. - -The picture of the ship had found its way safely from under Miss -Browne's bed at Wilgandra across the sea to the artist who painted in -leafy Fontainebleau pictures the world was pleased to stand and look at -long. - -And the man's artist-soul rose in recognition of the passion and -strength that had gone forth into the brush that had worked so -feverishly in that far-away bush township. - -An important Paris exhibition was just coming on. He rushed up to the -city with the canvas, and his influence got it in at the right time, and -saw it well hung. The second day the exhibition was opened it sold for -two hundred guineas, and the path Cameron had ached to walk on all his -life was at last open to his feet. - -The day had not dropped her burdens from the backs of these people for -ever; it had merely strengthened weak shoulders with soldierly -discipline, and readjusted the weight. - -Bright days, sad days, separations, meetings, temptations, love, death, -all would come along, as they always have done, as they always will. - -For this is Life we fare upon, and not just a little journey to ask -smooth ground for all the way. - - - - THE END. - - - - _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., - London and Aylesbury._ - - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - - *The Favourite Author Series.* - - - _A splendid series of entertaining stories, by Popular Authors, - for girls still at school. 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By HESBA STRETTON. - -A thoroughly interesting story for young people, who will find the -teaching conveyed in it very helpful when in trying circumstances. - - -Was I Right? By Mrs. O. F. WALTON. - -Should a woman marry a man who has not her own religious belief? That -is the whole point of this interesting tale. - - -Winter's Folly. By Mrs. O. F. WALTON - -This helpful story shows how a little girl found her way to the heart of -a disappointed and friendless old man. - - -The Wonderful Door; or, Nemo. By Mrs. O. F. WALTON - -A very spirited and amusing story of a nameless child who is adopted by -a basket-hawker, a noble-hearted dwarf. - - -Kiddie; or, The Shining Way. By AMY WHITTLE. - -Kiddie is a child of misfortunes who escapes from the cruel guardianship -of the owner of travelling roundabouts. - - -Looking Heavenward. By ADA VON KRUSENSTJERNA. Translated by A. 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By KATE MELLERSH. - -Peter is a jolly little fellow, and the pranks he and "Pepper" play -together provide splendid and interesting reading. - - - * * * * * * * * - - - *POPULAR STORIES BY AMY LE FEUVRE.* - - _Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt,_ 2s. 6d. net. - - -Harebell's Friend. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -A pleasant story of domestic interest. Little Harebell is full of -quaint sayings, high spirited, and has the most tender and loving little -heart in the world. - - -Laddie's Choice. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -The small hero has to choose between living with a rich uncle, or with -his father who is poor. - - -A Little Listener. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -A splendid story of child-life. Trixie is a delightful little prattler, -very imaginative, and quite entertaining about things in general. - - -Me and Nobbles. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -A wholesome, natural story of a child who yearns to meet the father whom -he does not remember. - - -Miss Lavender's Boy. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -A series of excellent stories all showing some pleasant trait of human -nature and inculcating good moral lessons. - - -Us, and Our Donkey. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -A rattling tale of the doings of some rectory children who, with a -donkey, have many exciting adventures. - - -Us, and Our Empire. By AMY LE FEUVRE. - -An amusing story describing the various mishaps that befall a family of -children who formed an Empire League. - - - * * * * * * * * - - - _*Charming Stories for Girls.*_ - - --BY-- - Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey. - - -Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey is one of the foremost writers of girls -stories. All her works are full of brightness and unflagging interest, -and any girl who has not yet made Mrs. de Horne Vaizey's acquaintance -through her books has a great pleasure in store. - - _Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth gilt,_ 3s. net. - - -About Peggy Saville. By Mrs. G. de H. 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VAIZEY. - -The hopes, the fears, the serious endeavours, the pranks, and the -love-makings of six bright-eyed maidens are here charmingly set forth. - - - * * * * * * * * - - - _*Pure High-toned Stories.*_ - - - By Rosa Nouchette Carey. - - _Containing graceful, vivid pictures of girl life. Abounding - in striking incidents and full of pathos. The character - sketching is very true to life._ - - _Illustrated. Large crown 8vo, cloth gilt,_ 3s. net. - - -Aunt Diana. By ROSA N. CAREY. - -A characteristic love story by this popular writer, told in a quiet, -gentle, tender style, and with many strongly-marked individualities. - - -Averil. By ROSA N. CAREY. - -A young lady of delicate health and with ample means, seeks to befriend -her poorer relatives, also various waifs and strays. - - -Cousin Mona. By ROSA N. CAREY. - -A charming story of two motherless girls suddenly bereft of their -father. Their trials are told in Miss Carey's inimitable way. - - -Esther Cameron's Story. By ROSA N. 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By HESBA STRETTON. - -A vivid story of village life in Russia, written with all Miss -Stretton's usual force and skill. - - - - LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDER-CHILD *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45683 - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one -owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and -you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission -and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the -General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and -distributing Project Gutenberg(tm) electronic works to protect the -Project Gutenberg(tm) concept and trademark. 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