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diff --git a/4731.txt b/4731.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..942ffb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/4731.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6228 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Seven Little Australians, by Ethel Sybil Turner + +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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Seven Little Australians + +Author: Ethel Sybil Turner + +Posting Date: December 7, 2009 [EBook #4731] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 6, 2002 +Last Updated: January 2, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS *** + + + + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +Seven Little Australians + + +by + +Ethel Turner + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I Chiefly Descriptive + II Fowl for Dinner + III Virtue Not Always Rewarded + IV The General Sees Active Service + V "Next Monday Morning" + VI The Sweetness of Sweet Sixteen + VII "What Say You to Falling in Love?" + VIII A Catapult and a Catastrophe + IX Consequences + X Bunty in the Light of a Hero + XI The Truant + XII Swish, Swish! + XIII Uninvited Guests + XIV The Squatter's Invitation + XV Three Hundred Miles in the Train + XVI Yarrahappini + XVII Cattle-Drafting at Yarrahappini + XVIII The Picnic at Krangi-Bahtoo + XIX A Pale-Blue Hair Ribbon + XX Little Judy + XXI When the Sun Went Down + XXII And Last + + + + + To +MY MOTHER + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Chiefly Descriptive + + +Before you fairly start this story I should like to give you just a +word of warning. + +If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with +perhaps; a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay +down the book immediately and betake yourself to 'Sandford and Merton' +or similar standard juvenile works. Not one of the seven is really +good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are. + +In England, and America, and Africa, and Asia, the little folks may +be paragons of virtue, I know little about them. + +But in Australia a model child is--I say it not without +thankfulness--an unknown quantity. + +It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the +sunny brilliancy of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and +the people are young-hearted together, and the children's spirits not +crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful +history. + +There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief +in nature here, and therefore in children. + +Often the light grows dull and the bright colouring fades to +neutral tints in the dust and heat of the day. But when it +survives play-days and school-days, circumstances alone determine +whether the electric sparkle shall go to play will-o'-the-wisp +with the larrikin type, or warm the breasts of the spirited, +single-hearted, loyal ones who alone can "advance Australia." + +Enough of such talk. Let me tell you about my seven select +spirits. They are having nursery tea at the present moment with +a minimum of comfort and a maximum of noise, so if you can bear a +deafening babel of voices and an unmusical clitter-clatter of +crockery I will take you inside the room and introduce them to +you. + +Nursery tea is more an English institution than an Australian one; +there is a kind of _bon camaraderie_ feeling between parents and +young folks here, and an utter absence of veneration on the part of +the latter. So even in the most wealthy families it seldom +happens that the parents dine in solemn state alone, while the +children are having a simple tea in another room: they all +assemble around the same board, and the young ones partake of the +same dishes, and sustain their parts in the conversation right +nobly. + +But, given a very particular and rather irritable father, and +seven children with excellent lungs and tireless tongues, what +could you do but give them separate rooms to take their meals in? + +Captain Woolcot, the father, in addition to this division, had had +thick felt put over the swing door upstairs, but the noise used to +float down to the dining-room in cheerful, unconcerned manner +despite it. + +It was a nursery without a nurse, too, so that partly accounted +for it. Meg, the eldest, was only sixteen, and could not be +expected to be much of a disciplinarian, and the slatternly but +good-natured girl, who was supposed to combine the duties of +nursery-maid and housemaid, had so much to do in her second +capacity that the first suffered considerably. She used to lay +the nursery meals when none of the little girls could be found to +help her, and bundle on the clothes of the two youngest in the +morning, but beyond that the seven had to manage for themselves. + +The mother? you ask. + +Oh, she was only twenty--just a lovely, laughing-faced girl, whom +they all adored, and who was very little steadier and very +little more of a housekeeper than Meg. Only the youngest of the +brood was hers, but she seemed just as fond of the other six as +of it, and treated it more as if it were a very entertaining +kitten than a real live baby, and her very own. + +Indeed at Misrule--that is the name their house always went by, +though I believe there was a different one painted above the +balcony--that baby seemed a gigantic joke to everyone. The +Captain generally laughed when he saw it, tossed it in the air, +and then asked someone to take it quickly. + +The children dragged it all over the country with them, dropped +it countless times, forgot its pelisse on wet days, muffled it up +when it was hot, gave it the most astounding things to eat, and yet +it was the healthiest, prettiest, and most sunshiny baby that +ever sucked a wee fat thumb. + +It was never called "Baby," either; that was the special name of +the next youngest. Captain Woolcot had said, "Hello, is this the +General?" when the little, red, staring-eyed morsel had been put +into his arms, and the name had come into daily use, though I +believe at the christening service the curate did say something +about Francis Rupert Burnand Woolcot. + +Baby was four, and was a little soft fat thing with pretty +cuddlesome ways, great smiling eyes, and lips very kissable when +they were free from jam. + +She had a weakness, however, for making the General cry, or she +would have been really almost a model child. Innumerable times +she had been found pressing its poor little chest to make it +"squeak;" and even pinching its tiny arms, or pulling its +innocent nose, just for the strange pleasure of hearing the yells +of despair it instantly set up. Captain Woolcot ascribed the +peculiar tendency to the fact that the child had once had a +dropsical-looking woolly lamb, from which the utmost pressure would +only elicit the faintest possible squeak: he said it was only +natural that now she had something so amenable to squeezing she +should want to utilize it. + +Bunty was six, and was fat and very lazy. He hated scouting at +cricket, he loathed the very name of a paper-chase, and as for +running an errand, why, before anyone could finish saying something +was wanted he would have utterly disappeared. He was rather small +for his age;-and I don't think had ever been seen with a clean face. +Even at church, though the immediate front turned to the minister +might be passable, the people in the next pew had always an +uninterrupted view of the black rim where washing operations had +left off. + +The next on the list--I am going from youngest to oldest, you +see--was the "show" Woolcot, as Pip, the eldest boy, used to say. +You have seen those exquisite child-angel faces on Raphael Tuck's +Christmas cards? I think the artist must just have dreamed of +Nell, and then reproduced the vision imperfectly. She was ten, +and had a little fairy-like figure, gold hair clustering in wonderful +waves and curls around her face, soft hazel eyes, and a little +rosebud of a mouth. She was not conceited either, her family took +care of that--Pip would have nipped such a weakness very sternly +in its earliest bud; but in some way if there was a pretty ribbon +to spare, or a breadth of bright material; just enough for one little +frock, it fell as a matter of course to her. + +Judy was only three years older, but was the greatest contrast +imaginable. Nellie used to move rather slowly about, and would +have made a picture in any attitude. Judy I think, was never +seen to walk, and seldom looked picturesque. If she did not dash +madly to the place she wished to get to, she would progress by a +series of jumps, bounds, and odd little skips. She was very thin, +as people generally are who have quicksilver instead of blood in +their veins; she had a small, eager, freckled face, with very, +bright dark eyes, a small, determined mouth, and a mane of untidy, +curly dark hair that was the trial of her life. + +Without doubt she was the worst of the seven, probably because she +was the cleverest. Her brilliant inventive powers plunged them all +into ceaseless scrapes, and though she often bore the brunt of the +blame with equanimity, they used to turn round, not infrequently, +and upbraid her for suggesting the mischief. She had been +christened "Helen," which in no way account's for "Judy," but +then nicknames are rather unaccountable things sometimes, are they +not? Bunty said it was because she was always popping and +jerking herself about like the celebrated wife of Punch, and +there really is something in that. Her other name, "Fizz," is +easier to understand; Pip used to say he never yet had seen the +ginger ale that effervesced and bubbled and made the noise that +Judy did. + +I haven't introduced you to Pip yet, have I? He was a little like +Judy, only handsomer and taller, and he was fourteen, and had as +good an opinion of himself and as poor a one of girls as boys of +that age generally have. + +Meg was the eldest of the family, and had a long, fair plait that +Bunty used to delight in pulling; a sweet, rather dreamy face, +and a powdering of pretty freckles that occasioned her much +tribulation of spirit. + +It was generally believed in the family that she wrote poetry +and stories, and even kept a diary, but no one had ever seen a +vestige of her papers, she kept them so carefully locked up in +her old tin hat-box. Their father, had you asked them they would +all have replied with considerable pride, was "a military man," +and much from home. He did not understand children at all, and was +always grumbling at the noise they made, and the money they cost. +Still, I think he was rather proud of Pip, and sometimes, if Nellie +were prettily dressed, he would take her out with him in his dogcart. + +He had offered to send the six of them to boarding school when he +brought home his young girl-wife, but she would not hear of it. + +At first they had tried living in the barracks, but after a time +every one in the officers' quarters rose in revolt at the pranks +of those graceless children, so Captain Woolcot took a house some +distance up the Parramatta River, and in considerable bitterness +of spirit removed his family there. + +They liked the change immensely; for there was a big wilderness +of a garden, two or three paddocks, numberless sheds for +hide-and-seek, and, best of all, the water. Their father kept +three beautiful horses, one at he barracks and a hunter and a +good hack at Misrule; so, to make up, the children--not that they +cared in the slightest--went about in shabby, out-at-elbow clothes, +and much-worn boots. They were taught--all but Pip, who went to +the grammar school--by a very third-class daily governess, who +lived in mortal fear of her ignorance being found out by her +pupils. As a matter of fact, they had found her out long ago, as +children will, but it suited them very well not to be pushed on +and made to work, so they kept the fact religiously to +themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Fowl for Dinner + + + "Oh, don't the days seem lank and long + When all goes right and nothing wrong; + And isn't your life extremely flat + With nothing whatever to grumble at?" + +I hope you are not quite deafened yet, for though I have got +through the introductions, tea is not nearly finished, so we must +stay in the nursery a little longer: All the time I have been +talking Pip has been grumbling at the lack of good things. The +table was not very tempting, certainly; the cloth looked as if it +had been flung on, the china was much chipped and battered, the tea +was very weak, and there was nothing to eat but great thick slices +of bread and butter. Still, it was the usual tea, and everyone +seemed surprised at Pip's outburst. + +"My father and Esther" (they all called their young stepmother +by her Christian name) "are having roast fowl, three vegetables, +and four kinds of pudding," he said angrily; "it isn't fair!" + +"But we had dinner at one o'clock, Pip, and yours is saved as +usual," said Meg, pouring out tea with a lavish allowance of hot +water and sugar. + +"Boiled mutton and carrots and rice pudding!" returned her brother +witheringly. "Why shouldn't we have roast fowl and custard and +things?" + +"Yes, why shouldn't we?" echoed little greedy Bunty; his eyes +lighting up. + +"What a lot it would take for all of us!" said Meg, cheerfully +attacking the bread loaf. + +"We're only children--let us be thankful for this nice thick bread +and this abundance of melting butter," said Judy, in a good little +tone. + +Pip pushed his chair back from the table. + +"I'm going down to ask for some roast fowl," he said, with a look +of determination in his eyes. "I can't forget the smell of it, +and they'd got a lot on the table--I peeped in the door." + +He took up his plate and proceeded downstairs, returning presently, +to the surprise of everyone, with quite a large portion on his plate. + +"He couldn't very well refuse," he chuckled. "Colonel Bryant +is there; but he looked a bit mad--here, Fizz, I'll go you halves." + +Judy pushed up her plate eagerly at this unusually magnanimous +offer, and received a very small division, a fifth part, perhaps, +with great gratitude. + +"I just LOVE fowl," said Nell longingly; "I've a great mind to go +down and ask for a wing--I believe he'd give it to me." + +These disrespectful children, as I am afraid you will have noticed, +always alluded to their father as "he." + +Nell took up another plate, and departed slowly to the lower +regions. She followed into the dining-room at the heels of the +housemaid, and stood by the side of her father, her plate well +behind her. + +"Well, my little maid, won't you shake hands with me? What is +your name?" said Colonel Bryant, tapping her cheek playfully. + +Nell looked up with shy, lovely eyes. + +"Elinor Woolcot, but they call me Nell," she said, holding out +her left hand, since her right was occupied with the plate. + +"What a little barbarian you are, Nell!" laughed her father; but +he gave her a quick, annoyed glance. "Where is your right hand?" + +She drew it slowly from behind and held out the cracked old plate. +"I thought perhaps you would give me some fowl too," she said--"just +a leg or a wing, or bit of breast would do." + +The Captain's brow darkened. "What is the meaning of this? Pip +has just been to me, too. Have you nothing to eat in the +nursery?" + +"Only bread and butter, very thick," sighed Nellie. + +Esther suppressed a smile with difficulty. + +"But you had dinner, all of you, at one o'clock." + +"Boiled mutton and carrots and rice pudding," said Nell mournfully. + +Captain Woolcot severed a leg almost savagely and put it on her +plate. + +"Now run away; I don't know what has possessed you two to-night." + +Nellie reached the door, then turned back. + +"Oh, if you would just give me a wing for poor Meg--Judy had some +of Pip's, but Meg hasn't any," she said, with a beautiful look of +distress that quite touched Colonel Bryant. + +Her father bit his lip, hacked off a wing in ominous silence, and +put it upon her plate. + +"Now run away,--and don't let me have any more of this nonsense, +dear." The last word was a terrible effort. + +Nell's appearance with the two portions of fowl was hailed with +uproarious applause in the nursery; Meg was delighted with her +share; cut a piece off for Baby, and the meal went on merrily. + +"Where's Bunty?", said Nell, pausing suddenly with a very clean +drumstick in her fingers, "because I HOPE he hasn't gone +too; someway I don't think Father was very pleased, especially +as that man was there." + +But that small youth had done so, and returned presently +crestfallen. + +"He wouldn't give me any--he told me to go away, and the man +laughed, and Esther said we were very naughty--I got some +feathered potatoes, though, from the table outside the door." + +He opened his dirty little hands and dropped the uninviting +feathered delicacy out upon the cloth. + +"Bunty, you're a pig," sighed Meg, looking up from her book. +She always read at the table, and this particular story was +about some very refined, elegant girls. + +"Pig yourself--all of you've had fowl but me, you greedy things!" +retorted Bunty fiercely, and eating up his potato very fast. + +"No, the General hasn't," said Judy and the old mischief light +sprang up suddenly into her dark eyes. + +"Now, Judy!" said Meg warningly; she knew too well what that +particular sparkle meant. + +"Oh, I'm not going to hurt you, you dear old thing," said Miss Judy, +dancing down the room and bestowing a pat on her sister's fair head +as she passed. "It's only the General, who's after havin' a bit +o' fun." + +She lifted him up out of the high chair, where he had been sitting +drumming on the table with a spoon and eating sugar in the +intervals. + +"It's real action you're going for to see, General," she said, +dancing to the door with him. + +"Oh, Judy, what are you going to do?" said Meg entreatingly. + +"Ju-Ju!" crowed the General, leaping almost out of Judy's arms, +and scenting fun with the instinct of a veteran. + +Down the passage they went, the other five behind to watch +proceedings. Judy sat down with him on the last step. + +"Boy want chuck-chuck, pretty chuck-chuck?" she said insidiously. + +"Chuck-chuck, chuck-a-chuck," he gurgled, looking all around +for his favourite friends. + +"Dad got lots--all THIS many," said Judy, opening her arms very +wide to denote the number in her father's possession. "Boydie, +go get them!" + +"Chuck-chuck," crowed the General delightedly, and struggling +to his feet--"find chuck-chuck." + +"In there," whispered Judy, giving him a gentle push into the +half-open dining-room door; "ask Dad." + +Right across the room the baby tottered on fat, unsteady little +legs. + +"Are the children ALL possessed to-night, Esther?" said the +Captain, as his youngest son clutched wildly at his leg and +tried to climb up it. + +He looked down into the little dirty, dimpling face. "Well, +General, and to what do we owe the honour of your presence?" + +"Chuck-chuck, chuck-a-chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck," said the +General, going down promptly upon all fours to seek for the +feathered darlings Judy had said were here. + +But Esther gathered up the dear, dirty-faced young rascal and +bore him struggling out of the room. At the foot of the stairs +she nearly stumbled over the rest of the family. + +"Oh, you scamps, you bad, wicked imps!" she said, reaching out +to box all their ears, and of course failing. + +She sat down on the bottom stair to laugh for a second, then she +handed the General to Pip. "To-morrow," she said, standing up +and hastily smoothing the rich hair that the General's hands had +clutched gleefully--"to-morrow I shall beat every one of you +with the broomstick." + +They watched the train of her yellow' silk dress disappear into +the dining-room again, and returned slowly to the nursery and +their interrupted tea. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Virtue Not Always Rewarded + + +It was not to be expected that such an occurrence could be passed +entirely over, but then again it is difficult to punish seven +children at the same time. At first Captain Woolcot had requested +Esther to ask Miss Marsh, the governess, to give them all ten +French verbs to learn; but, as Judy pointed out, the General +and Baby and Bunty and Nell had not arrived at the dignity of +French verbs yet, so such a punishment would be iniquitous. +The sentence therefore had not been quite decided upon as yet, +and everyone felt in an uncomfortable state of suspense. + +"Your father says you're a disgraceful tribe," said the young +stepmother slowly, sitting down on the nursery rocking-chair +a day later. She had on a trailing morning wrapper of white +muslin with cherry ribbons, but there was a pin doing duty +for a button in one or two places and the lace was hanging +off a bit at the sleeve. + +"Meg, dear, you're very untidy, you know, and Judy's absolutely +hopeless." + +Meg was attired in an unbecoming green cashmere, with the elbows +out and the plush torn off in several places, while Judy's +exceedingly scant and faded pink zephyr had rents in several +places, and the colour was hardly to be seen for fruit-stains. + +Meg coloured a little. "I know, Esther, and I'd like to be +nicely-dressed as well as anyone, but it really isn't worth +mending these old things." + +She picked up her book about the elegant girls who were +disturbing her serenity and went over to the armchair with it. + +"Well, Judy, you go and sew up those rents, and put some buttons +on your frock." Esther spoke with unusual determination. + +Judy's eyes snapped and sparkled. + +"'Is that a dagger that I see before me, the handle to my hand? +Come, let me grasp it,'" she said saucily, snatching one of the +pins from Esther's dress, fastening her own with it, and dropping +a curtsey. + +Esther reddened a little now. + +"That's the General, Judy: he always pulls the buttons off my +wrappers when I play with him. But I'm forgetting. Children, +I have bad news for you." + +There was a breathless silence. Everyone crowded round her knees. + +"Sentence has been proclaimed," said Judy dramatically: "let us +shave our heads and don sackcloth." + +"Your father says he cannot allow such conduct to go unpunished, +especially as you have all been unusually tiresome lately; +therefore: you are all--" + +"To be taken away and hanged by the neck until we are dead!" + +"Be quiet, Judy. I have tried my best to beg you off, but it +only makes him more vexed. He says you are the untidiest, most +unruly lot of children in Sydney, and he will punish you each time +you do anything, and--" + +"There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." + +"Oh, shut up, Judy! Can't you let us hear?" Pip put his hand +over her mouth and held her by the hair while Esther told the +news. + +"None of you are to go to the pantomime. The seats were taken for +Thursday night, and now, you very foolish children, you will all +have to stay at home." + +There was a perfect howl of dismay for a minute or two. They had +all been looking forward to this treat for nearly a month, and the +disappointment was a really bitter one to them all. + +"Oh, I say, Esther, that's too bad, really! All the fellows at +school have been." Pip's handsome face flushed angrily. "And for +such a little thing, too!" + +"Just because you had roast fowl for dinner," said Judy, in a +half-choked voice. "Oh, Esther, why couldn't you have had cow, +or horse, or hippopotamus--anything but roast fowl?" + +"Couldn't you get round him, Esther?" Meg looked anxiously at +her. + +"Dear Esther, do!" + +"Oh, you sweet, beautiful Essie, do try!" + +They clung round her eagerly. Baby flung her arms round her neck +and nearly choked her; Nell stroked her cheek; Pip patted her +back, and besought her to "be a good fellow"; Bunty buried his +nose in her back hair and wept a silent tear; Meg clasped her hand +in an access of unhappiness; the General gave a series of delighted +squeaks; and Judy in her wretchedness smacked him for his pains. + +Esther would do her best, beg as she had never done before, coax, +beseech, wheedle, threaten; and they let her go at last with that +assurance. + +"Only I'd advise you all to be preternaturally good and quiet +all day," she said, looking back from the doorway. "That would +have most effect with him, and he is going to be at home all day." + +GOOD! It was absolutely painful to witness the virtue of those +children for the rest of the day. + +It was holiday-time, and Miss Marsh was away, but not once did +the sound of quarrelling, or laughing, or crying fly down +to the lower regions. + +"'Citizens of Rome, the eyes of the world are upon you!'" +Judy had said solemnly, and all had promised so to conduct +themselves that their father's heart could not fail to be melted. + +Pip put on his school jacket, brushed his hair, took a pile of +school books, and proceeded to the study where his father was +writing letters, and where he was allowed to do his home-lessons. + +"Well, what do you want?" said the Captain, with a frown. "No, +it's no good coming to the about that pup, sir--I won't have you +keep it." + +"I came to study, sir," said Pip mildly. "I feel I'm a bit +backward with my mathematics, so I won't waste all the holidays, +when I'm costing you so much in school fees." + +The Captain gave a little gasp and looked hard at Pip; but the +boy's face was so unsmiling and earnest that he was disarmed, +and actually congratulated himself that his eldest son was at +last seeing the error of his ways. + +"There are those sets of problems in that drawer that I did when +I was at school," he said graciously. "If they are of any use +to you, you can get them out." + +"Thanks awfully--they will be a great help," said Pip gratefully. + +He examined them with admiration plainly depicted upon his face. + +"How very clearly and correctly you worked, Father," he said +with a sigh. "I wonder if ever I'll get as good as this! How +old were you, Father, when you did them?" + +"About your age," said the Captain, picking up the papers. + +He examined them with his head on one side. He was rather proud +of them, seeing he had utterly forgotten now how to work decimal +fractions, and could not have done a quadratic equation to save his +life. + +"Still, I don't think you need be quite discouraged, Pip. I was +rather beyond the other boys in my class in these subjects, I +remember. We can't all excel in the same thing, and I'm glad to +see you are beginning to realize the importance of work." + +"Yes, Father." + +Meg had betaken herself to the drawing-room, and was sitting on the +floor before the music canterbury with scissors, thimble, and a +roll of narrow blue ribbon on her knee, and all her father's songs, +that he so often complained were falling to pieces, spread out +before her. + +He saw her once as he passed the door, and looked surprised and +pleased. + +"Thank you, Margaret: they wanted it badly. I am glad you can +make yourself useful, after all," he said. + +"Yes, Father." + +Meg stitched on industriously. + +He went back to his study, where Pip's head was at a studious, +absorbed angle, and pyramids of books and sheaves of paper were +on the table. He wrote two more letters, and there came a little +knock at the door. + +"Come in," he called; and there entered Nell. + +She was carrying very carefully a little tray covered with a +snow-white doyley, and on it were a glass of milk and a plate +of mulberries. She placed it before him. + +"I thought perhaps you would like a little lunch, Father," she +said gently; and Pip was seized with a sudden coughing fit. + +"My DEAR child!" he said. + +He looked at it very thoughtfully. + +"The last glass of milk I had, Nellie, was when I was Pip's age, +and was Barlow's fag at Rugby. It made me ill, and I have never +touched it since." + +"But this won't hurt you. You will drink this?" She gave him one +of her most beautiful looks. + +"I would as soon drink the water the maids wash up in, my child." +He took a mulberry, ate it, and made a wry face. "They're not +fit to eat." + +"After you've eaten about six you don't notice they're sour," +she said eagerly. But he pushed them away. + +"I'll take your word for it." Then he looked at her curiously. +"What made you think of bringing me anything, Nellie? I don't +ever remember you doing so before." + +"I thought you might be hungry writing here so long," she said +gently; and Pip choked again badly, and she withdrew. + +Outside in the blazing sunshine Judy was mowing the lawn. + +They only kept one man, and, as his time was so taken up with the +horses and stable work generally, the garden was allowed to fall +into neglect. More than once the Captain had spoken vexedly of +the untidy lawns, and said he was ashamed for visitors to come to +the house. + +So Judy, brimming over with zeal, armed herself with an abnormally +large scythe, and set to work on the long, long grass. + +"Good heavens, Helen! you'll cut your legs off!" called her +father, in an agitated tone. + +He had stepped out on to the front veranda for a mild cigar after +the mulberry just as she brought her scythe round with an +admirable sweep and decapitated a whole army of yellow-helmeted +dandelions. + +She turned and gave him a beautiful smile. "Oh, no, Father!--why, +I'm quite a dab at mowing." + +She gave it another alarming but truly scientific sweep. + +"See that--and th-a-at--and tha-a-a-at!" + +"Th-a-at" carried off a fragment of her dress, and "tha-a-a-at" +switched off the top of a rose-bush; but there are details to +everything, of course. + +"Accidents WILL happen, even to the best regulated grass-cutters," +she said composedly, and raising the scythe for a fresh circle. + +"Stop immediately, Helen! Why ever can't you go and play quietly +with your doll, and not do things like this?" said her father +irascibly. + +"An' I was afther doin' it just to pleasure him," she said, +apparently addressing the dandelions. + +"Well, it won't 'pleasure him' to have to provide you with cork +legs and re-stock the garden," he said dryly: "Put it down." + +"Sure, an' it's illigence itsilf this side: you wouldn't be +afther leaving half undone, like a man with only one cheek shaved." + +Judy affected an Irish brogue at intervals, for some occult reason of her own. + +"Sure an' if ye'd jist stip down and examine it yirself, it's +quite aisy ye'd be in yer moind." + +The Captain hid a slight smile in his moustache. The little girl +looked so comical, standing there in her short old pink frock, a +broken-brimmed hat on her tangle of dark curls, her eyes +sparkling, her face flushed, the great scythe in her hands, and the +saucy words on her lips. + +He came down and examined it: it was done excellently well, like +most of the things miss Judy attempted--mischief always included: +and her little black-stockinged legs were still in a good state of +preservation. + +"Hum! Well, you can finish it then, as Pat's busy. How did you +learn to mow, young lady of wonderful accomplishments?" (he looked +at her questioningly); "and what made you set yourself such a task?" + +Judy gave her curls a quick push off her hot forehead. + +"(A) Faix, it was inborn in me," she answered instantly; "and + (B)--sure, and don't I lo-o-ove you and delaight to plaize you?" + +He went in again slowly, thoughtfully. Judy always mystified +him. He understood her the least of any of his children, and +sometimes the thought of her worried him. At present she was only +a sharp, clever, and frequently impertinent child; but he felt +she was utterly different from the other six, and it gave him +an aggrieved kind of feeling when he thought about it, which was +not very often. + +He remembered her own mother had often said she trembled for +Judy's future. That restless fire of hers that shone out of her +dancing eyes, and glowed scarlet on her cheeks in excitement, and +lent amazing energy and activity to her young, lithe body, would +either make a noble, daring, brilliant woman of her, or else she +would be shipwrecked on rocks the others would never come to, and +it would flame up higher and higher and consume her. + +"Be careful of Judy" had been almost the last words of the anxious +mother when, in the light that comes when the world's is going out, +she had seen with terrible clearness the stones and briars in the +way of that particular pair of small, eager feet. + +And she had died, and Judy was stumbling right amongst them now, +and her father could not "be careful" of her because he +absolutely did not know how. + +As he went up the veranda steps again and through the hall, he was +wishing almost prayerfully she had not been cast in so different a +mould from the others, wishing he could stamp out that strange +flame in her that made him so uneasy at times. He gave a great +puff at his cigar, and sighed profoundly; then he turned on his +heel and went off toward the stables to forget it all. + +The man was away, exercising one of the horses in the long paddock; +but there was something stirring in the harness-room, so he went +in. + +There was a little, dripping wet figure standing over a great +bucket, and dipping something in and out with charming vigour. +At the sound of his footsteps, Baby turned round and lifted a +perspiring little face to his. + +"I'se washing the kitsies for you, and Flibberty-Gibbet," she said +beamingly. + +He took a horrified step forward. + +There were two favourite kittens of his, shivering, miserable, +up to their necks in a lather of soapy water; and Flibberty-Gibbet, +the beautiful little fox terrier he had just bought for his wife, +chained to a post, also wet, miserable, and woebegone, also +undergoing the cleansing process, and being scrubbed and +swilled till his very reason was tottering. + +"They'se SO clean and nicey--no horrid ole fleas 'n them now. +AREN't you glad? You can let Flibberty go on your bed now, and +Kitsy Blackeye is--" + +Poor Baby never finished her speech. She had a confused idea of +hearing a little "swear-word" from her father, of being shaken in +a most ungentle fashion and put outside the stable, while the +unfortunate animals were dried and treated with great consideration. + +But the worst was yet to come, and the results were so exceedingly +bad that the young Woolcots determined never again to assume virtues +that they had not. + +Bunty, of course, desired to help the cause as strongly as the +others, and to that end his first action was to go into his +bedroom and perform startling ablutions with his face, neck, and +hands. Then he took his soap-shiny countenance and red, much +bescrubbed hands downstairs, and sunned himself under his +father's very nose, hoping to attract favourable comment. + +But he was bidden irritably "go and play," and saw he would +have to find fresh means of appeasement. + +He wandered into the study, with vague thoughts of tidying +the tidy bookshelves; but Pip was there, surrounded with books +and whittling a stick for a catapult, so he went out again. +Then he climbed the stairs and explored his father's bedroom +and dressing-room. In the latter there was a wide field for his +operations. A full-dress uniform was lying across a chair, and it +struck Bunty the gold buttons were looking less bright than they +should, so he spent a harmless quarter of an hour in polishing +them up. Next, he burnished some spurs, which also was harmless. +Then he cast about for fresh employment. + +There was quite a colony of dusty boots in one corner of the +room, and there was a great bottle of black, treacly looking +varnish on the mantelpiece. Bunty conceived the brilliant idea of +cleaning the whole lot and standing them in a neat row to meet his +father's delighted eyes. He found a handkerchief on the floor, of +superfine cambric, though dirty, poured upon it a liberal allowance +of varnish, and attacked the first pair. + +A bright polish rewarded him, for they were patent leather ones; +but the next and the next and the next would not shine, however +hard he rubbed. There was a step on the stair, the firm, well-known +step of his father, and he paused a moment with a look of +conscious virtue on his small shiny face. + +But it fled all at once, and a look of horror replaced it. He had +stuck the bottle on a great armchair for convenience, as he was +sitting on the floor, and now he noticed it had fallen on its side +and a black, horrid stream was issuing from its neck. + +And it was the chair with the uniform on, and one of the sleeves +was soaked with the stuff, and the beautiful white shirt that +lay there, too, waiting for a button, was sticky, horrible! +Bunty gave a wild, terrified look round the room for some place +to efface himself, but there were no sheltering corners or curtains, +and there was not time to get into the bedroom and under the bed. +Near the window was a large-sized medicine chest, and in despair +Bunty crushed himself into it, his legs huddled up, his head +between his knees, and an ominous rattle of displaced bottles +in his ears. The next minute his father was in the room. + +"Great Heavens! God bless my soul!" he said, and Bunty shivered +from head to foot. + +Then he said a lot of things very quickly--"foreign language" as +Judy called it; kicked something over, and shouted "Esther!" in a +terrifying tone. But Esther was down in one of the paddocks with +the General, so there was no reply. + +More foreign language, more stomping about. + +Bunty's teeth chattered noisily; he put up his hand to hold +his mouth together, and the cupboard, overbalanced, fell right +over, precipitating its occupant right at his father's feet, +and the bottles everywhere. + +"I didn't--I haven't--'twasn't me--'twasn't my fault!" he +howled, backing towards the door. "Hoo--yah--boo-hoo-ooo! +Esther--boo--yah--Judy--oh--oh--h! oh--oh--h--h--h--h!" +As might be expected, his father had picked up a strap that +lay conveniently near, and was giving his son a very fair +taste of it. + +"Oh--h--h--h! o--o--h! o--o--h! ah--h--h! 'twasn't me--'twasn't my +fault--its Pip and Judy--oh--h--h--h! hoo--the pant'mime! boo-hoo! +ah--h--h--h--you're killing me! hoo-boo! I was only d--doin' +it--oh--hoo--ah--h--h! d--oin' it to p--please--boo--oo--oo! to +p--please you!" + +His father paused with uplifted strap. "And that's why all +the others are behaving in so strange a fashion? Just for me +to take them to the pantomime?" + +Bunty wriggled himself free. "Boo--hoo--yes! but not me--I +didn't--I never--true's faith--oh-h-h-hoo-yah! it wasn't my +fault, it's all the others--boo--hoo--hoo! hit them the rest." + +He got three more smart cuts, and then fled howling and yelling +to the nursery, where he fell on the floor and kicked and rolled +about as if he were half killed. + +"You sn--n--n--n--neaks!" he sobbed, addressing the others, +who had flown from all parts at his noisy outcry, "you m-m--mean +p--p--p--pigs! I h--hadn't n--n--no fo--o--ow-l, and I've +h--h--had all the b--b--b--beating! y--you s--s--sn--n-neaks! +oh--h--h--h! ah--h--h--h! oh--h--h--h! oh--h--h-h! I'm b--b--bleeding +all over, I kno--o--o--ow!" + +They couldn't help laughing a bit; Bunty was always so +irresistibly comic when he was hurt ever so little; but still +they comforted him as well as they could, and tried to find out +what had happened. + +Esther came in presently, looking very worried. "Well?" they +said in a breath. + +"You really are the most exasperating children," she said +vexedly. + +"But the pantomime--quick, Esther--have you asked him?" they +cried impatiently. + +"The pantomime! He says he would rather make it worth Mr. +Rignold's while to take it off the boards than that one of you +should catch a glimpse of it--and it serves you very well right! +Meg, for goodness' sake give Baby some dry clothes--just look +at her; and, Judy, if you have any feeling for me, take off +that frock. Bunty, you wicked boy, I'll call your father if +you don't stop that noise. Nell, take the scissors from the +General, he'll poke his eyes out, bless him." + +The young stepmother leaned back in her chair and looked round +her tragically. She had never seen her husband so thoroughly +angered, and her beautiful lips quivered when she remembered how +he had seemed to blame her for it all. + +Meg hadn't moved; the water was trickling slowly off Baby's +clothes and making a pool on the floor, Bunty was still giving +vent to spasmodic boos and hoos, Judy was whistling stormily, +and the General, mulcted of the scissors, was licking his own +muddy shoe all over with his dear little red tongue. + +A sob rose in her throat, two tears welled up in her eyes and +fell down her smooth, lovely cheeks. "Seven of you, and I'm only +twenty!" she said pitifully. "Oh! it's too bad--oh dear! it +is too bad." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The General Sees Active Service + + "My brain it teems + With endless schemes, + Both good and new." + + +It was a day after "the events narrated in the last chapter," +as story-book parlance has it. And Judy, with a wrathful look in +her eyes, was sitting on the nursery table, her knees touching her +chin and her thin brown hands clasped round them. + +"It's a shame," she said, "it's a burning, wicked shame! +What's the use of fathers in the world, I'd like to know!" + +"Oh, Judy!" said Meg, who was curled up in an armchair, deep in +a book. But she said it mechanically, and only as a matter of +duty, being three years older than Judy. + +"Think of the times we could have if he didn't live with us," +Judy continued, calmly disregardful. "Why, we'd have fowl +three times a day, and the pantomime seven nights a week." + +Nell suggested that it was not quite usual to have pantomimic +performances on the seventh day, but Judy was not daunted. + +"I'd have a kind of church pantomime," she said thoughtfully--"beautiful +pictures and things about the Holy Land, and the loveliest music, +and beautiful children in white, singing hymns, and bright colours +all about, and no collection plates to take your only threepenny +bit--oh! and no sermons or litanies, of course." + +"Oh, Judy!" murmured Meg, turning a leaf. Judy unclasped her +hands, and then clasped them again more tightly than before. +"Six whole tickets wasted--thirty beautiful shillings--just +because we have a father!" + +"He sent them to the Digby-Smiths," Bunty volunteered, "and wrote +on the envelope, 'With compts. J. C. Woolcot.'" + +Judy moaned. "Six horrid little Digby-Smiths sitting in the +theatre watching our fun with their six horrid little eyes," she +said bitterly. + +Bunty, who was mathematically inclined, wanted to know why they +wouldn't look at it through their twelve horrid little eyes, and +Judy laughed and came down from the table, after expressing a +wicked wish that the little Digby-Smiths might all tumble over the +dress-circle rail before the curtain rose. Meg shut her book with +a hurried bang. + +"Has Pip gone yet? Father'll be awfully cross. Oh dear, what a +head I've got!" she said. "Where's Esther? Has anyone seen Esther?" + +"My DEAR Meg!" Judy said; "why, it's at least two hours since +Esther went up the drive before your very nose. She's gone to +Waverly--why, she came in and told you, and said she trusted you +to see about the coat, and you said, 'M--'m! all right.'" + +Meg gave a startled look of recollection. "Did I have to clean +it?" she asked in a frightened tone, and pushing her fair hair +back from her forehead. "Oh, girls! what WAS it I had to do?" + +"Clean with benzine, iron while wet, put in a cool place to keep +warm, and bake till brown," said Judy promptly. "SURELY you +heard, Margaret? Esther was at such pains to explain." + +Meg ruffled her hair again despairingly. "What shall I do?" she +said, actual tears springing to her eyes. "What will Father +say? Oh, Judy, you might have reminded me." + +Nell slipped an arm round her neck. "She's only teasing, +Megsie; Esther did it and left it ready in the hall--you've only +to give it to Pip. Pat has to take the dogcart into town this +afternoon to have the back seat mended, and Pip's going in it, +too, that's all, and they're putting the horse in now; you're +not late." + +It was the coat Bunty had done his best to spoil that all +the trouble was about. It belonged, as I said, to the Captain's +full-dress uniform, and was wanted for a dinner at the Barracks +this same evening. And Esther had been sponging and cleaning +at it all the morning, and had left directions that it was to be +taken to the Barracks in the afternoon. + +Presently the dogcart came spinning round to the door in great +style, Pip driving and Pat looking sulkily on. They took the +coat parcel and put it carefully under the seat, and were +preparing to start again, when Judy came out upon the veranda, +holding the General in an uncomfortable position in her arms. + +"You come, too, Fizz, there's heaps of room--there's no reason you +shouldn't," Pip said suddenly. "Oh--h--h!" said Judy, her eyes +sparkling. She took a rapid step forward and lifted her foot to +get in. + +"Oh, I say!" remonstrated Pip, "you'll have to put on something +over that dress, old girl--it's all over jam and things." + +Judy shot herself into the hall and returned with her ulster; she +set the General on the floor for a minute while she donned it, +then picked him up and handed him up to Pip. + +"He'll have to come, too," she said; "I promised Esther I +wouldn't let him out of my sight for a minute; she's getting +quite nervous about him lately--thinks he'll get broken." + +Pip grumbled a minute or two, but the General gave a gurgling, +captivating laugh and held up his arms, so he took him up and +held him while Judy clambered in. + +"We can come back in the tram to the Quay, and then get a boat +back," she said, squeezing the baby on the seat between them. +"The General loves going on the water." + +Away they sped; down the neglected carriage drive, out of the +gates, and away down the road. Pip, Judy of the shining eyes, +the General devouring his thumb, and Pat smiling-faced once more +because in possession of the reins. + +A wind from the river swept through the belt of gum trees on the +Crown lands, and sent the young red blood leaping through their +veins; it played havoc with Judy's curls, and dyed her brown +cheeks a warm red; it made the General kick and laugh and grow +restive, and caused Pip to stick his hat on the back of his head +and whistle joyously. + +Until town was reached, when they were forced to yield +somewhat to the claims of conventionality. On the way to +Paddington a gentleman on horseback slackened pace a little. +Pip took off his hat with a flourish, and Judy gave a frank, +pleased smile, for it was a certain old Colonel they had known +for years, and had cause to remember his good-humour and +liberality. + +"Well, my little maid--well, Philip, lad," he said, smiling +genially, while his horse danced round the dogcart--"and the +General too--where are you all off to?" + +"The Barracks--I'm taking something up for the governor," Pip +answered, Judy was watching the plunging horse with admiring eyes. +"And then we're going back home." + +The old gentleman managed, in spite of the horse's tricks, to +slip his hand in his pocket. "Here's something to make yourselves +ill with on the way," he said, handing them two half-crowns; "but +don't send me the doctor's bill." + +He flicked the General's cheek with his whip, gave Judy a nod, and +cantered off. + +The children looked at each other with sparkling eyes. + +"Coconuts," Pip said, "and tarts and toffee, and save the rest for +a football?" Judy shook her head. "Where do I come in?" she said. +"You'd keep the football at school. I vote pink jujubes, and icecreams, +and a wax doll." + +"A wax grandmother!" Pip retorted; "you wouldn't be such a girl, I +hope." Then he added, with almost pious fervour, "Thank goodness +you've always hated dolls, Fizz." + +Judy gave a sudden leap in her seat, almost upsetting the General, +and bringing down upon her head a storm of reproaches from the +coachman. "I know!" she said; "and we're almost halfway there +now. Oh--h--h! it will be lovely." + +Pip urged her to explain herself. + +"Bondi Aquarium--skating, boats, merry-go-round, switchback +threepence a go!" she returned succinctly. + +"Good iron," Pip whispered softly, while he revolved the thing +in his mind. "There'd be something over, too, to get some tucker +with, and perhaps something for the football, too." Then his +brow clouded. + +"There's the kid--whatever did you go bringing him for? Just +like a girl to spoil everything!" Judy looked nonplussed. + +"I quite forgot him," she said, vexedly. "Couldn't we leave +him somewhere? Couldn't we ask someone to take care of him +while we go? Oh, it would be TOO bad to have to give it up +just because of him. It's beginning to rain, too; we couldn't +take him with us." + +They were at the foot of Barrack Hill now, and Pat told them +they must get out and walk the rest of the way up, or he would +never get the dogcart finished to take back that evening. + +Pip tumbled out and took the General, all in a bunched-up heap, +and Judy alighted carefully after him, the precious coat parcel +in her arms. And they walked up the asphalt hill to the +gate leading to the officers' quarters in utter silence. + +"Well?" Pip said querulously, as they reached the top. "Be +quick; haven't you thought of anything?" + +That levelling of brows, and pursing of lips, always meant deep +and intricate calculation on his sister's part, as he knew full +well. + +"Yes," Judy said quietly. "I've got a plan that will do, I think." +Then a sudden fire entered her manner. + +"Who is the General's father? Tell me that," she said, in a +rapid, eager way; "and isn't it right and proper fathers should +look after their sons? And doesn't he deserve we should get +even with him for doing us out of the pantomime? And isn't the +Aquarium too lovely to miss?" + +"Well?" Pip said; his slower brain did not follow such rapid +reasoning. + +"Only I'm going to leave the General here at the Barracks for a +couple of hours till we come back, his father being the proper +person to watch over him." Judy grasped the General's small. +fat hand in a determined way, and opened the gate. + +"Oh, I say," remarked Pip, "we'll get in an awful row, you know, +Fizz. I don't think we'd better--I don't really, old girl." + +"Not a bit," said Judy, stoutly--"at least, only a bit, and +the Aquarium's worth that. Look how it's raining; the child will +get croup, or rheumatism, or something if we take him; there's +Father standing over on the green near the tennis-court talking to +a man. I'll slip quietly along the veranda and into his own room, +and put the coat and the General on the bed; then I'll tell a +soldier to go and tell Father his parcels have come; and while +he's gone I'll fly back to you, and we'll catch the tram +and go to the Aquarium." + +Pip whistled again softly. He was used to bold proposals from +this sister of his, but this was beyond everything. "B--b--but," +he said uneasily, "but, Judy, whatever would he do with that kid for +two mortal hours?" + +"Mind him," Judy returned promptly. "It's a pretty thing if a +father can't mind his own child for two hours. Afterwards, you +see, when we've been to the Aquarium, we will come back and fetch +him, and we can explain to Father how it was raining, and that we +thought we'd better not take him with us for fear of rheumatism, +and that we were in a hurry to catch the tram, and as he wasn't +in his room we just put him on the bed till he came. Why, Pip, +it's beautifully simple!" + +Pip still looked uncomfortable. "I don't like it, Fizz," he said +again; "he'll be in a fearful wax." + +Judy gave him one exasperated look. "Go and see if that's the +Bondi tram coming," she said; and glad of a moment's respite, +he went down the path again to the pavement and looked down +the hill. When he turned round again she had gone. + +He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked up and down the path +a few times. "Fizz'll get us hanged yet," he muttered, looking +darkly at the door in the wall through which she had disappeared. +He pushed his hat to the back of hiss head and stared gloomily +at his boots, wondering what would be the consequences of this +new mischief. There was a light footfall beside him. + +"Come on," said Judy, pulling his sleeve; "it's done now, come on, +let's go and have our fun; have you got the money safe?" + +It was two o'clock as they passed out of the gate and turned +their faces up, the hill to the tram stopping-place. And it was +half-past four when they jumped out of a town-bound tram and +entered the gates again to pick up their charge. + +Such an afternoon as they had had! Once inside the Aquarium, +even Pip had put his conscience qualms on one side, and bent all +his energies to enjoying himself thoroughly. And Judy was like +a little mad thing. She spent a shilling of her money on the +switchback railway, pronouncing the swift, bewildering motion +"heavenly." The first journey made Pip feel sick, so he +eschewed a repetition of it, and watched Judy go off from time to +time, waving gaily from the perilous little car, almost with his +heart in his mouth. Then they hired a pair of roller skates each, +and bruised themselves black and blue with heavy falls on the +asphalt. After that they had a ride on the merry-go-round, but +Judy found it tame after the switchback, and refused to squander +a second threepence upon it, contenting herself with watching Pip +fly round, and madly running by his side, to keep up as long as +she could. They finished the afternoon with a prolonged +inspection of the fish-tanks, a light repast of jam tarts of +questionable freshness, and twopennyworth of peanuts. And, as +I said, it was half-past four as they hastened up the path again +to the top gate of the Barracks. + +"I hope he's been good," Judy said, as she turned the handle. +"Yes, you come, too, Pip"--for that young gentleman hung back one +agonized second. "Twenty kicks or blows divided by two only make +ten, you see." + +They went up the long stone veranda and stopped at one door. + +There was a little knot of young officers laughing and talking +close by. + +"Take my word, 'twas as good as a play to see Wooly grabbing his +youngster, and stuffing it into a cab, and getting in himself, all +with a look of ponderous injured dignity," one said, and laughed +at the recollection. + +Another blew away a cloud of cigar smoke. "It was a jolly little +beggar," he said. "It doubled its fists and landed His High +Mightiness one in the eye; and then its shoe dropped off, and +we all rushed to pick it up, and it was muddy and generally +dilapidated, and old Wooly went red slowly up to his ear-tips as +he tried to put it on." + +A little figure stepped into the middle of the group--a little +figure with an impossibly short and shabby ulster, thin +black-stockinged legs, and a big hat crushed over a tangle of +curls. + +"It is my father you are speaking of," she said, her head very +high, her tone haughty, "and I cannot tell where your amusement is. +Is my father here, or did I hear you say he had gone away?" + +Two of the men looked foolish, the third took off his cap. + +"I am sorry you should have overheard us, Miss Woolcot," he +said pleasantly. "Still, there is no irreparable harm done, is +there? Yes, your father has gone away in a cab. He couldn't +imagine how the little boy came on his bed, and, as he couldn't +keep him here very well, I suppose he has taken him home." + +Something like a look of shame came into Judy's bright eyes, + +"I am afraid I must have put my father to some inconvenience," +she said quietly. "It was I who left the Gen--my brother here, +because I didn't know what to do with him for an hour or two. +But I quite meant to take him home myself. Has he been gone +long?" + +"About half an hour," the officer said, and tried not to look +amused at the little girl's old-fashioned manner. + +"Ah, thank you. Perhaps we can catch him up. Come on, Pip," +and, nodding in a grave, distant manner, she turned away, and +went down the veranda and through the gate with her brother. + +"A nice hole we're in," he said. + +Judy nodded. + +"It's about the very awfullest thing we've ever done in our lives. +Fancy the governor carting that child all the way from here! Oh, +lor'!" + +Judy nodded again. + +"Can't you speak?" he said irritably. "You've got us into this--I +didn't want to do it; but I'll stand by you, of course. Only +you'll have to think of something quick." + +Judy bit three finger-tips off her right-hand glove, and looked +melancholy. + +"There's absolutely nothing to do, Pip," she said slowly. "I +didn't think it would turn out like this. I suppose we'd better +just go straight back and hand ourselves over for punishment. +He'll be too angry to hear any sort of an excuse, so we'd better +just grin and hear whatever he does to us. I'm really sorry, too, +that I made a laughing-stock of him up there." + +Pip was explosive. He called her a little ass and a gowk and a +stupid idiot for doing such a thing, and she did not reproach him +or answer back once. + +They caught a tram and went into Sydney, and afterwards to the +boat. They ensconced themselves in a corner at the far end, and +discussed the state of affairs with much seriousness. Then Pip got +up and, strolled about a little to relieve his feelings, coming +back in a second with a white, scared face. + +"He's on the boat," he said, in a horrified whisper. + +"Where-where--where? what--what--what?" Judy cried, unintentionally +mimicking a long-buried monarch. + +"In the cabin, looking as glum as a boiled wallaby, and hanging +on to the poor little General as if he thinks he'll fly away." + +Judy looked a little frightened for the first time. "Can't we +hide? Don't let him see us. It wouldn't be any good offering to +take the General now. We're in for it now, Pip--there'll be no +quarter." + +Pip groaned; then Judy stood up. + +"Let's creep down as far as the engine," she said, "and see if he +does look very bad." + +They made their way cautiously along the deck, and took up a +position where they could see without being seen. The dear +little General was sitting on the seat next to his stern father, +who had a firm hold of the back of his woolly-pelisse. He was +sucking his little dirty hand, and casting occasional longing +glances at his tan shoe, which he knew was delicious to bite. +Once or twice he had pulled it off and conveyed it to his mouth, +but his father intercepted it, and angrily buttoned it on again +in its rightful place. He wanted, too, to slither off the horrid +seat, and crawl all over the deck, and explore the ground under +the seats, and see where the puffing noise came from; but there +was that iron grasp on his coat that no amount of wriggling would +move. No wonder the poor child looked unhappy! + +At last the boat stopped at a wharf not far from Misrule, and the +Captain alighted, carrying his small dirty son gingerly in his +arms. He walked slowly up the red road along which the dogcart +had sped so blithesomely some six or seven hours ago, and Judy +and Pip followed at a respectful--a very respectful--distance. +At the gate he saw them, and gave a large, angry beckon for them +to come up. Judy went very white, but obeyed instantly, and Pip, +pulling himself together, brought up the rear. + +Afterwards Judy only had a very indistinct remembrance of what +happened during the next half-hour. She knew there was a stormy +scene, in which Esther and the whole family came in for an +immense amount of vituperation. + +Then Pip received a thrashing, in spite of Judy's persistent avowal +that it was all her fault, and Pip hadn't done anything. She +remembered wondering whether she would be treated as summarily as +Pip, so angry was her father's face as he pushed the boy aside +and stood looking at her, riding whip in hand. But he flung +it, down and laid a heavy hand on her shrinking shoulder. + +"Next Monday," he said slowly--"next Monday morning you will +go to boarding school. Esther, kindly see Helen's clothes are +ready for boarding school--next Monday morning." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"Next Monday Morning" + + +There was a trunk standing in the hall, and a large, much-travelled +portmanteau, and there were labels on them that said: "Miss Helen +Woolcot, The Misses Burton, Mount Victoria." + +In the nursery breakfast was proceeding spasmodically. Meg's +blue eyes were all red and swollen with crying, and she was still +sniffing audibly as she poured out the coffee. Pip had his hands +in his pockets and stood on the hearthrug, looking gloomily at a +certain plate, and refusing breakfast altogether; the General was +crashing his own mug and plate joyously together; and Bunty +was eating bread and butter in stolid silence. + +Judy, white-faced and dry-eyed, was sitting at the table, and Nell +and Baby were clinging to either arm. All the three days between +that black Thursday and this doleful morning she had been obstinately +uncaring. Her spirits had never seemed higher, her eyes brighter, +her tongue sharper, than during that interval of days; and she had +pretended to everyone, and her father, that she especially thought +boarding school must be great fun, and that she should enjoy it +immensely. + +But this morning she had collapsed altogether. All the time before, +her hot childish heart had been telling her that her father could +not really be so cruel, that he did not really mean to send her +away among strangers, away from dear, muddled old Misrule and all +her sisters and brothers; he was only saying it to frighten her, +she kept saying to herself, and she would show him she was not +a chickenhearted baby. + +But on Sunday night, when she saw a trunk carried downstairs +and filled with her things and labelled with her name, a cold +hand seemed to close about her heart. Still, she said to herself, +he was doing all this to make it seem more real. + +But now it was morning, and she could disbelieve it no longer. +Esther had come to her bedside and kissed her sorrowfully, her +beautiful face troubled and tender. She had begged as she had +never done before for a remission of poor Judy's sentence, but +the Captain was adamant. It was she and she only who was always +ringleader in everything; the others would behave when she was not +there to incite them to mischief and go she should. Besides, he +said, it would be the making of her. It was an excellent school +he had chosen for her; the ladies who kept it were kind, but very +firm, and Judy was being ruined for want of a firm hand. Which, +indeed, was in a measure true. + +Judy sat bolt upright in bed at the sight of Esther's sorrowful +face. + +"It's no good, dear; there's no way out of it," she said gently. +"But you'll go like a brave girl, won't you, Ju-Ju? You always +were the sort to die game, as Pip says." + +Judy gulped down a great lump in her throat, and her poor little +face grew white and drawn. + +"It's all right, Essie. There, you go on down to breakfast," +she said, in a voice that, only shook a little; "and please +leave the General, Esther; I'll bring him down with me." + +Esther deposited her little fat son on the pillow, and with one +loving backward glance went out of the door. + +And Judy pulled the little lad down into her arms, and covered the +bedclothes right over both their heads, and held him in a fierce, +almost desperate clasp for a minute or two, and buried her face +in his soft, dimpled neck, and kissed it till her lips ached. + +He fought manfully against these troublesome proceedings, and at +last objected, with an angry scream, to being suffocated. So she +flung back the clothes and got out of bed, leaving him to burrow +about among the pillows, and pull feathers out of a hole in one +of them. + +She dressed in a quick nervous fashion, did her hair with more +care than usual, and then picked up the General and took him along +the passage into the nursery. All the others were here, and, with +Esther, were evidently discussing her. The three girls looked +tearful and protesting; Pip had just been brought to book for +speaking disrespectfully of his father, and was looking sullen; +and Bunty, not knowing what else to do at such a crisis, had fallen +to catching flies, and was viciously taking off their wings. + +It was a wretched meal: The bell sounded for the downstairs +breakfast, and Esther had to go. Everyone offered Judy everything +on the table, and spoke gently and politely to her. She seemed +to be apart from them, a person not to be lightly treated in the +dignity of this great trouble. Her dress, too, was quite new--a +neat blue serge fresh from the dressmaker's hands; her boots +were blacked and bright, her stockings guiltless of ventilatory +chasms. All this helped to make her a Judy quite different from +the harum-scarum one of a few days back, who used to come to +breakfast looking as if her clothes had been pitchforked upon her. + +Baby addressed herself to her porridge for one minute, but the +next her feelings overcame her, and, with a little wail, she rushed +round the table to Judy, and hung on her arm sobbing. This +destroyed the balance of the whole company. Nell got the other arm +and swayed to and fro in an excess of misery. Meg's tears rained +down into her teacup; Pip dug his heel in the hearthrug, and +wondered what was the matter with his eyes; and even Bunty's +appetite for bread and butter diminished. + +Judy sat there silent; she had pushed back her unused plate, and +sat regarding it with an expression of utter despair on her +young face. She looked like a miniature tragedy queen going to +immediate execution. + +Presently Bunty got off his chair, covered up his coffee with his +saucer to keep the flies out, and solemnly left the room. In a +minute he returned with a pickle bottle, containing an enormous +green frog. + +"You can have it to keep for your very own, Judy," he said, in a +tone of almost reckless sadness. "It'll, keep you amused, perhaps, +at school." Self-sacrifice could go no further, for this frog was +the darling of Bunty's heart. + +This stimulated the others; everyone fetched some offering to lay +at Judy's shrine for a keepsake. Meg brought a bracelet, plaited +out of the hair of a defunct pet pony. Pip gave his three-bladed +pocketknife. Nell a pot of musk that she had watered and cherished +for a year, Baby had a broken-nosed doll, that was the Benjamin of +her large family. + +"Put them in the trunk, Meg--there's room on top, I think," Judy +said in a choking voice, and deeply touched by these gifts. "Oh! +and, Bunty, dear! put a cork over the f--f--frog, will you? it +might get lost, poor thing! in that b--b--big box." + +"All right," said Bunty, "You'll take c--c--care of it, w--won't +you, Judy? Oh dear, oh--h--h!--boo-hoo!" + +Then Esther came in, still troubled-looking. "The dogcart is +round," she said. "Are you ready, Ju, dearest? Dear little Judy! +be brave, little old woman." + +But Judy was white as death, and utterly limp. She suffered +Esther to put her hat on, to help her into her new jacket, to put +her gloves into her hand. She submitted to being kissed by the +whole family, to be half carried downstairs by Esther, to be +kissed again by the girls, then by the two good-natured domestics, +who, in spite of her peccadilloes, had a warm place in their hearts +for her. + +Esther and Pip lifted her into the dogcart; and she sat in a +little, huddled-up way, looking down at the group on the veranda +with eyes that were absolutely tragic in their utter despair. Her +father came out, buttoning his overcoat, and saw the look. + +"What foolishness is this?" he said irascibly--"Esther-great +heavens! are you making a goose of yourself, too?"--there were +great tears glistening in his wife's beautiful eyes. "Upon my +soul, one would think I was going to take the child to be hanged, +or at least was going to leave her in a penitentiary." + +A great dry sob broke from Judy's white lips. + +"If you'll let me stay, Father, I'll never do another thing to vex +you; and you can thrash me instead, ever so hard." + +It was her last effort, her final hope, and she bit her poor +quivering lip till it bled while she waited for his answer. + +"Let her stay--oh! do letter stay, we'll be good always," came +in a chorus from the veranda. And, "Let her stay, John, PLEASE!" +Esther called in a tone as entreating as any of the children. + +But the Captain sprang into the dogcart and seized the reins from +Pat in a burst of anger. + +"I think you're all demented!" he cried. "She's going to a +thoroughly good home, I've paid a quarter in advance already, +and I can assure you good people I'm not going to waste it." + +He gave the horse a smart touch with the whip, and in a minute +the dogcart had flashed out of the gate, and the small, unhappy +face was lost to sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The Sweetness of Sweet Sixteen + + "She is not yet so old + But she may learn: happier than this, + She is not bred so dull but she can learn." + + +Meg's hair had always been pretty, but during the last two months +she had cut herself a fringe, and begun to torture it up in curl +papers every night. And in her private drawer she kept a jam tin +filled with oatmeal, that she used in the water every time she +washed, having read it was a great complexion beautifier. And +nightly she rubbed vaseline on her hands and slept in old kid +gloves. And her spare money went in the purchase of "Freckle +Lotion," to remove that slight powdering of warm brown sun-kisses +that somehow lent a certain character to her face. + +All these things were the outcome of being sixteen, and having +found a friend of seventeen. + +Aldith MacCarthy learnt French from the same teacher that Meg +was going to twice a week, and after an exchange of chocolates, +hair-ribbons, and family confidences a friendship sprang up. + +Aldith had three grown-up sisters, whom she aped in everything, +and was considerably wiser in the world than simple-minded, +romantic Meg. + +She lent Meg novels, "Family Herald Supplements", "Young Ladies' +Journals", and such publications, and the young girl took to them +with avidity, surprised at the new world into which they took her; +for Charlotte Yonge and Louisa Alcott and Miss Wetherall had hitherto +formed her simple and wholesome fare. + +Meg began to dream rose-coloured dreams of the time when her fair, +shining hair should be gathered up into "a simple knot at the back +of her head" or "brushed into a regal coronet," these being the +styles in which the heroines in the novels invariably dressed +their hair. A pigtail done in three was very unromantic. That +was why, as a sort of compromise, she cut herself a fringe and +began to frizz out the end of her plait. Her father stared at her, +and said she looked like a shop-girl, when first he noticed it, +and Esther told her she was a stupid child; but the looking-glass +and Aldith reassured her. + +The next thing was surreptitiously to lengthen her dresses, which +were at the short-long stage. In the privacy of her own bedroom +she took the skirts of two or three of her frocks off the band, +inserted a piece of lining for lengthening purposes, and then +added a frill to the waists of her bodices to hide the join. This +dropped the skirts a good two inches, and made her look quite a +tall, slim figure, as she was well aware. + +And none of these things were very harmful. + +But Aldith gradually grew dissatisfied with her waist. + +"You're at least twenty-three, Marguerite," she said once, quite in +a horrified way. She never called her friend Meg, pronouncing that +name to be "too domestic and altogether unlovely." + +Meg glanced from her own waist to her friend's slender, beautiful +one, and sighed profoundly. "What ought I to be?" she said in a +low tone; and Aldith had answered, "Eighteen--or nineteen, +Marguerite, at the most; true symmetrical grace can never be +obtained with a waist twenty-three inches round." + +Aldith had not only made statements and comparisons, she had given +her friend practical advice, and shown her how the thing was to be +done. And every night and morning Meg pulled away ruthlessly +at her corset laces, and crushed her beautiful little body into +narrower space. She had already brought it within a girdle of +twenty-one inches, which was a clear saving of two, and she had +taken in all her dresses at the seams. + +But she gave up the evening game of cricket, and she never made one +at rounders now, much to the others' disgust. No one, to look at +the sweet blossom-like face, and soft, calm eyes, could have +guessed what torture was being felt beneath the now pretty, +welt-fitting dress body. To walk quickly was positive pain; to +stoop, almost agony; but she endured it all with a heroism +worthy of a truly noble cause. + +"How long shall I have to go on like this, Aldith?" she asked +once faintly, after a French lesson that she had scarcely been +able to sit through. + +And the older girl answered carelessly, "Oh, you mustn't leave +it off, of course, but you don't feel it at all after a bit." + +With which assurance Meg pursued her painful course. + +Esther, the only person in a position to exercise any authority +in the matter, had not noticed at all, and, indeed, had she done, +so would not have thought very gravely of it, for it was only +four years since she, too, had been sixteen, and a "waist" had +been the most desirable thing on earth. + +Once she had said unwittingly, + +"What a nice little figure you are getting, Meg; this new +dressmaker certainly fits better than Miss Quinn"; and foolish +Meg, with a throb of delight, had redoubled her efforts. + +Lynx-eyed Judy would have found her out long ago, and laughed her +to utter shame, but unfortunately for Meg's constitution she +was still at school, it being now the third month of her +absence. + +Aldith only lived about twenty minutes' walk from Misrule, so +the two girls were always together. Twice a week they went down +to town in the river-boat to learn how to inquire, in polite +French, "Has the baker's young daughter the yellow hat, brown +gloves, and umbrella of the undertaker's niece?" And twice a +week, after they had answered irrelevantly, "No, but the surgeon +had some beer, some mustard, and the dinner-gong," Aldith conducted +her friend slowly up and down that happy hunting-ground of +Sydney youth and fashion--the Block. "Just see how many hats +I'll get taken off," Miss Aldith would say as they started; and +by the end of the time Meg would say longingly, "How lovely it must +be to know crowds of gentlemen like you do." + +Sometimes one or two of them would stop and exchange a word or two, +and then Aldith would formally introduce Meg; often, however, the +latter, who was sharp enough for all her foolishness, would fancy +she detected a patronizing, amused air in these gentlemen's +manners. As, indeed, there often was; they were chiefly men +whom Aldith had met at dances and tennis in her own home; and +who thought that young lady a precocious child who wanted keeping +in the schoolroom a few more years. + +One day Aldith came to Misrule brimming over with mysterious +importance. "Come down the garden, Marguerite," she said, +taking no notice whatever of Baby, who had, with much difficulty, +beguiled her eldest sister into telling her the ever delightful +legend of the three little pigs. + +"Oh, no, by the hair of my chiny-chin-chin, then I'll huff and +I'll puff and I'll blow your house in," had only been said twice, +and the exciting part was still to come. + +Baby looked up with stormy eyes. + +"Go away, Aldiff," she said. + +"Miss MacCarthy,--Baby, dear," Meg suggested, gently, catching Aldith's +half-scornful smile. + +"ALDIFF," repeated Baby obstinately. Then she relented, and put +one caressing little arm round her sister's neck. + +"I will say Miff MacCarfy iss you will say ze uzzer little pig, +too." + +"Oh, send her away, Marguerite, do," Aldith said impatiently, +"I have an enthralling secret to tell you, and I'll have to go soon." + +Meg looked interested immediately. + +"Run away, Baby, dear," she said, kissing the disappointed little +face; "go and play Noah's Ark with Bunty, and I'll finish the +piggies to-night or to-morrow." + +"But I want them NOW," Baby said insistently. + +Meg pushed her gently aside. "No, run away, pet--run away at once +like a good girl, and I'll tell you Red Riding Hood, too, to-morrow." + +Baby looked up at her sister's guest. + +"You are a horrid old pig, Aldiff MacCatfy," she said, with slow +emphasis, "an' I hates you hard, an' we all hates you here, 'ceps Meg; +and Pip says you're ze jammiest girl out, an' I wis' a drate big ziant +would come and huff and puff and blow you into ze middlest part of +ze sea." + +Aldith laughed, a little aggravating grown-up laugh, that put the +finishing touch to Baby's anger. She put out her little hand and +gave the guest's arm in its muslin sleeve a sharp, scientific pinch +that Pip had taught her. Then she fled madly away down the long +paddocks, to the bit of bush beyond. + +"Insufferable," Aldith muttered angrily, and it needed all Meg's +apologies and coaxings to get her into an amiable frame of mind +again, and to induce her to communicate the enthralling secret. + +At last, however, it was imparted, with great impressiveness. +Aldith's eldest sister was engaged, engaged to be married! Oh! +wasn't it heavenly? Wasn't it romantic?--and to the gentleman with +the long fair moustache who had been so much at their house lately. + +"I knew it would come--I have seen it coming for a long time. +Oh! I'm not easily blinded;" Aldith said. "I know true love when +I see it. Though certainly for myself I should prefer a dark +moustache, should not you, Marguerite?" + +"Ye--es," said Meg. Her views were hardly formed yet on the +subject. + +"Jet black, with waxed ends, very stiff," Aldith continued +thoughtfully, "and a soldierly carriage, and very long black +lashes." + +"So should I," Meg said, fired in a moment. "Like Guy Deloraine +in 'Angelina's Ambition'." Aldith put her arm more tightly round +her friend. + +"Wouldn't it be HEAVENLY, Marguerite, to be engaged--you and I?" +she said, in a tone of dreamy rapture. "To have a dark, +handsome man with proud black eyes just dying with love for you, +going down on his knees, and giving you presents, and taking you +out and all--oh, Marguerite, just think of it!" + +Melt's eyes looked wistful. "We're not old enough, though, yet," +she said with a sigh. + +Aldith tossed her head. "That's nonsense; why, Clara Allison is +only seventeen, and look at your own stepmother. Plenty of girls +are actually married at sixteen, Marguerite, and a man proposed +my sister Beatrice when she was only fifteen." Meg looked +impressed and thoughtful. + +Then Aldith rose to go. "Mind you're in time for the boat +to-morrow," she said, as they reached the gate; "and, Marguerite, +be sure you make yourself look very nice--wear your cornflower +dress, and see if Mrs. Woolcot will lend you a pair of her gloves, +your grey ones are just a little shabby, aren't they, dear?" + +"H'm," said Meg, colouring. + +"And Mr. James Graham always comes back on that boat, and the two +Courtney boys--Andrew Courtney told Beatrice he thought you seemed +a nice little thing; he often notices you, he says, because you +blush so." + +"I can't help it," Meg said, unhappily. "Aldith, how ought the +ribbon to go on my hat? I'm going to retrim it again." + +"Oh, square bows, somewhat stiff, and well at the side," the oracle, +said. "I'm glad you're going to, dear, it looked just a wee bit +dowdy, didn't it?" Meg coloured again. + +"Have you done your French?" she said, as she pulled open the +gate. + +"In a way," Aldith said carelessly. Then she put up her chin, +"Those frowzy-looking Smiths always make a point of having no +mistakes; and, Janet Green, whose hats are always four seasons +behind the fashions; I prefer to have a few errors, just to show +I haven't to work hard and be a teacher after I--" + +But just here she stumbled and fell down her full length in a most +undignified manner, right across the muddy sidewalk. + +It was a piece of string and Baby's vengeance. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"What Say You to Falling in Love?" + + +Meg was looking ill, there was no doubt about it. Her pretty +pink-and-white complexion was losing its fresh look, a slightly +irritable expression had settled round a mouth that a few months +back had seemed made for smiles only. And terribly unromantic +fact, her nose was quite florid-looking at times. Now a heroine +may have the largest, deepest, and most heavily lashed eyes +imaginable; she may have hair in very truth like the gold "mown +from a harvest's middle floor"; she may have lips like cherries +and teeth like pearls, and a red nose will be so utterly fatal +that all these other charms will pass unnoticed. It cost Meg real +anguish of spirit. She carefully read all the Answers to Correspondents +in the various papers Aldith lent her in search of a remedy, but +nearly everyone seemed to be asking for recipes to promote the +growth of the eyelashes or to prevent _embonpoint_. Not one she +chanced on said, "A red nose in a girl is generally caused by +indigestion or tight-lacing." She asked Aldith to suggest something, +and that young person thought that vaseline and sulphur mixed +together, and spread over the afflicted member, would have the +desired effect. So every night Meg fastened her bedroom door +with a wedge of wood, keys being unknown luxuries at Misrule, +and anointed her, poor little nose most carefully with the +greasy mixture, lying all night on her back to prevent it +rubbing off on the pillow. + +Once Pip had forced his way into demand a few stitches for his +braces which had split, and she had been compelled to wrap her +whole face hastily up in a towel and declare she had violent +neuralgia, and he must go to Esther or one of the servants. Had +he seen and known the cause there would have been no end to the +teasing. + +Nowadays Meg spent a great deal of time in her bedroom, that she +had all to herself while Judy was away. In its privacy she +trimmed and retrimmed her hats, altered her dresses, read her +novels, and sat in front of the looking-glass with her hair down, +dreaming of being quite grown up and in love. For just now both +to Aldith, and herself that state of life seemed the only one +altogether lovely and desirable. Meg used to curl herself up in a +big easy-chair that had drifted to her room because its springs +were broken, and dream long, beautiful, hopeless dreams of a lover +with "long black lashes and a soldierly carriage." Of course it +was highly reprehensible to have such thoughts at the tender age +of sixteen, but then the child had no mother to check that erring +imagination, and she was a daughter of the South. + +Australian girls nearly always begin to think of "lovers and +nonsense," as middlefolks call it, long before their English aged +sisters do. While still in the short-frock period of existence, +and while their hair is still free-flowing, they take the keenest +interest in boys--boys of neighbouring schools, other girls' brothers, +young bank clerks, and the like. Not because they would be good +playmates, but because they look at them in the light of possible +"sweethearts." I do not say English girl children are free from this. +By no means; in every school there may be found one or two this way +inclined, giggling, forward young things who want whipping and +sending to play cricket or dolls again. But in this land of +youthfulness it is the rule more frequently than the exception, and +herein lies the chief defect of the very young Australian girl. +She is like a peach, a beautiful, smooth, rich peach, that has come +to ripeness almost in a day, and that hastens to rub off the soft, +delicate bloom that is its chief charm, just to show its bright, +warm colouring more clearly. Aldith had, to her own infinite +satisfaction, brushed away her own "bloom," and was at present +busily engaged in trying to remove Meg's, which was very soft +and lovely before she touched it. The novels had taken away a +little, and the "Block" a little more, but, Meg was naturally +freshminded, and it took time to make much difference. Just now, +under her friend's tutelage, she was being inducted into the +delightful mysteries of sweethearting, and for the time, it quite +filled her some what purposeless young life. But it all ended +with an adventure that years afterwards used to make her cheeks +tingle painfully at the thought. + +After the bi-weekly French lesson, as I have said, the two friends +used to come back together in the river-boat at five o'clock. +And by this boat there always came two boys by the name of Courtney, +and a third boy, Aldith's particular property, James Graham. Now +the young people had become known to each other at picnics and the +like in the neighbourhood, but the acquaintance, instead of +ripening on frequent meeting into a frank, pleasant friendship, +had taken the turn of secrecy and silly playing at love. James +Graham was in a lawyer's office, a young articled cleric of +seventeen in undue haste to be that delightful thing, a man. +He carried a cane, and was very particular about his hat and +necktie and his boots, which generally were tan. And he had +the faintest possible moustache, that he caressed with great +frequency; and that privately Aldith thought adorable. Aldith's +pert, sprightly manner pleased him, and in a very short time +they had got to the period of passing notes into each other's +hands and sighing sentimentally. Not that the notes contained +much harm, they were generally of rather a formal character. + + +"My dear' Miss MacCarthy," one would run-- + +"Why were you not on the boat yesterday? I looked for you till +it was no use looking longer, and then the journey was blank. +How charmingly that big hat suits you, and those jonquils at +your neck. Might I beg one of the flowers? just one, please, +Aldith. + +Your devoted friend, + James Graham." + + +And Aldith's, written on a sheet of her note-book with a pink +programme pencil that she always kept in her purse, might be +no worse than: + + +"Dear Mr. Graham, + +"What EVER can you want these flowers at my neck for? They have +been there all day, and are dead and spoiled. I can't IMAGINE what +good they'll be to you. Still, of course, if you REALLY care for +them you shall have them. I am so glad you like this hat. I shall +always like it NOW. Did you REALLY miss me yesterday? I had gone +to have my photo taken. Marguerite thinks it very good indeed, +but I am SURE it flatters me TOO much. + +Yours truly, + L. Aldith Evelyn MacCarthy." + + +Now Mr. James Graham had a great friend in one of the before-mentioned +Courtney boys, Andrew by name. He was a handsome lad of eighteen, +still a schoolboy, but possessed of fascinating manners and a pair +of really beautiful eyes. + +And, since his friend and companion Jim had taken to "having fun" +with "the girl MacCarthy," he objected to being left out in the +cold. So he began to pay marked attentions to Meg, who blushed +right up to her soft, pretty fringe every time he spoke to her, +and looked painfully conscious and guilty if he said anything at +all complimentary to her. + +The other boy, Alan Courtney, was very tall and broad-shouldered, +and not at all good-looking. He had a strong, plain face, grey +eyes deeply set, and brown hair that looked as if he was in a +constant state of rumpling it up the wrong way. He was a University +student, and a great footballer, and he never diverted himself on +the long homeward journey in the way Andrew and his friend did. + +He used generally to give a half-contemptuous nod as he passed +the little group, uncovering his head for the shortest possible +period consistent with civility, and making his way to the far +end of the boat. One time as he passed them Aldith was drooping +her lashes and using her eyes with great effect, and Meg was almost +positive she heard him mutter under his breath, "Silly young fools!" +He used to smoke at his end of the boat--cigars at the beginning +of term and a short, black, villainous-looking pipe at the end--and +Meg used secretly to think how manly he looked, and to sigh profoundly. + +For I may as well tell you now as later what this foolish little +thing had done after a few months' course of Aldith and novels. +She had fallen in love as nearly as it is possible for sweet sixteen +to do; and it was with Alan, who had no good looks nor pleasant +manners--not Andrew, who had speaking eyes, and curls that "made +his forehead like the rising sun"; not Andrew, who gave her tender +glances and conversation peppermints that said "My heart is thine," +but Alan, who took no notice whatever of her beyond an occasional +half-scornful bow. + +Poor little Meg! She was very miserable in these days, and yet it +was a kind of exquisite misery that she hugged to her to keep it +warm. No one guessed her secret. She would have died rather than +allow even Aldith to get a suspicion of it, and accepted Andrew's +notes and smiles as if there was nothing more she wanted. But she +grew a trifle thin and large-eyed, and used to make copious notes +in her diary every night, and to write a truly appalling quantity +of verses, in which "heart" and "part," "grieve" and "leave," +"weep" and "keep," and "sigh" and "die," were most often the +concluding words of the lines. She endured Andrew for several +reasons. He was Alan's brother for one thing, and was always +saying things about "old Al," and recording his prowess on the +football field; and Aldith might discover her secret if she gave +him the cold shoulder altogether. Besides this Andrew had the +longest eyelashes she had ever seen and she must have somebody +to say pretty things to her, even if it was not the person she +would have wished it to be. + +One day things came to a crisis. + +"No more trips on the dear old boat for a month," Aldith remarked, +from her corner of the cabin. + +"This is appalling! Whatever do you mean, Miss MacCarthy?" James +Graham said, with exaggerated despair in his voice. + +"Monsieur H---- has given the class a month's holiday. He is going +to Melbourne," Aldith returned, with a sigh. + +Meg echoed it as in duty bound, and Andrew said fiercely that +hanging was too good for Monsieur H----. What did he mean by +such inhuman conduct, he should like to know; and however were Jim +and himself to maintain life in the meantime? + +"It was James who speedily thought of a way out." + +"Couldn't we go for a walk somewhere one evening--just we four?" +he said insinuatingly. + +Aldith and Andrew thought the proposal a brilliant one; and though +Meg had at first shaken her head decidedly, in the end she was +prevailed upon, and promised faithfully to go. + +They were to meet in a bush paddock adjoining the far one belonging +to Misrule, to walk for about an hour, returning by half-past seven, +before it grew dusk. + +"I am going to ask you for something that day, Meg," Andrew whispered +just as they were parting. "I wonder if I shall get it." + +Meg flushed in her nervous, conscious way, and wondered to herself +for a moment whether he intended to ask for a lock of her hair, a +thing Graham had already obtained from Aldith. + +"What?" she said unwillingly. + +"A kiss," he whispered. + +The next minute the others had joined them, and there was no chance +for the indignant answer that trembled on her lips. She had even +to shake hands, to appear as if nothing had happened, and to part +apparently good friends. + +"Half-past six sharp, Marguerite. I will never forgive you if you +don't come," Aldith said, as they parted at her gate. + +"I--you--Oh, Aldith, I don't see how I can come," Meg faltered, +the crimson in her cheeks again. "I've never done anything like it +before. I'm sure it's not right." + +But the curl, in Aldith's lip made her ashamed of herself. + +"You're just twelve, Marguerite;" the young lady said calmly: +"you're not a bit more than twelve. You'd better get a roll again, +and a picture-book with morals. I'll ask Andrew to buy you one +and a bit of cord, too, to tie you in your high chair in the +nursery." + +Such sarcasm was too much for Meg. She promised hastily and +unconditionally to be on the spot at the time mentioned, and fled +away up the path to obey the summons of the wildly clanging +tea-bell. + +But for the two intervening days her secret hung upon her like a +burden of guilt, and she longed inexpressibly for a confidante +who would advise her what to do at this distressing issue. Not +Judy: that young person was too downright, too sensible, too much +of a child and a boy--she would never dare to tell her anything of +the sort. She could fancy the scorn in her sister's large clear +eyes, the ringing laughter such a tale would evoke, the scathing, +clever ridicule that would fall on her shrinking shoulders. Not +Esther: her very position as stepmother precluded such an idea, +and, besides that, the General's gums were gradually disclosing +wee white double pearls, and his health thereby was affected, +and causing her too much anxiety to allow her, to notice Meg's +oppression of mind. + +By the night decided upon, the child had worked herself up into a +strong state of excitement. Half-past six was the time settled +upon, and, as she knew, it was broad daylight even then. She +felt she really dare not, could not go. Suppose her father or +Esther, some of her scornful young sisters or brothers, should +be about and see the meeting, or any of the neighbours--why, she +could never survive the shame of it! Yet go she must, or Aldith +would despise her. Besides, she had made up her mind fully to tell +Andrew plainly she could not allow him to talk to her as he had +been doing. After that last terrible whisper, she felt it +necessary that she should let him understand clearly that she did +not approve of his conduct, and would be "his friend," but +nothing more. + +But why had they not thought of deciding on an hour when it would +be darker? she kept saying to herself: there would be no danger +of being seen then; she could slip out of the house without any +difficulty, and run through the paddocks under cover of the +kindly dusk; whereas if it was light, and she tried to creep away, +at least two or three of the children would fly after her and +offer generously to "come too." + +At last, too afraid to go in the light, and unwilling for Aldith +to reproach her for not going at all, she did in her excitement +and desperation a thing so questionable that for long after she +could not think of it without horror. + + +"Dear Mr. Courtney," she wrote, sitting down at her dressing-table, +and scribbling away hurriedly in pencil: + +"It would be horrid going for the walk so early. Let us go later, +when it is quite dark. It will be EVER so much nicer, for no one +will be able to see us. And let us meet at the end of the paddocks +where the bush grows thickly, it will be more private. I am writing +to Aldith to tell her to go at that time, she will tell Mr. Graham. + +Yours sincerely, +M. Woolcot. + +"P.S.--I must ask you, please, not to kiss me. I should be very +angry indeed if you did. I don't like kissing at all." + + +She wrote the last paragraph in a nervous hurry for she had a dread +that he might fulfil his promise, if she did not forbid him as soon +as they met. Then she slipped it into an envelope and addressed it +to A. Courtney, Esq., it never having even occurred to her for a +moment that there was anything at all strange or unconventional in +a young girl making such a point that the meeting should be in the +dark. + +Next she wrote a few lines of explanation to Aldith, and told her +to be sure to be in the paddock by half-past eight, and she (Meg) +would slip out when the children were going to bed and unlikely +to notice. + +And then she went out into the garden to find messengers for +her two notes. Little Flossie Courtney had been spending the +afternoon with Nellie, and Meg called her back from the gate +just as she was going home, and, unseen by the children, entrusted +the note to her. + +"'Give it to your brother Andrew the minute he comes from school," +she whispered, popping a big chocolate at the same time into +the little girl's mouth. Bunty was next bribed, with a promise of +the same melting delicacies, to run up to Aldith's with the other +letter, and Meg breathed freely ago feeling she had skilfully +averted the threatening danger attendant on the evening +meeting. + +But surely the notes were fated! Bunty delivered his safely +enough to the housemaid at the MacCarthys', and in answer to +the girl's question "s'posed there was an answer, girls always +'spected one to nothing." + +Aldith was confined to her room with a sudden severe cold, and +wrote a note to her friend, telling her how she was too ill to be +allowed out, and had written to Mr. Graham, and Mr. Courtney, +too, postponing the walk for a week. + +Now this note, in its pale pink triangular envelope, was +transferred to Bunty's pocket among his marbles and peanuts and +string. And, as might be expected, he fell in with some other +choice spirits on the return journey, and was soon on his knees +by the roadside playing marbles. + +He lost ten, exclusive of his best agate, fought a boy who had +unlawfully possessed himself of his most cherished "conny," and +returned home with saddened spirits an hour later, only to find +as he went through the gate that he had lost Aldith's dainty +little note. + +Now Meg had promised him eight chocolate walnuts on his return, +and if this same boy had one weakness more pronounced than others, +it was his extreme partiality for this kind of confectionery, and +he had not tasted one for weeks, so no wonder it almost broke his +heart to think they would be forfeited. + +"I know she'll be stingy enough to say I haven't earned them, just +'cause I dropped that girl's stupid letter," he said to himself, +miserably, "and I don't suppose there was anything in it but +'Dearest Marguerite, let us always tell each other our secrets'; +I heard her say that twice, and of course she writes it, too." +Then temptation came upon him swiftly, suddenly. + +By nature Bunty was the most arrant little storyteller ever born, +and it was only Judy's fearless honesty and strongly expressed +scorn for equivocation that had kept him moderately truthful. +But Judy was miles away, and could not possibly wither him up +with her look of utter contempt. He was at the nursery door now, +turning the handle with hesitating hands. + +"What a time you've been," said Meg from the table, where she was +mending a boxful of her gloves. "Well, what did she say?" + +Just at her elbow was the gay _bonbonniere_ containing the brown, +cream-encrusted walnuts. + +"She said, 'All right,'" said Bunty gruffly. + +Meg counted the eight chocolates out into his little grimy hand, +and resumed her mending with a relieved sigh. And Bunty, with a +defiant, shamed look in his eyes, stuffed the whole of the +sweets into his mouth at once, as if to preclude the possibility +of a sudden repentance. + +The other note was equally unfortunate. Little Flossie went +home, her thoughts intent upon a certain Grannie bonnet Nell +had promised to make for her new doll. + +"Gween with pink stwings," she was saying softly to herself as +she climbed the steps to her own door. + +Alan was lying on the veranda lounge, smoking his black pipe. + +"Gween what?" he laughed--"guinea-pigs or kangaroos?" + +"Clawice Maud's bonnet," the little girl said, and entered forthwith +into a grave discussion with him as to the colour he thought more +suitable for that waxen lady's winter cloak. + +Then she turned to go in. + +"What's that sticking out of your wee pocket, Flossie girl?" he +said, as she brushed past him. She stopped a second and felt. + +"Oh, nearly I didn't wemember, an' I pwomised I would--it's a +letter for you, Alan," she said, and gave Meg's poor little epistle +up into the very hands of the Philistine. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A Catapult and a Catastrophe + + + "Oh, sweet pale Margaret, + Oh, rare pale Margaret, + What lit your eyes with tearful power?" + + +The dusk had fallen very softly and tenderly over the garden, +and the paddocks, and the river. There was just the faintest +wind at the waters edge, but it seemed almost too tired after the +hot, long day to breathe and make ripples. Very slowly the grey, +still light deepened, and a white star or two came out and blinked +up away in the high, far heavens. Down behind the gum trees, +across the river, there was a still whiter moon; a stretch of +water near was beginning to smile up to it. Meg hoped it +would not climb past the tree-tops before eight o'clock, or the +long paddocks would be flooded with light and she would be seen. +At tea-time, and during the early part of the evening, she was +preoccupied and inclined to be irritable in her anxiety, and she +snubbed Bunty two or three times quite unkindly. + +He had been hovering about her ever since six o'clock in almost +a pitiable way. + +It was characteristic of this small boy that when he had been tempted +into departing from the paths of truth he was absolutely wretched +until he had confessed, and rubbed his little unclean hands into +his wet eyes until he was "a sight to dream of, not to tell." + +Pip said it was because he was a coward, and had not the moral +courage to go to sleep with a lie on his soul, for fear he might +wake up and see an angel with a fiery sword standing by his +bedside. And I must sorrowfully acknowledge this seemed a truer +view of the case than believing the boy was really impressed +with the heinousness of his offence and anxious to make amends. +For the very next day, if occasion sufficiently strong offered, +he would fall again, and the very next night would creep up to +somebody and whimper, with his knuckles in his eyes, that he had +"t--t--told a s--s--story, boo--hoo!" + +By seven o'clock this particular evening he was miserably +repentant; several tears had trickled down, his cheeks and mingled +with the ink of the map he was engaged upon for Miss Marsh. He +established himself at Meg's elbow, and kept looking up into her +face in a yearning love-and-forgive-me kind of way that she found +infinitely embarrassing; for she had begun to suspect, from his +strange conduct, that he had in some way learned the contents +of her note, and was trying to discourage her from her enterprise. +The more he gazed at her the redder and more uncomfortable she +became. + +"You can have my new c--c--catapult," he whispered once, giving +her a tearful, imploring look, that she interpreted as an entreaty +to stay safely at home. + +At last the clock had travelled up to eight, and the children being +engaged in a wordy warfare over the possession of a certain stray +dog that had come to Misrule in the afternoon, she slipped out of +the room unobserved. No one was in the hall, and she picked up +the becoming, fleecy cloud she had hidden there, twisted it round +her head, and crept out of the side door and along the first path. + +Down in the garden the ground was white with fallen rose leaves, +and the air full of their dying breath; a clump of pampas grass +stood tall and soft against the sky; some native trees, left +growing among the cultivated shrubs, stretched silver-white +arms up to the moon and gave the little hurrying figure a ghostly +kind of feeling. Out of the gate and into the first paddock, +where the rose scent did not come at all, and only a pungent smell +of wattle was in the thin, hushed air. More gum trees, and more +white, ghostly arms; then a sharp movement near the fence, a thick, +sepulchral whisper, and a stifled scream from Meg. + +"Here's the c--c--c--catapult, M--Meg; t--take it," Bunty said, +his face white and miserable. + +"You little stupid! What do you mean coming creeping here like +this?" Meg said, angry as soon as her heart began to beat +again. + +"I only w--wanted to p--p--please you, M--M-Meggie," the little +boy said, with a bitter sob in his voice. + +He had put both his arms round her waist, and was burying his nose +in her white muslin dress. She shook him off hastily. + +"All right; there--thanks," she said. "Now go home, Bunty; +I want to have a quiet walk in the moonlight by myself." + +He screwed his knuckles as far into his eyes as they would go, +his mouth opened, and his lower lip dropped down, down. + +"I t--t--told y--y--you a b--b--big st--st--story;" he wept, +rocking to and fro where he stood. + +"Did you? Oh, all right! Now go home," she said impatiently. +"You always ARE telling stories, Bunty, you know, so I'm not +surprised. There-go along." + +"But--but I'm--must tell you all ab--ab--about it," he said, +still engaged in driving his eyes into his head. + +"No, you needn't; I'll forgive you this time," she said +magnanimously, "only don't do it again. Now run away at once, +or you won't have your map done, and miss Marsh will punish you." + +His eyes returned to their proper position, likewise his hands. +His heart was perfectly light again as he turned to go back to the +house. When he had gone a few steps he came back. + +"D'ye want that catapult very much, Meg?" he said gently. +"You're only a girl, so I don't 'spect it would be very much +good to you, would it?" + +"No, I don't want it. Here, take it, and hurry back: think of +your map," Meg returned, in a very fever of impatience at his +slowness. + +And then Bunty, utterly happy once more, turned and ran away gaily +up to the house. And Meg let down the slip-rail, put it back in +its place with trembling fingers, and fled in wild haste through +the two remaining paddocks. + +The wattle-scrub at the end was very quiet; there was not a rustle, +not a sound of a voice, not a sound of the affected little laugh +that generally told when Aldith was near. + +Meg stopped breathless, and peered among the bushes; there was a +tall figure leaning against the fence. + +"Andrew!" she said in a sharp whisper, and forgetting in her +anxiety that she never called him by his Christian name--"where +are the others? Hasn't Aldith come?" + +There was the smell of a cigar, and, looking closely, she saw to +her horror it was Alan. + +"Oh!" she said, in an indescribable tone. + +Her heart gave one frightened, shamed bound, and then seemed +to stop beating altogether. + +She looked up, at him as if entreating him not to have too bad an +opinion of her; but his face wore the contemptuous look she had +grown to dread and his lips were finely curled. + +"I--I only came out for a little walk; it is such a beautiful +evening," she said, with miserable lameness; and then in a tone +of justification she added, "it's my father's paddock, too." + +He leaned back against he fence and looked down at her. + +"Flossie gave me your note, and as it seemed addressed to me, and +I was told it was for me; I opened it," he said. + +"You KNEW it was for Andrew," she said not looking at him, however. + +"So I presumed when I had read it," he returned slowly; "but +Andrew has not come back to-night yet, so I came instead; it's all +the same as long as it's a boy, isn't it?" + +The girl made no reply, only put her hand up and drew the cloud +more closely round her head. + +His lips curled a little more. + +"And I know how to kiss, too, I assure you. I am quite a good hand +at it, though you may not think so. Oh yes, I know you said you +did not want to be kissed; but then, girls always say that, don't +they?--even when they expect it most." + +Still Meg did not speak, and the calm, merciless voice went on. + +"I am afraid it is hardly dark enough for you, is it? The moon +is very much in the way, do you not think so? Still, perhaps we +can find a darker place farther on, and then I can kiss you without +danger. What is the matter?--are you always as quiet as this with +Andrew?" + +"Oh, DON'T!" said Meg, in a choking voice. + +The mocking tone died instantly out of his voice, "Miss Meg, you +used to seem such a nice little girl," he said quietly; "what +have you let that horrid MacCarthy girl spoil you for? For she is +horrid, though you may not think so." + +Meg did not speak or move, and he went on with a gentle earnestness +that she had not thought him capable of.. + +"I have watched her on the boat, systematically going to work to +spoil you, and can't help thinking of the pity of it. I imagined +how I should feel if my little sister Flossie ever fell in with +such a girl, and began to flirt and make herself conspicuous, +and I wondered would you mind if I spoke to you about it. +Are you very angry with me, Miss Meg?" + +But Meg leaned her head against the rough fence and began to +sob--little, dry, heartbroken sobs that went to the boy's warm +heart. + +"I oughtn't to have spoken as I did at first--I was a perfect +brute," he said remorsefully; "forgive me, won't you? Please, +little Miss Meg--I would rather cut my hand off than really hurt +you." + +This last was a little consoling, at any rate, and Meg lifted her +face half a second, white and pathetic in the moonlight, and all +wet with grievous tears. + +"I--I--oh! indeed I have not been quite so horrid as you think," +she said brokenly; "I didn't want to come this walk--and oh! +indeed, indeed, indeed I wouldn't allow ANYONE to kiss me. Oh, +PLEASE do believe me!" + +"I do, I do indeed," he said eagerly; "I only said it because--well, +because I am a great rough brute, and don't know how to talk to a +little, tender girl. Dear Miss Meg, do shake hands and tell me you +forgive my boorishness." + +Meg extended a small white hand, and he shook it warmly. Then +they walked up the paddocks together, and parted at a broken gate +leading into the garden. + +"I'll never flirt again while I live," she said with great +earnestness, as he bade her good-bye; and he answered encouragingly, +"No, I am quite sure you won't--leave it to girls like Aldith, won't +you? you only wanted to be set straight. Good-bye, little Miss Meg." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Consequences + + + "However could you do it? + Some day, no doubt, you'll rue it!" + + +Meg's troubles were not quite over, however, even yet. When she +got into the house Nellie met her in the hall and stared at her. + +"Where have you been?" she said, a slow wonder in her round eyes. +"I've been hunting and hunting for you." + +"What for?" said Meg shortly. + +"Oh, Dr. Gormeston and Mrs. Gormeston and two Miss Gormestons are in +the drawing-room, and I think they'll stay for ever and ever." + +"Well?" said Meg. + +"And the General is ill again, and Esther says she won't leave him +for a second, not if Gog and Magog were down there dying to see +her." + +"Well?" said Meg again. + +"And Father is as mad as he can be, and is having to keep them +all amused himself. He's sung 'My sweetheart when a boy' and +'Mona,' and he's told them all about his horses, and now I s'pose +he doesn't know what to do." + +"Well, I can't help it," Meg said wearily, and as if the subject +had no interest for her. + +"But you'll just have to!" Nell cried sharply, "I've done my +best: he sent out and said we were to go in, and you weren't +anywhere, so there was only Baby and me." + +"And what did you do?" Meg asked, curious in spite of herself. + +"Oh, Baby talked to Miss Gormeston, and they asked me to play," +she returned, "so I played the 'Keel Row.' Only I forgot +till I had finished that it was in two sharps," she added sadly. +"And then Baby told Mrs. Gormeston all about Judy leaving the +General at the Barracks, and being sent to boarding school for it, +and about the green frog Bunty gave her, and, then Father said +we'd better go to bed, and asked why ever you didn't come in." + +"I'll go, I'll go," Meg said hastily, "he'll be fearfully cross +to-morrow about it. Oh! and, Nell, go and tell Martha to +send in the wine and biscuits and things in half an hour." + +She flung off her cloud, smoothed her ruffled hair, and peeped +in the hall-stand glass to see if the night wind had taken away +the traces of her recent tears. Then she went into the drawing-roam, +where her father was looking quite heated and unhappy over +his efforts to entertain four guests who were of the class +popularly known as "heavy in hand:" + +"Play something, Meg," he said presently, when greetings were +finished, and a silence seemed settling down over them all again; +"or sing something that will be better--haven't you anything you +can sing?" + +Now Meg on ordinary occasions had a pleasant, fresh little voice +of her own, that could be listened to with a certain amount of +pleasure, but this evening she was tired and excited and unhappy. +She sang "Within a mile of Edinboro' town," and was exceedingly +flat all through. + +She knew her father was sitting on edge all the time, and that her +mistakes were grating on him, and at the end of the song, rather +than turn round immediately and face them all, she began to play +Kowalski's March Hongroise. But the keys seemed to be rising up +and hitting her hands, and the piano was growing unsteady, and +rocking to and fro in an alarming manner; she made a horrible +jangle as she clutched at the music-holder for safety, and the +next minute swayed from the stool and fell in a dead, faint right +into Dr. Gormeston's arms, providentially extended just in time. + +The heavy, heated atmosphere had proved too much for her, in her +unhinged state of mind. Captain Woolcot was extraordinarily +upset by the occurrence; not one of his children had ever done +such a thing before, and as Meg lay on the sofa, with her +little fair head drooping against the red frilled cushions, her +face white and unconscious, she looked strangely like her mother, +whom he had buried out in the churchyard four years ago. He went +to the filter for a glass of water, and, as it trickled, wondered +in a dull, mechanical kind of way if his little dead wife thought +he had been too quick in appointing Esther to her kingdom. And +then, as he stood near the sofa and looked at the death-like face, +he wondered with a cold chill at his heart whether Meg was going +to die, too, and if so would she be able to tell the same little +wife that Esther received more tenderness at his hands than she +had done. + +His reverie was interrupted by the doctor's sharp, surprised +voice. He was talking to Esther, who had been hastily summoned to +the scene, and who had helped to unfasten the pretty bodice. + +"Why, the child is tight-laced!" he said; "surely you must +have noticed it, madam. That pressure, if it has been constant, +has been enough to half kill her. Chut, chut! faint indeed--I wonder +she has not taken fits or gone into a decline before this." + +Then a cloud of trouble came over Esther's beautiful face--she had +failed again in her duty. Her husband was regarding her almost +gloomily from the sofa, where the little figure lay in its +crumpled muslin dress, and her heart told her these children +were not receiving a mother's care at her hands. + +Afterwards, when Meg was safely in bed and the excitement +all over, she went up to her husband almost timidly. + +"I'm only twenty; Jack; don't be too hard on me!" she said +with a little sob in her voice. "I can't be all to them that +she was, can I?" + +He kissed the bright, beautiful head against his shoulder, +and comforted her with a tender word or two. But again and again +that night there came to him Meg's white, still face as it lay on +the scarlet cushions, and he knew the wind that stirred the +curtains at the window had been playing with the long grass in +the churchyard a few minutes since. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Bunty in the Light of a Hero + + + "'I know him to be valiant.' + 'I was told that by one that knows him better than you.' + 'What's he?' + 'Marry, he told the so himself, and he said + he cared not who knew it'" + + +Bunty had been betrayed into telling another story. It was a +very, big one, and he was proportionately miserable. Everyone +else had gone out but Meg, who was still in bed after her fainting +fit, and he had been having a lonely game of cricket down in the +paddock by himself. But even with a brand-new cricket ball this +game palls after a time when one has to bowl and bat and backstop +in solitary state. So presently he put his bat over into the garden, +and began to throw the ball about in an aimless fashion, while he +cogitated on what he should do next. His father's hack was standing +away at the farther end of the paddock, and in an idle, thoughtless +way Bunty sauntered down towards it, and then sent his ball spinning +over the ground in its direction "to give it a jump." Nothing was +further from his thoughts than an idea of hurting the animal, and +when the ball struck it full on the leg, and it moved away limping, +he hastened down to it, white and anxious. + +He could see he had done serious mischief by the way the poor +thing held its leg up from the ground and quivered when he touched +it. Terror seized him forthwith, and he turned hastily round with +his usual idea of hiding in his head. But to his utter dismay, +when he got half-way back across the paddock he saw his father and +a brother officer come out of the wicket gate leading from the +garden and saunter slowly down in the direction of the horse, +which was a valuable and beautiful one. + +In terror at what he had done, he slipped the cricket ball into the +front of his sailor jacket, and, falling hurriedly upon his +knees, began playing an absorbing game of marbles. His trembling +thumb had hit about a dozen at random when he heard his name called +in stentorian tones. + +He rose, brushed the dust from his shaking knees, and walked slowly +down to his father. + +"Go and tell Pat I want him instantly," the Captain said. He +had the horse's leg in his hand and was examining it anxiously. +"If he's not about, send Pip. I can't think how it's happened--do +you know anything of this, Bunty?" + +"No, of course not! I n--never did n--n--nothing," Bunty said with +chattering teeth, but his father was too occupied to notice his +evident guilt, and bade him go at once. + +So he went up to the stables and sent Pat posthaste back to his +father. + +And then he stole into the house, purloined two apples and a bit +of cake from the dining-room, and went away to be utterly miserable +until he had confessed. + +He crept into a disused shed some distance from the house; in days +gone by it had been a stable, and had a double loft over it that +was only to be reached by a ladder in the last stage of dilapidation. +Bunty scrambled up, sat down in an unhappy little heap among some +straw, and began thoughtfully to gnaw an apple. + +If ever a little lad was in need of a wise loving, motherly +mother it was this same dirty-faced, heavyhearted one who sat +with his small rough head against a cobwebby beam and muttered +dejectedly, "'Twasn't my fault: 'Twas the horse:" + +He fancied something moved in the second loft, which was divided +from the one he was in by a low partition. "Shoo--shoo, get away!" +he called, thinking it was rats. He struck the floor several times +with his heavy little boots. + +"Shoo!" he said. + +"Bunty," + +The boy turned pale to his lips. That odd, low whisper of his +name, that strange rustle so near him--oh, what COULD it mean? + +"Bunty." + +Again the name sounded. Louder this time, but in a tired voice, +that struck him some way with a strange thrill. The rustling grew +louder, something was getting over the partition, crossing the +floor, coming towards him. He gave a sob of terror and flung +himself face downwards on the ground, hiding his little blanched +face among the straw. + +"Bunty," said the voice again, and a light hand touched his arm. + +"Help me--HELP me!" he shrieked. "Meg--oh! Father--Esther!" + +But one hand was hastily put over his mouth and another pulled him +into a sitting position. + +He had shut his eyes very tightly, so as not to see the ghostly +visitant that he knew had come to punish him for his sin. But +something made him open them, and then he felt he could never +close them again for amazement. + +For, it was Judy's hand that was over his mouth, and Judy's self +that was standing beside him. + +"My golly!" he said, in a tone of stupefaction. He stared hard +at her to make sure she was real flesh and blood. "However did +you get here?" + +But Judy made no answer. She merely took the remaining apple +and cake from his hand, and, sitting down, devoured them in +silence. + +"Haven't you got any more?" she said anxiously. Then he +noticed what a tall, gaunt, strange-looking Judy it was. Her +clothes were hanging round her almost in tatters, her boots were +burst and white with dust, her brown face was thin and sharp, +and her hair matted and rough. + +"My golly!" the little boy said again, his eyes threatening +to start out of his head--"my golly, Judy, what have you been +doin'?" + +"I--I've run away, Bunty," Judy said, in a quavering voice. +"I've walked all the way from school. I wanted to see you all +so badly." + +"My jiggery!" Bunty said. + +"I've thought it all out," Judy continued, pushing back her hair +in a weary moray. "I can't quite remember everything just now, +I am so tired, but everything will be all right." + +"But what'll he say?" Bunty said with frightened eyes, as a +vision of his father crossed his mind. + +"He won't know, of course," Judy returned, in a matter-of-fact +manner. "I shall just live here in this loft for a time, and +you can all come to see me and bring me food and things, and then +presently I'll go back to school." She sank down among the straw +and shut her eyes in an exhausted way for a minute or two, and +Bunty watched her half fascinated. + +"How far is it from your school?" he said at last. + +"Seventy-seven miles." Judy shuddered a little. "I got a lift +in a luggage train from Lawson to Springwood, and a ride in a cart +for a little way, but I walked the rest. I've been nearly a week +coming," she added after a pause, and shut her eyes again for quite +a long time. Then a tear or two of weakness and self-pity trickled +from beneath her black lashes, and made a little clean mark down her +cheeks. Bunty's throat swelled at the sight of them, he had never +seen Judy cry as long as he could remember. He patted her thin +hand, he rubbed his head against her shoulder, and said, "Never +mind, old girl," in a thick voice. + +But that brought, half a dozen great heavy drop hurrying down from +beneath the closed lashes, and the girl turned over and lay face +downwards to hide them. Then she struggled up to a sitting position +and actually began to laugh. + +"IF the Miss Burtons could see me!" she said. "Oh, I've managed +everything so beautifully; they think I'm spending a fortnight at +Katoomba--oh, BUNTY, you ought to see the curls Miss Marian Burton +wears plastered at each side of her cheeks!" She broke off, +laughing almost hysterically, and then coughing till the tears came +back in her eyes. + +"Do go and get me something to eat," she said crossly, when she got +her breath--"you might remember I've had nothing to eat since +yesterday morning; only you always were selfish, Bunty." + +He got up and moved away in a great hurry. "What could you eat? +what shall I get?" he said, and put one leg down the trap-door. + +"Anything so long as it's a lot," she said--"ANYTHING!--I feel I +could eat this straw, and crunch up the beams as if they were +biscuits. I declare I've had to keep my eyes off you, Bunty; +you're so fat I keep longing to pick your bones." + +Her eyes shone with a spark of their old fun, but then she began to +cough again, and, after the paroxysm had passed, lay back exhausted. + +"Do fetch some of the others," she called faintly, as his head was +disappearing. "You're not much good alone, you know." + +His head bobbed back a moment, and he tried to smile away the pain +her words gave him, for just at that minute he would have died for +her without a murmur. + +"I'm awf'ly sorry, Judy," he said gently, "but the others are +all out. Wouldn't I do? I'd do anything, Judy please." + +Judy disregarded the little sniffle that accompanied the last +words, and turned her face to the wall. + +Two big tears trickled down again. + +"They MIGHT have stayed in," she said with a sob. "They might +have known I should try to come. Where are they?" + +"Pip's gone fishing," he said, "and Nell's carrying the basket +for him. And Baby's at the Courtneys', and Esther's gone to town +with the General. Oh, and Meg's ill in bed, because her stays were +too tight last night and she fainted." + +"I suppose they haven't missed me a scrap," was her bitter +thought, when she heard how everything seemed going on as usual, +while she had been living through so much just to see them all. + +Then the odd feeling of faintness came back, and she closed her +eyes again and lay motionless, forgetful of time, place, or hunger. + +Bunty sped across the paddock on winged feet; the sight of his +father near the stables gave him a momentary shock, and brought +his own trouble to mind, but he shook it off again and hurried on. +The pantry door was locked. Martha, the cook, kept it in that +condition generally on account of his own sinful propensities +for making away with her tarts and cakes; it was only by +skilful stratagem he could ever get in, as he remembered +dejectedly. + +But Judy's hunger! Nothing to eat since yesterday morning! + +He remembered, with a feeling of pain even now, the horrible +sinking sensation he had experienced last week when for punishment +he had been sent to bed without his tea. And Judy had forgone +three meals! He shut his lips tightly, and a light of almost +heroic resolve came into his eyes. Round at the side of the house +was the window to the pantry; he had often gazed longingly up at it, +but had never ventured to attempt the ascent, for there was a +horrible cactus creeper up the wall. + +But now for Judy's sake he would do it or die. He marched round +the house and up to the side window; no one was about, the whole +place seemed very quiet. Martha, as he had seen, was cooking in +the kitchen, and the other girl was whitening the front veranda. +He gave one steady look at the great spiky thorns, and the next +minute was climbing up among them. + +Oh, how they pierced and tore him! There was a great, jagged +wound up one arm, his left stocking was ripped away and a deep +red scratch showed across his leg, his hands were bleeding and +quivering with pain. + +But he had reached the sill, and that was everything. + +He pushed up the narrow window, and with much difficulty +forced his little fat body through. Then he dropped down on to +a shelf, and lowered himself gingerly on to the floor. There was +no time to stay to look at his many hurts, he merely regarded +the biggest scratch with rueful eyes, and then began to look around +for provender. The pantry was remarkably empty--not a sign of +cakes, not a bit of jelly, not a remnant of fowl anywhere. He cut +a great piece off a loaf, and carefully wrapped some butter in a +scrap of newspaper. There was some corned beef on a dish, and he +cut off a thick lump and rolled it up with the remains of a +loquat tart. These parcels he disposed of down the loose front of +his sailor coat, filling up his pockets with sultanas, citron-peel, +currants, and such dainties as the store bottles held. And then +he prepared to make his painful retreat. + +He climbed upon the shelf once more, put his head out of the +window, and gave a look of despair at the cactus. And even as +he knelt there sounded behind him the sharp click of a turning +key. + +He looked wildly round, and there was Martha in the doorway, and +to his utter horror she was talking to his father, who was in the +passage just beyond. + +"Row's Embrocation, or arnica," the Captain was saying. "It is +probably in this pantry, my good girl, because it is the last +place I should expect it to be in. I left it on my bedroom +mantelpiece, but somebody has seen fit to meddle with it. Why +in the name of all that is mysterious can't you let my things +alone?" + +"And for what should I be after moving it for?" Martha retorted. +"I don't mix the pastry with it to make it lightsome, leastway +not ordinarily." + +She tossed her head, and the action revealed the small, kneeling, +terrified figure at the window. Now the door was only half open, +and her master was standing just beside it outside, so she only +had the benefit of the spectacle. + +Twice she opened her mouth to speak, but Bunty made such +frantic, imploring faces at her than she closed it again, and +even began to examine the bottles on the shelf near the door to +give the boy an opportunity of retreat. + +One minute and he would, have been safe--one minute and he would +have been in the thick of the cactus, that had quite lost its terrors. + +But the Fates were too strong for him. And all because Martha +Tomlinson's shoe was don at the heel. In turning round it twisted +a little under her, and, in trying to recover her balance, she put +out one hand. And in putting out one hand she knocked over a jug. +And the jug communicated its shock to dish. Which toppled over, +and coolly pushed the great basin of milk off the shelf on to the floor. +I don't know if ever you have tried to clean a board floor after milk, +but I am sure you can imagine it would be a disagreeable task, +especially if you had scrubbed it well only that morning. It was hardly +to be wondered at, therefore, that Martha, in her profound irritation +at the disaster, turned angrily round, and, pointing to the figure +now stuck in the window, demanded in an exasperated tone whether +the blessed saints could stand that dratted boy any longer, for she +couldn't, so there. + +The Captain took an angry step into the pantry and gave a roar of +command for Bunty to come down. + +The boy dropped in an agony of dread and shrinking. + +"Always his hands a-pickin' and stealin' and his tongue a-lyin'," +said Martha Tomlinson, gazing unkindly at the unhappy child. + +Two, three, four, five angry cuts from the riding-whip in the +Captain's hands, and Bunty had ducked under his arm and fled howling +down the passage and out of the back door. + +Away across the paddocks he went, sobbing at every step, but hugely +commending himself for bearing all this for someone else's sake. + +He could hardly have believed, had anyone told him previously, that +he could have done anything so absolutely noble, and the thought +comforted him even while the cuts and scratches smarted. He tried to +stifle his sobs as he reached the shed, and even stuffed half a +handful of currants into his mouth towards that end. + +But it was a very tearful, scratched, miserable face that bobbed up +the opening near Judy again. + +She did not move, though her eyes were half open, and he knelt down +and shook her shoulder gently. + +"Here's some things, Judy--ain't you goin' to eat them?" + +She shook her head very slightly. + +"Have some corned beef, or some currants; there's some peel, too, if +you'd rather." + +She shook her head again. "Do take them away," she said, with a +little moan. + +A look of blank disappointment stole over his small, heated face. + +"An' I've half killed myself to get them! Well, you ARE a mean girl!" +he said. + +"Oh, DO go away,": Judy moaned, moving her head restlessly from +side to side. "Oh, how my feet ache! no--my head, and my side--oh! +I don't know what it is!" + +"I got hit here and here," Bunty said, indicating the places, and +wiping away tears of keen self-pity with his coat sleeve. "I'm scratched +all over with that beastly old cactus." + +"Do you suppose there are many miles more?" Judy said, in such a +quick way that all the words seemed to run into each other. "I've +walked hundreds and hundreds, and haven't got home yet. I suppose +it's because the world's round, and I'll be walling in at the school +gate again presently." + +"Don't be an idjut!" Bunty said gruffly. + +"You'll be sure and certain, Marian, never to breathe a word of it; +I've trusted you, and if you keep faith I can go home and come back +and no one will know. And lend me two shillings, can you? I've not +got much left. Bunty, you selfish little pig, you might get me some +milk! I've been begging and begging of you for hours, and my head is +going to Catherine wheels for want of it." + +"Have some corned beef, Judy, dear--oh, Judy, don't be so silly and +horrid after I nearly got killed for you," Bunty said, trying with +trembling fingers to stuff a piece into her mouth. + +The little girl rolled over and began muttering again. + +"Seventy-seven miles," she said, "and I walked eleven yesterday, +that makes eleven hundred and seventy-seven--and six the day before +because my foot had a blister--that's eleven hundred and eighty-three. +And if I walk ten miles a day I shall get home in eleven hundred and +eighty-three times ten, that's a thousand and--and--oh! what is it? +whatever is it? Bunty, you horrid little pig, can't you, tell me what +it is? My head aches too much to work, and a thousand and something +days--that's a year--two years--two years--three years before I get there. +Oh, Pip, Meg, three years! oh, Esther! ask him, ask him to let me come +home! Three years--years--years!" + +The last word was almost shrieked and the child struggled to her feet +and tried to walk. + +Bunty caught her arms and held her. "Let me go, can't you?" she said +hoarsely. "I shall never get there at this rate. Three years, and all +those miles!" + +She pushed him aside and tried to walk across the loft, but her legs +tottered under her and she fell down in a little senseless heap. +"Meg--I'll fetch Meg," said the little boy in a trembling, alarmed +voice, and he slipped down the opening and hastened up to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The Truant + + +He burst into Meg's bedroom like a whirlwind. "She's in the old shed, +Meg, and I'm not sure, but I think she's gone mad; and I've had the +awfullest beating, and got nearly killed with the cactus for her, and +never told anything. She can't eat the corned beef, either, after all. +She's run away--and oh, I'm sure she's mad!" + +Meg lifted a pale, startled face from the pillows. "Who on earth--what--" + +"Judy," he said, and burst into excited sobs. "She's in the shed, +and I think she's mad!" + +Meg got slowly out of bed, huddled on some clothes, and even then +utterly disbelieving the wild story, went downstairs with him. + +In the hall they met their father, who was just going out. + +"Are you better?" he said to Meg. "You should have stayed in bed +all day; however, perhaps the air will do you more good." + +"Yes," she said mechanically. + +"I'm going out for the rest of the day; indeed, I don't expect +either Esther or myself will be back till to-morrow morning." + +"Yes," repeated Meg. + +"Don't let the children blow the house up, and take care of +yourself--oh! and send Bunty to bed without any tea--he's had +enough for one day, I'm sure." + +"Yes," said the girl again, only taking in the import of what the +last pledged her to when Bunty whispered a fierce "Sneak!" at her +elbow. + +Then the dogcart rattled up; and the Captain went away, to their +unspeakable relief. + +"Now what is this mad story?" Meg said, turning to her small +brother. "I suppose it's one of your untruths, you bad little boy." + +"Come and see,"' Bunty returned, and he led the way through the +paddocks. Half-way down they met Pip and Nell, returning earlier +than expected from the fishing expedition. Nellie looked sad, and +was walking at a respectful distance behind her brother. + +"You might as well take a phonograph with you as Nellie," he said, +casting a look of withering scorn on that delinquent. "She talked the +whole time, and didn't give me a chance of a bite." + +"Judy's home," said Bunty, almost bursting with the importance of his +knowledge. "No one's seen her but me; I've nearly got killed +with climbing up cactuses and into windows and things, and I've had +thrashings from Father and everything, but I never told a word, did +I, Meg? I've got her up in the shed here, and I went and got corned +beef and everything just you look at my legs:" + +He displayed his scars proudly, but Meg hurried on, and Pip and Nell +followed in blank amazement. At the shed they stopped. + +"It's a yarn of Bunty's," Pip said contemptuously. "'Tisn't April +the first yet, my son." + +"Come and see," Bunty returned, swarming up. Pip followed, and gave +a low cry; then Meg and Nell, with rather more difficulty, scrambled +up, and the scene was complete. + +The delirium had passed, and Judy was lying with wide-open eyes +gazing in a tired way at the rafters. + +She smiled up at them as they gathered round her. "If Mahomet won't +come to the mountain," she said, and then coughed for two or three +minutes. + +"What have you been doing, Ju, old girl?" Pip said, with an odd +tremble in his voice. The sight of his favourite sister, thin, +hollow-checked, exhausted, was too much for his boyish manliness. +A moisture came to his eyes. + +"How d'you come, Ju?" he said, blinking it away. + +And the girl gave her old bright look up at him. "Sure and they +keep no pony but shank's at school," she said; "were you afther +thinkin' I should charter a balloon?" + +She coughed again. + +Meg dropped down on her knees and put her arms round her little thin +sister. + +"Judy," she cried, "oh, Judy, Judy! my dear, my dear!" + +Judy laughed for a little time, and called her an old silly, but she +soon broke down and sobbed convulsively. "I'm so hungry," she said, +at last pitifully. + +They all four, started up as though they would fetch the stores of +Sydney to satisfy her. Then Meg sat down again and lifted the +rough, curly head on her lap. + +"You go, Pip," she said, "and bring wine and a glass, and in the +meat-safe there's some roast chicken; I had it for my lunch, and +Martha said she would put the rest there till tea; and be quick, Pip." + +"My word!" said Pip to himself, and he slipped down and flew across +to the house. + +"Up_on_ my word!" said Martha, meeting him in the hall five minutes +later, a cut-glass decanter under his arm, a wineglass held in his +teeth by the stem, a dish of cold chicken in his hand, and bread +and butter in a little stack beside the chicken. "Upon my word! +And what next, might I ask?" + +"Oh, shut up, and hang your grandmother!" said Pip, brushing past +her, and going a circuitous voyage to the shed lest she should be +watching. + +He knelt down beside his little sister and fed her with morsels of +chicken and sips of wine, and stroked her wild hair, and called +her old girl fifty times, and besought her to eat just a little more +and a little more. + +And Judy, catching the look in the brown, wet eyes above her, ate all +he offered, though the first mouthful nearly choked her; she would +have eaten it had it been elephant's hide, seeing she loved this boy +better than anything else in the world, and he was in such distress. +She was the better for it, too, and sat up and talked quite naturally +after a little time. + +"You shouldn't have done t you shouldn't really, you know, old girl, +and what the governor will say to you beats me." + +"He won't know," she answered quickly. "I'd never forgive whoever told +him. I can only stay a week. I've arranged it all beautifully, and I +shall live here in this loft; Father never dreams of coming here, so +it will be quite safe, and you can all bring me food. And then after +a week"--she sighed heavily--"I must go back again." + +"Did you really walk all those miles just to see us?" Pip said, +and again there was the strange note in his voice. + +"I got a lift or two on the way," she said, "but I walked +nearly all of it, I've been coming for nearly a week:" + +"How COULD you do it? Where did you sleep, Judy? What did you eat?" +Meg exclaimed, in deep distress. + +"I nearly forget," Judy said; closing her eyes again. "I kept +asking for food at little cottages, and sometimes they asked me to +sleep, and I had three-and-six--that went a long way. I only slept +outside two nights, and I had my jacket then." + +Meg's face was pale with horror at her sister's adventure. Surely no +girl in the wide world but Judy Woolcot would have attempted such a +harebrained project as walking all those miles with three-and-six in +her pocket. + +"How COULD you?" was all she could find to say. "I hadn't meant +to walk all the way," Judy said, with a faint mile. "I had seven +shillings in a bit of paper in my pocket, as well as the three-and-six, +and I knew it would take me a long way in the train. But then I lost +it after I had started, and I didn't believe in going back just for +that, so, of course, I had to walk." + +Meg touched her cheek softly. + +"It's no wonder you got so thin," she said. + +"Won't the Miss Buttons be raising a hue-and-cry after you?" Pip asked. +"It's a wonder they've not written to the pater to say you have +skedaddled." + +"Oh! Marian and I made that all safe," Judy said, with a smile of +recollective pleasure. "Marian's my chum, you see, and does anything +I tell her. And she lives at Katoomba." + +"Well?" said Meg, mystified, as her sister paused. "Well, you see, +a lot of the girls had the measles, and so they sent Marian home, for +fear she should get them. And Marian's mother asked for me to go there, +too, for a fortnight; and so Miss Burton wrote and asked Father could I? +and I wrote and asked couldn't I come home instead for the time?" + +"He never told us," Meg said softly. + +"No, I s'pose not. Well, he wrote back and said 'no' to me and +'yes' to her. So one day they put us in the train safely, and +we were to be met at Katoomba. And the thought jumped into my head +as we went along: Why ever shouldn't I come home on the quiet? So +I told Marian she could explain to her people I had gone home instead, +and that she was to be sure to make it seem all right, so they wouldn't +write to Miss Button. And then the train stopped at Blackheath, and +I jumped straight out, and she went on to Katoomba, and I came home. +That's all. Only, you see, as I'd lost my money there was nothing left +for it but to walk." + +Meg smoothed the dusty, tangled confusion of her hair. + +"But you can't live out here for the week," she said, in a troubled +voice. "You've got a horrid cough with sleeping outside, and I'm +sure you're ill. We shall have to tell Father about it. I'll beg him +not to send you back, though." + +Judy started up, her eyes aflame. + +"If you do," she said--"if you do, I will run away this very night, +and walk to Melbourne, or Jerusalem, and never see any of you again! +How can you, Meg! After I've done all this just so he wouldn't know! +Oh, how CAN you?" + +She was working herself up into a strong state of excitement. + +"Why, I should be simply packed back again tomorrow--you know I +would, Meg. Shouldn't I now, Pip? And get into a fearful row at +school into the bargain. My plan is beautifully simple. After +I've had a week's fun here with you I shall just go back--you can +all lend me some money for the train. I shall just meet Marian at +Katoomba on the 25th; we shall both go back to school together, and +no one will be a bit the wiser. My cough's nothing; you know I +often do get coughs at home, and they never hurt me. As long as you +bring me plenty to eat, and stay with me, I'll be all right." + +The rest and food and home faces had done much already for her; her +face looked less pinched, and a little more wholesome colour was +creeping slowly into her cheeks. + +Meg had an uncomfortable sense of responsibility, and the feeling that +she ought to tell someone was strong upon her; but she was overruled +by the others in the end. + +"You couldn't be so mean, Meg," Judy had said warmly, when she +had implored to be allowed to tell Esther. + +"Such a blab!" Bunty had added. "Such an awful sneak!" Pip had +said. + +So Meg held her tongue, but was exceedingly unhappy. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Swish, Swish! + + +On the fourth day of Judy's residence in the loft, Martha Tomlinson +remarked to her fellow-servant and sufferer, Bridget, that she +believed them blessed children were in a conspiracy to put her +"over the river." + +Bridget's digestion was impaired that morning, and she merely +remarked that she supposed the dear little things only felt a desire +to see her in her proper place. + +I should explain to you, perhaps, that "over the river" meant +Gladesville, which is Sydney's Colney Hatch. + +Many things had led the unhappy Martha to a belief in this conspiracy. +For instance, when she went to make Pip's bed as usual one morning all +the bedclothes had gone. The white counterpane was spread smoothly +over the mattress, but there was absolutely no trace of the blankets, +sheets, and pillows. She hunted in every possible and impossible place, +questioned the children, and even applied to Esther, but the missing +things could not be found. + +"There's a man in corduroy trousers hanging round here every night," +Pip said, gloomily regarding his stripped bed. "I shouldn't wonder if +he had something to do with it." + +Which suggestion was distinctly unkind, seeing the man in corduroy +trousers was Martha's most ardent and favoured admirer. + +The next day the washing basin in Meg's room went, and after that a +chair from the nursery, and a strip of carpet from the top landing, +not to mention such small things as a teapot, a spirit-lamp, cups and +plates, half a horn, and a whole baking of gingerbread nuts. + +The losses preyed upon Martha, for the things seemed to disappear +while the children were in bed; and though she suspected them, and +watched them continually, she could get no clear proof of their +guilt, nor even find any motive for them abstracting such things. + +And after the disappearance of each fresh article, Pip used to ask +whether the corduroy-trousered gentleman had been to the house the +night before. And as it always happened, that he had, Martha could do +nothing but cast a wrathful glance at the boy and flounce from the +room. + +One night the little chess-table from the nursery was spirited away. + +Pip fell upon Martha's neck the next morning early, as she was +sweeping the carpet, and affected to be dissolved in tears. + +"'We never prize the violet,'" he said, in broken tones. "Ah! +Martha, Martha! we never felt what a treasure we had in you till now, +when your days with us are numbered." + +"Get along with you," she said, hitting out at him with the broom +handle. "And I ain't a-goin' to leave, so don't you think it. You'd +have it your own way then too much. No; you don't get shut of +Martha Tomlinson just yet, young man." + +"But won't he be wanting you, Martha?" he said gently. "His +furnishing must be nearly finished now. He's not taken a saucepan +yet, nor a flat-iron, I know; but there's everything else, Martha; +and I don't mind telling you in confidence I'm thinking of giving you +a flat-iron myself as a wedding present, so you needn't wait till he +comes for that." + +"Get out with you!" said Martha again, thrusting the broom-head +right into his face, and nearly choking him with dust. "It's a limb +of the old gentleman himself you are." + +Away in the loft things were getting very comfortable. + +A couple of rugs hung on the walls kept out the draught. Judy's bed, +soft and warm, was in a corner; she had a chair to sit in, a +table to eat at, even a basin in which to perform her ablutions. +And she had company all day; and nearly always all night. Once Meg +had stolen away, after fastening her bedroom door, and had shared the +bed in the loft; once Nellie had gone, and the other night Pip had +taken a couple of blankets and made himself a shakedown among the straw. +They used to pay her visits at all hours of the day, creeping up the +creaking ladder one after the other, whenever they could get away +unnoticed. + +The governess had, as it happened, a fortnight's holiday, to nurse a +sick mother, so the girls and Bunty had no demands on their time. Pip +used to go to school late and come back early, cajoling notes of excuse, +whenever, possible, out of Esther. He even played the truant once, and +took a caning for it afterwards quite good-humouredly. + +Judy still looked pale and tired, and her cough was rather troublesome; +but she was fast getting her high spirits back, and was enjoying her +adventure immensely. + +The only drawback was the cribbed, cabined, and confined space of +the loft. + +"You will HAVE to arrange things so that I can go for a run," she said +one morning, in a determined manner. "My legs are growing shorter, +I am sure, with not exercising them. I shall have forgotten how to walk +by the end of the week." + +Pip didn't think it could be done; Meg besought her to run no risks; +but Bunty and Nell were eager for it. + +"Meg could talk to Father," Bunty said, "and Pip could keep +teasing General till Esther would be frightened to leave the room, +and then me and Judy would nick down and have a run, and get back +before you let them go." + +Judy shook her head. + +"That would be awfully stale," she said. "If I go, I shall stay +down some time. Why shouldn't we have a picnic down at the river?" + +"Oh, yes, let's!" Bunty cried, with sparkling eyes. + +"I'm sure we could manage it especially as it's Saturday, and Pip +hasn't to go to school," Judy continued, thinking it rapidly out. +"Two of you could go and get some food. Tell Martha you are all +going for a picnic--she'll be glad enough not to have dinner to +set--then you go on. Two others can watch if the coast's clear +while I get down and across the paddocks, and once we're at the +corner of the road we're safe." + +It seemed feasible enough, and in a very short time the preparations +were all made. Pip was mounting guard at the shed, and had undertaken +to get Judy safely away, and Bunty had been stationed on the back +veranda to keep cave and whistle three times if there was any danger. + +He was to wait for a quarter of an hour by the kitchen clock, and +then, if all was well, to bring the big billy and a bread loaf, +and catch the others up on the road. + +It was slow work waiting there, and he stood on one leg, like a +meditative fowl, and reviewed the events of the last few exciting +days. + +He had a depressed feeling at his heart, but why he could hardly +tell. Perhaps it was the lie he had told his father, and which was +still unconfessed, because the horse was seriously lame, and his +courage oozed away every time he thought of that riding-whip. + +Perhaps it was the reaction after the great excitement. Or it may +have been a rankling sense of injustice at the small glory his brave +deeds on Judy's behalf evoked from the others. They did not seem to +attach any importance to them, and, indeed, laughed every time he +alluded to them or drew public attention to his scars. Two or +three of the scratches on his legs were really bad ones, and while he +was standing waiting he turned down his stockings and gazed at these +with pitying eyes and something like a sob in his throat. + +"Nobody cares!" he muttered, and one of his ever-ready tears fell +splashing down on one extended bare leg. "Judy likes Pip best, and +he never climbed the cactus; Meg thinks I tell stories; and Nellie +says I'm a greedy pig--nobody cares!" + +Another great fat tear gathered and fell. "Have you taken root +there?" a voice asked. + +His father, smoking at the open french window, had been watching him, +and marvelling at his rare and exceeding quietness. + +Bunty started, guiltily, and pulled up his stockings. + +"I'm not doin' nothin'," he said aggrievedly, after a minute's +pause. Bunty always lapsed into evil grammar when agitated. "Nothing +at all. I'm goin' to a picnic." + +"Ah, indeed!" said the Captain. "You looked as if you were +meditating on some fresh mischief, or sorrowing over some old--which +was it?" + +Bunty turned a little pale, but remarked again he "wasn't doin' +nothin'." + +The Captain felt in a lazy, teasing mood, and his little fat, dirty +son, was the only subject near. + +"Suppose you come here and confess every bit of mischief you've +done this week," he said gravely. "I've the whole morning to +spare, and it's time I saw to your morals a little." + +Bunty approached the arm of the chair indicated, but went whiter than +ever. + +"Ah, now we're comfortable. Well, there was stealing from the pantry +on Tuesday--that's one," he said, encouragingly. "Now then." + +"I n--n--never did n--nothin' else," Bunty gasped. He felt certain +it was all over with him, and the cricket ball episode was discovered. +He even looked nervously round to see if the riding-whip was near. +Yes, there was Esther's silver-topped one flung carelessly on a chair. +He found time to wish fervently Esther was a tidy woman. + +"Nothing at all, Bunty? On your word?" said his father, in an +impressive tone. + +"I was p--playin' marbles," he said, in a shaking voice. "How +c--c--could I have sh--shot anything at y--y--your old horse?" + +"Horse--ah!" said his father. A light broke upon him, and his face +grew stern. "What did you throw at Mazeppa to lame him? Answer me at +once." + +Bunty gave a shuddering glance at the whip. + +"N-n-nothin'," he answered--"n--nothin' at all. My c--c--cricket +b--ball was up in the st--st--stables. I was only p--p--playin' +marbles." The Captain gave him a little shake. + +"Did you lame Mazeppa with the cricket ball?" he said sternly. + +"N--n--no I n--never," Bunty whispered, white to the lips. Then +semi-repentance came to him, and he added: "It just rolled out of my +p--p--pocket, and M--Mazeppa was passing and h--h--hit his l-leg on it." + +"Speak the truth, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life," the +Captain said, standing up, and seizing Esther's whip: "Now then, sir--was +it you lamed Mazeppa?" + +"Yes," said Bunty, bursting into a roar of crying, and madly dodging +the whip. + +Then, as the strokes descended on his unhappy shoulders, he filled +the air with his familiar wail of "'Twasn't me, 'twasn't my fault!" + +"You contemptible young cur!" said his father, pausing a moment when +his arm ached with wielding the whip. "I'll thrash this mean spirit +of lying and cowardice out of you, or kill you in the attempt." Swish, +swish. "What sort of a man do you think you'll make?" Swish, swish. +"Telling lies just to save your miserable skin!" Swish, swish, +swish, swish. + +"You've killed me--oh, you've killed me! I know you have!" yelled +the wretched child, squirming all over the floor. "'Twasn't me, +'twasn't my fault--hit the others some." + +Swish, swish, swish. "Do you think the others would lie so +contemptibly? Philip never lied to me. Judy would cut her tongue out +first." Swish, swish, swish. "Going to a picnic, are you? You can +picnic in your room till to-morrow's breakfast." Swish, swish, swish. +"Pah--get away with you!" + +Human endurance could go no further. The final swish had been actual +agony to his smarting, quivering shoulders and back. He thought of +the others, happy and heedless, out in the sunshine, trudging merrily +off to the river, without a thought of what he was bearing, and his +very heart seethed to burst in the hugeness of its bitterness and +despair. "Judy's home!" he said, in a choking, passionate voice. +"She lives in the old shed in the cow, paddock. Boo, hoo, hoo! +They're keepin' it secret from you. Boo, hoo. She's gone to the +picnic, and she's run away from school." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Uninvited Guests + + +The captain was walking slowly across the paddocks with the cabbage-tree +hat he kept for the garden pushed back from his brow. He was rather +heated after his tussle with his second son, and there was a thoughtful +light in his eyes. He did not believe the truth of Bunty's final +remark, but still he considered there was sufficient probability in it +to make a visit to the shed not altogether superfluous. + +Not that he expected, in any case, to find his errant daughter there, +for had not Bunty said there was a picnic down at the river? But he +thought, there might be some trace or other. + +The door of the shed swung back on its crazy hinges, and the sunlight +streamed in and made a bar of glorified dust across the place. + +There was no sign of habitation here, unless a hair ribbon of Meg's +and some orange peel, might be considered as such. + +He saw the shaky, home-made ladder, resting against the hole in the +ceiling, and though he had generally more respect for his neck than +his children had for theirs, he ventured his safety upon it. It +creaked ominously as he reached the top step and crawled +through into the loft. + +There were a ham-bone, a box of dominoes, and a burst pillow this +side of the partition, nothing else, so he walked across and +looked over. + +"Very cosy," he murmured, "I shouldn't mind camping here myself +for a little time," and it even came into his head to do so, and be +there as a "surprise party" when Judy returned. But he dismissed the +idea as hardly compatible with dignity. He remembered hearing +rumours of missing furniture in the house, and almost a smile came +into his eyes as he saw the little old table with the spirit-lamp and +teapot thereon, the bed-clothing and washing-basin. But a stern +look succeeded it. Were seventy-seven miles not sufficient obstacle +to Judy's mischievous plans? How did she dare thus to defy him, a +child of thirteen: and he her father? His lips compressed +ominously, and he went down again and strode heavily back to the +house. + +"Esther!" he called, in a vibrating voice at the foot of the +stairs. + +And "Coming, dear--half a minute," floated down in response. + +Half a minute passed ten times, and then she came, the beautiful young +mother with her laughing-faced wee son in her arms. Her eyes looked +so tender; and soft, and loving that he turned away impatiently; he +knew quite well how it would be; she would beg and entreat him to +forgive his little daughter when she heard, and when she looked as +bright and beautiful as she did just now he could refuse her nothing. + +He stood in profound meditation for a minute or two. + +"What is it you want, John?" she said. "Oh! and what do you think? +I have just found another tooth, a double one--come and look." + +He came, half unwillingly, and stuck his little finger into his infant +son's mouth. + +Esther guided it till it felt a tiny, hard substance. "The third," +she said proudly; "aren't you pleased?" + +"Hum!" he said. Then he meditated a little longer, and after a +minute or two rubbed his hands as if he was quite pleased with +himself. + +"Put on your hat, Esther, and the General's," he said, patting that +young gentleman's head affectionately. "Let us go down to the river +for a stroll; the children are down there picnicking, so we can be +sure of some tea." + +"Why, yes, that will be very nice," she said, "won't it Bababsie, +won't it, sweet son?" + +She called to Martha, who was dusting the drawing-room in a cheerfully +blind way peculiarly hers. + +"The General's hat, please, Martha, the white sun-hat with strings; +it's on my bed, I think, or a chair or somewhere--oh! and bring +down my large one with the poppies in, as well, please." + +Martha departed, and, after a little search, returned with the +headgear. + +And Esther tied the white sun-hat over her own curly, crinkly hair, +and made the General crow with laughing from his seat on the hall +table. And then she popped it on the Captain's head, and put the +cabbage-tree on her son's, and occupied several minutes thus in pretty +play. + +Finally they were ready, and moved down the hall. + +"Master Bunty is locked in his room; on no account open the door, +Martha," was the Captain's last command. + +"Oh, Jack!" Esther said reproachfully. + +"Oblige me by not interfering," he said; "allow me a little +liberty with my own children, Esther. He is an untruthful little +vagabond; I am ashamed to own him for my son." + +And Esther, reflecting on the many shiftinesses of her stepson, was +able to console herself with the hope that it would do him good. + +They went a shortcut through the bush to avoid the public road, and +the blue, sun-kissed, laughing river stretched before them. + +"There they are," Esther cried, "in the old place, as usual, look +at the fire, little sweet son; see the smoke, boy bonny--four--five +of them. Why, who have they got with them?" she said in surprise, +as they drew nearer the group on the grass. + +Before they were close enough to recognize faces the circle suddenly +seemed to break up and fall apart. + +One of its members turned sharply round and fled away across the +grass, plunging into the thick bracken and bush, and disappearing from +sight in less time than it takes to tell. + +"Whoever had you with you?" Esther said when they reached the +children. + +There was a half-second's silence, then Pip threw some sticks on the +fire and said coolly: + +"Only a friend of Meg's, a frightened kind of kid who has quite a +dread of the pater. I believe she imagines soldiers go round with +their swords sharpened, ready for use." + +He laughed lightly. Nell joined in in a little hysterical way, and +Baby began to cry. + +Meg, white as death, picked her up and hurriedly began telling her +the story of the three bears for comfort. + +Esther looked a little puzzled, but, of course, never dreamt of +connecting the flying figure with Judy. + +And the Captain seemed delightfully blind and unsuspicious. He +lay down on the grass and let the General swarm all over him; he +made jokes with Esther; he told several stories of his young days, +and never even seemed to remark that his audience seemed inattentive +and constrained. + +"Haven't you made some tea?" Esther said at last. "We love +billy tea, and thought you would be sure to have some?" + +"Bunty hasn't come, he was to have brought the billy," Pip said, +half sulkily. He had suspicions that there was something behind this +great affability of his father, and he objected to being played +with. + +"Ah," the Captain said gravely, "that is unfortunate. When I came +away Bunty did not seem very well, and was thinking of spending +the rest of the day in his bedroom." + +Pip made up the fire in a dogged way, and Meg flashed a frightened +glance at her father, who smiled affectionately back at her. + +After an hour of this strained intercourse the Captain proposed a +return home. + +"It is growing chill," he said. "I should be grieved for the +General's new-born tooth to start its life by aching--let's go home +and make shift with teapot tea." + +So they gathered up the untouched baskets and made themselves into a +procession. + +The Captain insisted on Pip and Meg walking with him, and he sent +Baby and Nell on in front, one on either side of Esther, who was +alternately leading and carrying the General. + +This arrangement being, as indeed Pip shrewdly suspected; to prevent +the possibility of any intercourse or formation of new plans. + +And when they got home he invited them all to come into his +smoking-room, a little slit of a place off the dining-room. + +Esther took the General upstairs, but the others followed him in +silence. + +"Sit down, Pip, my boy," he said genially. "Come, Meg, make yourself +at home, take a seat in that armchair. Nell and Baby can occupy +the lounge." + +They all sat down helplessly where he told them, and watched his +face anxiously. + +He selected a pipe from the row over the mantelpiece, fitted a new +mouthpiece to it, and carefully filled it. + +"As you are all in possession of my room," he said in an urbane voice, +"I can hardly smoke with any comfort here, I am afraid. I will come +and talk to you again later on. I am going to have a pipe first in +the old loft in the cow paddock. Keep out of mischief till I come back." + +He struck a match, lighted his tobacco, and, without a glance at the +silent children, left the room, locking the door behind him. + +Once more he crossed the paddocks, and once more pushed open the +creaking door. The orange peel lay just where he had seen it before, +only it was a little drier and more dead-looking. The hair ribbon +was in exactly the same knot. The ladder creaked in just the same +place, and again threatened to break his neck when he reached the top. +The dominoes were there still, the ham-bone and the pillow occupied +the same places; the only difference being the former had a black +covering of ants now, and a wind had been playing with the pillow, +and had carried the feathers in all directions. + +He crossed the floor, not softly, but just with his usual measured +military-step. Nothing moved. He reached the partition and looked +over. + +Judy lay across the improvised bed, sleeping a sleep of utter +exhaustion after her rapid flight from the river. She had a frock of +Meg's on, that made her look surprisingly long and thin; he was +astonished to think she had grown so much. + +"There will be no end to my trouble with her as she grows older," he +said, half aloud, feeling extremely sorry for himself for being her +father. Then a great anger and irritation rose within him as he +watched her sleeping so quietly there. Was she always to be a disturber +of his peace? Was she always to thwart him like this? + +"Judy," he said in a loud voice. + +The closed eyelids sprang open, the mist of sleep and forgetfulness +cleared from the dark eyes, and she sprang up, a look of absolute +horror on her face. + +"What are you doing here, may I ask?" he said, very coldly. + +The scarlet colour flooded her cheeks, her very brow, and then +dropped down again, leaving her white to the lips, but she made no +answer. + +"You have run away from school, I suppose?" he continued, in the +same unemotional voice. "Have you anything to say?" + +Judy did not speak or move, she only watched his face with parted +lips. + +"Have you anything to say for yourself, Helen?" he repeated. + +"No, Father," she said. + +Her face had a worn, strained look that might have touched him +at another time, but he was too angry to notice. + +"No excuse or reason at all?" + +"No, Father." + +He moved toward the opening. "A train goes in an hour and a half, you +will come straight back with me this moment," he said, in an even +voice. "I shall take precautions to have you watched at school since +you cannot be trusted. You will not return home for the Christmas +holidays, and probably not for those of the following June." + +It was as bad as a sentence of death. The room swam before the girl's +eyes, there was a singing and rushing in her ears. + +"Come at once," the Captain said. Judy gave a little caught breath; +it tickled her throat and she began to cough. + +Such terrible coughing, a paroxysm that shook her thin frame and made +her gasp for breath. It lasted two or three minutes, though she put +her handkerchief to her mouth to try to stop it. + +She was very pale when it ceased, and he noticed the hollows in her +cheeks for the first time. + +"You had better come to the house first," he said, less harshly, "and +see if Esther has any cough stuff." + +Then in his turn he caught his breath and grew pale under his bronze. + +For the handkerchief that the child had taken from her lips had +scarlet, horrible spots staining its whiteness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The Squatter's Invitation + + +After all there was no dogcart for Judy, no mountain train, no +ignominious return to the midst of her schoolfellows, no vista of +weary months unmarked by holidays. + +But instead, a warm, soft bed, and delicate food, and loving voices +and ceaseless attention. For the violent exertion, the scanty food, +and the two nights in the open air had brought the girl to indeed a +perilous pass. One lung was badly inflamed, the doctor said; it was +a mystery to him, he kept telling them, how she had kept up so long; +an ordinary girl would have given in and taken to her bed long ago. +But then he was not acquainted with the indomitable spirit and pluck +that were Judy's characteristics. + +"Didn't you have any pain?" he asked, quite taken aback to find such +spirits and so serious a condition together. + +"H'm, in my side sometimes," she answered carelessly. "How long +will it be before I can get up, Doctor?" She used to ask the latter +question of him every morning, though, if the truth were known, she +felt secretly more than a little diffident at the idea of standing up +again. + +There was a languor and weariness in her limbs that made her doubtful +if she could run about very much, and slower modes of progressing she +despised. Besides this, there was a gnawing pain, under her arms, +and the cough was agony while it lasted. + +Still, she was not ill enough to lose interest in all that was going +on, and used to insist upon the others telling her everything that +happened outside--who made the biggest score at cricket, what flowers +were out in her own straggling patch of garden, how many eggs the +fowls laid a day, how the guinea-pigs and canaries were progressing, +and what was the very latest thing in clothes or boots the new +retriever puppy had devoured. + +And Bunty used to bring in the white mice and the blind French +guinea-pig, and let them run loose over the counterpane, and Pip did +most of his carpentering on a little table near, so she could see +each fresh stage and suggest improvements as he went along. + +Meg, who had almost severed her connection with Aldith, devoted +herself to her sister, and waited on her hand and foot; she made her +all kinds of little presents--a boot-bag, with compartments; a +brush-and-comb bag, with the monogram "J.W.," worked in pink silk; +a little work-basket, with needle-book, pin-cushion, and all complete. +Judy feared she should be compelled to betake herself to tidy habits +on her recovery. + +Her pleasure in the little gifts started a spirit of competition +among the others. + +For one whole day Pip was invisible, but in the evening he turned up, +and walked to the bedside with a proud face. He had constructed a +little set of drawers, three of which actually opened under skilful +coaxing. + +"It's not for doll-clothes," he said, after she had exhausted all the +expressions of gratitude in common use, "because I know you hate +them, but you can keep all your little things in them, you see--hair +strings, and thimbles, and things." + +There was a sound of dragging outside the door and presently Bunty +came in backward, lugging a great, strange thing. + +It seemed to be five or six heavy pieces of board nailed together +haphazard. + +"It's a chair," he explained, wiping the perspiration from his +forehead. "Oh! I'm going to put some canvas across it, of course, +so you won't fall through; but I thought I'd show it you first." + +Judy's eyes smiled, but she thanked him warmly. "I wasn't goin' +to make any stupid thing, like Pip did," the small youth continued, +looking deprecatingly at the little drawers. "This is really +useful, you see; when you get up you can sit on it, Judy, by the +fire and read or sew or something. You like it better 'n Pip's, don't +you?" + +Judy temporized skilfully, and averted offence to either by asking +them to put the presents with all the others near the head of the bed. + +"What a lot of things you'll have to take back to school, Ju," Nell +said, as she added her contribution in the shape of a pair of crochet +cuffs and a doll's wool jacket. + +But Judy only flashed her a reproachful glance, and turned her face +to the wall for the rest of the evening. + +That was what had been hanging over her so heavily all this long +fortnight in bed--the thought of school in the future. + +"What's going to happen to me when I get better, Esther?" she +asked next morning, in a depressed way, when her stepmother came to +see her. "Is he saving up a lot of beatings for me? And shall I +have to go back the first week?" + +Esther reassured her. + +"You won't go back this quarter at all, very likely not next either, +Judy dear. He says you shall go away with some of the others for +a change till you get strong; and, between you and me, I think +its very unlikely you, will go back ever again." + +With this dread removed, Judy mended more rapidly, surprising even +the doctor with her powers of recuperation. + +In three weeks she was about the house again, thin and great-eyed, +but full of nonsense and even mischief once more. The doctor's visits +ceased; he said she had made a good recovery so far, but should +have change of surroundings, and be taken a long way from sea air. + +"Let her run wild for some months, Woolcot," he said at his last +visit; "it will take time to quite shake off all this and get her +strength and flesh back again." + +"Certainly, certainly; she shall go at once," the Captain said. + +He could not forget the shock he had received in the old loft five +or six weeks ago, and would have agreed if he had been bidden to take +her for a sojourn in the Sahara. + +The doctor had told him the mischief done to her lungs was serious. + +"I won't say she will ultimately die of consumption," he had said, +"but there is always a danger of that vile disease in these nasty +cases. And little Miss Judy is such a wild, unquiet subject; +she seems to be always in a perfect fever of living, and to possess +a capacity for joy and unhappiness quite unknown to slower natures. +Take care of her, Woolcot, and she'll make a fine woman some day--ay, +a grand woman." + +The Captain smoked four big cigars in the solitude of his study +before he could decide how he could best "take care of her." + +At first he thought he would send her with Meg and the governess to +the mountains for a time, but then there was the difficulty about +lessons for the other three. He might send them to school, or +engage a governess certainly, but then again there was expense to be +considered. + +It was out of the question for the girls to go alone, for Meg had +shown herself nothing but a silly little goose, in spite of her +sixteen years; and Judy needed attention. Then he remembered +Esther, too, was, looking unwell; the nursing and the General +together had been too much for her, and she looked quite a shadow of +her bright self. He knew he really ought to send her, too, and the +child, of course. + +And again the expense. + +He remembered the Christmas holidays were not very far away; what +would become of the house with Pip and Bunty and the two youngest +girls running wild, and no one in authority? He sighed heavily, and +knocked the ash from his fourth cigar upon the carpet. + +Then the postman came along the drive and past the window. He poked +up with a broad smile, and touched his helmet in a pleased kind of +way. If almost seemed as if he knew that in one of the letters he +held the solution of the problem that was making the Captain's brow +all criss-crossed with frowning lines. + +A fifth cigar was being extracted from the case, a wrinkle was +deepening just over the left eyebrow, a twinge of something very like +gout was calling forth a word or two of "foreign language," when +Esther came in with a smile on her lips and an open letter in her +hands. + +"From Mother," she said. "Yarrahappini's a wilderness, it seems, and +she wants me to go up, and take the General with me, for a few weeks." + +"Ah!" he said. + +It would certainly solve one of the difficulties. The place was very +far away certainly, but then it was Esther's old home, and she had +not seen it since her marriage. She would grow strong again there +very quickly. + +"Oh, and Judy, too." + +"Ah-h-h!" he said. + +Two of the lines smoothed themselves carefully from his brow. + +"And Meg, because I mentioned she was looking pale." + +The Captain placed the cigar back in the case. He forgot there was +such a thing as gout. + +"The invitation could not have been more opportune," he said. "Accept +by all means; nothing could have been better; and it is an exceedingly +healthy climate. The other children can--" + +"Oh, Father expressly stipulates for Pip as well, because he is a +scamp." + +"Upon my word, Esther, your parents have a large enough fund of +philanthropy. Anyone else included in the invitation?" + +"Only Nell and Bunty and Baby. Oh, and Mother says if you can +run up at any time for a few days shooting you know without her +telling you how pleased she will be to see you." + +"The hospitality of squatters is world-famed, but this breaks all +previous records, Esther." The Captain got up and stretched himself +with the air of a man released from a nightmare. "Accept by all +means--every one of you. On their own heads be the results; but +I'm afraid Yarrahappini will be a sadder and wiser place before +the month is over." + +But just how much sadder or how much wiser he never dreamed. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Three Hundred Miles in the Train + + +They filled a whole compartment--at least there was one seat vacant, +but people seemed shy of taking it after a rapid survey of them all. + +The whole seven of them, and only Esther as bodyguard--Esther--in +a pink blouse an sailor hat, with a face as bright and mischievous +as Pip's own. + +The Captain had come to see them off, with Pat to look after the +luggage. He had bought the tickets--two whole ones for Esther and +Meg, and four halves for the others. Baby was not provided with even +a half, much to her private indignation--it was an insult to her four +years and a half, she considered, to go free like the General. + +But the cost of those scraps of pasteboard had made the Captain look +unhappy: he only received eighteenpence change out of the ten pounds +he had tendered; for Yarrahappini was on the borders of the Never-Never +Land. + +He spent the eighteenpence on illustrated papers--Scraps, Ally +Sloper's Half-Holiday, Comic Cuts, Funny Folks, and the like, +evidently having no very exalted opinion of the literary tastes +of his family; and he provided Esther with a yellow-back--on +which was depicted a lady in a green dress fainting in the arms +of a gentleman attired in purple, and Meg with Mark Twain's "Jumping +Frog", because he had noticed a certain air of melancholy in her eyes +lately. + +Then bells clanged and a whistle shrieked, porters flew wildly about, +and farewells were said, sadly or gaily as the case might be. + +There was a woman crying: in a hopeless little way on the platform, +and a girl with sorrowful, loving eyes leaning out of a second-class +window towards her; there was a brown-faced squatter, in a tweed cap +and slippers, to whom the three-hundred-mile journey was little more +of an event than dining; and there was the young man going selecting, +and thinking England was little farther, seeing his wife and child +were waving a year's good-bye from the platform. There were sportsmen +going two hundred miles after quail and wallaby; and cars full of +ladies returning to the wilds after their yearly or half-yearly tilt +with society and fashion in Sydney; and there were the eight we are +interested in, clustering around the door and two windows, smiling +and waving cheerful good-byes to the Captain. + +He did not look at all cast down as the train steamed fussily +away--indeed, he walked down the platform with almost a jaunty air as if +the prospect of two months bachelordom was not without its redeeming +points. + +It was half-past six in the afternoon when they started, and they would +reach Curlewis, which was the nearest railway station to Yarrahappini, +about five the next morning. The expense of sleeping-berths had been +out of the question with so many of them; but in the rack with the bags +were several rolls of rugs and two or three air-pillows against the +weary hours. The idea of so many hours in the train had been delightful +to all the young ones; none of them but Judy had been a greater distance +than forty or fifty miles before, and it seemed perfectly fascinating +to think of rushing on and on through the blackness as well as the +daylight. + +But long before ten o'clock a change came o'er the spirit of their +dreams. Nell and Baby had had a quarrel over the puffing out of the +air-cushions, and were too tired and cross to make it up again; Pip +had hit Bunty over the head for no ostensible reason, and received +two kicks in return; Judy's head ached, and the noise, was not calculated +to cure it; Meg had grown weary of staring out into the moving darkness, +and wondering whether Alan would notice she was never on the river-boat +now; and the poor little General was filling the hot air with +expostulations, in the shape of loud roars, at the irregularities of +the treatment he was undergoing. + +Esther had taken his day clothes off, and made a picture of him in +a cream flannel nightgown and a pink wool jacket. And for half an +hour, he had submitted good-temperedly to being handed about and +tickled and half-smothered with kisses. He had eyen permitted Nell to +bite his little pink toes severally, and say a surprising amount of +nonsense about little pigs that went to market and did similarly +absurd things. + +He had hardly remonstrated when there had been a dispute about the +possession of his person, and Bunty had clung to his head and body +while Nell pulled vigorously at his legs. + +But after a time, when Esther made him a little bed on one of the +seats and tried to lay him down upon it, a sense of his grievances +came over him. + +He had a swinging cot at home; with little gold bars at the foot to +blink at--he could not see why he should be mulcted of it, and made to +put up with a rug three times doubled. He was accustomed, too, to a +shaded light, a quiet room, and a warning H'sh! h'sh! whenever +people forgot themselves sufficiently to make the slightest noise. + +Here the great yellow light flared all the time, and every one of the +noisy creatures at whose hands he endured so much was within a few +feet of him. + +So he lifted up his voice and wept. And when he found weeping did not +produce his gold-barred cot, and the little dangling tassels on the +mosquito nets, he raised his voice two notes, and when even there +Esther only went on patting his shoulder in a soothing way he burst +into roars absolutely deafening. + +Nellie dangled all her long curls in his face to engage his +attention, but he clutched them viciously and pulled till the tears +came into her eyes. Esther and Meg sang lullabies till their tongues +ached, Judy tried walking him up and down the narrow space, but he +stiffened himself in her arms, and she was not strong enough to hold +him. Finally he dropped off into an exhausted sleep, drawing deep, +sobbing breaths and little hiccoughs of sorrow. + +Then Bunty was discovered asleep on the floor with his head under a seat, +and had to be lifted into an easier position; and Baby, bolt upright +in a corner, was nodding like a little pink-and-white daisy the sun has +been too much for. + +One by one the long hours dragged away; farther and farther through +the silent, sleeping country flew the red-eyed train, swerving round +zigzag curves, slackening up steeper places, flashing across the +endless stretching plains. + +The blackness grew grey and paler grey, and miles and miles of +monotonous gum saplings lay between the train and sky. Up burst +the sun, and the world grew soft and rosy like a baby waked from +sleep. Then the grey gathered again, the pink, quivering lights +faded out, and the rain came down--torrents of it, beating against +the shaking window-glass, whirled wildly ahead by a rough morning +wind, flying down from the mountains. Such a crushed, dull-eyed, +subdued-looking eight they were as they tumbled out on the Curlewis +platform when five o'clock came. Judy coughed at the wet, early, +air, and was hurried into the waiting-room and wrapped in a rug. + +Then the train tossed out their trunks and portmanteaux and rushed on +again, leaving them desolate and miserable, looking after it, for it +seemed no one had come to meet them. + +The sound of wet wheels slushing through puddles, the crack of a whip, +the even falling of horses' feet, and they were all outside again, +looking beyond the white railway palings to the road. + +There were a big, covered waggonette driven by a wide yellow oil-skin +with a man somewhere in its interior, and a high buggy, from which an +immensely tall man was climbing. + +"Father!" + +Esther rushed out into the rain. She put her arms round the dripping +mackintosh and clung fast to it for a minute or two. Perhaps that is +what made her cheeks and eyes so wet and shining. + +"Little girl--little Esther child!" he said, and almost lifted her +off the ground as he kissed her, tall though Meg considered her. + +Then he hurried them all off into the buggies, five in one and three +in the other. There was a twenty-five-mile drive before them yet. + +"When did you have anything to eat last?" he asked; the depressed +looks of the children were making him quite unhappy. "Mother has +sent you biscuits and sandwiches, but we, can't get coffee or +anything hot till we get home." + +Nine o'clock, Esther told him, at Newcastle, but it was so boiling +hot they had had to leave most of it in their cups and scramble into +the train again. The horses were whipped up; and flew over the +muddy roads at a pace that Pip, despite his weariness, could not but +admire. + +But it was a very damp, miserable drive, and the General wept with +hardly a break from start to finish, greatly to Esther's vexation, +for it was his first introduction to his grandfather. + +At last, when everyone was beginning to feel the very end of patience +had come, a high white gate broke the monotony of dripping wet +fences. + +"Home!" Esther said joyfully. She jumped the General up and down on +her knee. + +"Little Boy Blue, Mum fell off that gate when she was three," said she, +looking at it affectionately as Pip swung it open. + +Splash through the rain again; the wheels went softly now, for the +way was covered with wet fallen leaves. + +"Oh, where IS the house?" Bunty said, peeping through Pip's arm +on the box seat, and seeing still nothing but an endless vista of +gum trees. "I thought, you said we were there, Esther." + +"Oh, the front door is not quite so near the gate as at Misrule," +she said. And indeed it was not. + +It was fifteen minutes before they even saw the chimneys, then there +was another gate to be opened. A gravel drive now trimly kept, +high box round the flower-beds, a wilderness of rose bushes that +pleased Meg's eye, two chip tennis-courts under water. + +Then the house. + +The veranda was all they noticed; such a wide one it was, as wide as +an ordinary room, and there were lounges and chairs and tables +scattered about, hammocks swung from the corners, and a green thick +creeper with rain-blown wisteria for an outer wall. + +"O--o--oh," said Pip; "o--oh! I AM stiff--o--oh, I say, what are you +doing?" + +For Esther had deposited her infant on his knee, and leapt out of +the waggonette and up the veranda steps. + +There was a tiny old lady there, with a great housekeeping apron +on. Esther gathered her right up in her arms, and they kissed and +clung to each other till they were both crying. + +"My little girl!" sobbed the little old lady, stroking, with eager +hands, Esther's wet hair and wetter cheeks. + +And Bunty, who had followed close behind, looked from the tall figure +of his stepmother to the very small one of her mother and laughed. + +Esther darted back to the buggy, took the General from Pip, and, +springing up the steps again, placed him in her mother's arms. + +"Isn't he a fat 'un!" Bunty said, sharing in her pride; "just you +look at his legs." + +The old lady sat down for one minute in the wettest chair she could +find, and cuddled him close up to her. + +But he doubled his little cold fists, fought himself free, and +yelled for Esther. + +Mr. Hassal had emptied the buggies by now, and came up the steps +himself. + +"Aren't you going to give them some breakfast, little mother?" he +said, and the old lady nearly dropped her grandson in her distress. + +"Dear, dear!" she said. "Well, well! Just to think of it! But it +makes one forget." + +In ten minutes they were all in dry things, sitting in the warm +dining-room and making prodigious breakfasts. + +"WASN'T I hungry!" Bunty said. His mouth was full of toast, and he +was slicing the top off his fourth egg and keeping an eye on a dish +that held honey in one compartment and clotted cream in another. + +"The dear old plates!" Esther picked hers up after she had emptied it +and looked lovingly at the blue roses depicted upon it. "And to think +last time l ate off one I--" + +"Was a little bride with the veil pushed back from your face," the old +lady said, "and everyone watching you cut the cake. Only two have broken +since--oh yes, Hannah, the girl who came after Emily, chipped off the +handle of the sugar-basin and broke a bit out of the slop-bowl." + +"Where did Father stand?" Meg asked. She was peopling the room with +wedding guests; the ham and the chops, the toast and eggs and dishes +of fruit, had turned to a great white towered cake with silver +leaves. + +"Just up there where Pip is sitting," Mrs. Hassal said, "and he +was helping Esther with the cake, because she was cutting it +with his sword. Such a hole you made in the table-cloth, Esther, my +very best damask one with the convolvulus leaves, but, of course, +I've darned it--dear, dear!" + +Baby had upset her coffee all over herself and her plate and Bunty, +who was next door. + +She burst into tears of weariness and nervousness at the new people, +and slipped off her chair under the table. Meg picked her up. + +"May I put her to bed?" she said; "she is about worn out." + +"Me, too," Nellie said, laying down her half-eaten scone and pushing +back her chair. "Oh, I am so tired!" + +"So'm I." Bunty finished up everything on his plate in choking +haste and stood up. "And that horrid coffee's running into my +boots." + +So just as the sun began to smile and chase away the sky's heavy +tears, they all went to bed again to make up for the broken night, +and it was: six o'clock and tea-time before any of them opened their +eyes again. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Yarrahappini + + +Yarrahappini in the sunshine, the kind of sunshine that pushes the +thermometer's silver thread up to 100 deg.! + +Right away in the distance on three sides was a blue hill line and +blue soft trees. + +And up near the house the trees were green and beautiful, and the +flowers a blaze of colour. + +But all the stretching plain between was brown. Brown burnt grass +with occasional patches of dull green, criss-crossed here and there +with fences; that ran up the little hills that in places broke the +plain's straight line, and disappeared in the dips where rank grass +and bracken flourished. The head station consisted of quite a little +community of cottages on the top of a hill. Years ago, when Esther +was no bigger than her own little General, there had been only a rough, +red weather-board place on the hill-top, and a bark but or two for +outhouses. + +And Mr. Hassal had been in the saddle from morning to night, and +worked harder than any two of his own stockmen, and Mrs. Hassal had +laid aside her girlish accomplishments, her fancy work, her guitar, +her water-colours, and had scrubbed and cooked and washed as many a +settler's wife has done before, until the anxiously watched wool +market had brought them better days. + +Then a big stone cottage reared itself slowly right in front of the +little old place with its bottle-bordered garden plot, where nothing +more aristocratic than pig's face and scarlet geranium had ever grown. +A beautiful cottage it was, with its plenitude of lofty rooms, its +many windows, and its deep veranda. The little home was kitchen +and bedrooms for the two women servants now, and was joined to the +big place by a covered way. + +A hundred yards away there was a two-roomed cottage that was occupied +by the son of an English baronet, who, for the consideration of +seventy pounds a year and rations kept the Yarrahappini business +books and gave out the stores. + +Farther still, two bark humpies stood, back to back. Tettawonga, +a bent old black fellow, lived in one, and did little else than +smoke and give his opinion on the weather every morning. + +Twenty years ago he had helped to make a steady foundation for +the red cottage that had arrived ready built on a bullock-dray. + +Fifteen years ago he had killed with his tomahawk one of two +bushrangers who were trying to pick up Yarrahappini in the +absence of his master, and he had carried little trembling +Mrs. Hassal and tiny Esther to place of safety, and gone back +and dealt the other one a blow on the head that stunned him +till assistance came. + +So, of course, he had earned his right to the cottage and the +daily rations and the pipe that never stirred from his lips. + +Two of the station hands lived in the other cottage when they +were not out in distant parts of the run. + +Close to the house was a long weather-board building with a heavy, +padlocked door. + +"Oh, let's go in," Nell said, attracted by the size of the +padlock; "it looks like a treasure-house in a book--mayn't we +go in, please, little grandma?" + +They were exploring all the buildings--the six children in a body, +Mrs. Hassal, whom they all called "little grandma," much to her +pleasure, and Esther with the boy. + +"You must go and ask Mr. Gillet," the old lady said; "he keeps +the keys of the stores. See, over in that cottage near the tank, +and speak nicely, children, please." + +"Such a gentleman," she said in a low tone to Esther, "so clever, +so polished, if only he did not drink so." + +Meg and Judy went, with Baby hurrying after them as fast as her +short legs would allow. + +"Come in," a voice said, when they knocked. Meg hesitated +nervously, and a man opened the door. Such a great, gaunt man, +with restless, unhappy eyes, a brown, wide brow, and neatly +trimmed beard. + +Judy stated that Mrs. Hassal had sent them for the keys, if he had +no objection. + +He asked them to come in and sit down while he looked for them. + +Meg was surprised at the room, as her blue eyes plainly showed, for +she had only heard him spoken of as the store-keeper. There were +bookshelves, on which she saw Shakespeare and Browning and Shelley +and Rossetti and Tennyson, William Morris, and many others she had +never seen before. There were neatly framed photographs and engravings +of English and Continental scenery on the walls. There was a little +chased silver vase on a bracket, and some of the flowers from the +passion vines in it. The table with the remains of breakfast on +it was as nice on a small scale as the one she had just left in +the big cottage. + +He came back froth the inner room with the keys. "I was afraid I +had mislaid then," he said; "the middle one opens the padlock, +Miss Woolcot; the brass fat one is for the two bins, and the +long steel one for the cupboard." + +"Thank you so much. I'm afraid we disturbed you in the middle of your +breakfast," Meg said, standing up and blushing because she thought he +had noticed her surprise at the bookshelves. + +He disclaimed the trouble, and held the door open for them with +a bow that had something courtly in it, at least so Meg thought, +puzzling how it came to be associated with salt beef by the +hundredweight and bins of flour. He watched them go over the +grass--at least he watched Meg in her cool, summer muslin and +pale-blue belt, Meg in her shady chip hat, with the shining fluffy +plait hanging to her waist. + +Judy's long black legs and crumpled cambric had no element of the +picturesque in them. + +Mrs. Hassal unfastened the padlock of the store-room. Such a +chorus of "ohs!" and "ahs!" there was from the children! + + +Baby had never seen so much sugar together in her life before; she +looked as if she would have liked to have been let loose in the +great bin for an hour or two. + +And the currants! There was a big wooden box brim full--about +forty pounds, Mrs. Hassal thought when questioned. + +Bunty whipped up a handful and pocketed them when everyone was +looking at the mountain of candles. + +"Home-made! my DEAR, why, yes, of course," the old lady said. +"Why, I wouldn't dream of using a bought candle, any more than +I would use bought soap." + +She showed them the great bars of yellow, clean-smelling stuff, +with finer, paler-coloured for toilet purposes. + +Hams and sides of bacon hung thickly from the rafters. "Those are +mutton hams," she said, pointing to one division. "I keep those +for the stockmen." + +Pip wanted to know if the stores were meant to serve them all their +lives, there seemed enough of them: he was astonished to hear that +every six months they were replenished. + +"Twenty to thirty men, counting the boundary riders and stockmen +at different parts of the place; and double that number at shearing +or drafting times, not to mention daily sundowners--it's like feeding +an army, my dears," she said; "and then, you see, I had to make +preparations for all of you--Bunty especially." + +Her little grey eyes twinkled merrily as she looked at that small +youth. + +"You can have them back," Bunty said, half sulkily. He produced +half a dozen currants from his pocket. "I shouldn't think you'd +mind, with such a lot; we only have a bottleful at home." + +On which the old lady patted his head, unlocked a tin, and filled +his hands with figs and dates. + +"And have you to cook every day, for all those men?" Meg said, +wondering what oven could be found large enough. + +"Dear, no!" the old lady answered. "Dear, dear, no; each man +does everything for himself in his own hut; they don't even get +bread, only rations of flour to make damper for themselves. Then +we give them a fixed, quantity of meat, tea, sugar, tobacco, +candles, soap, and one or two other things." + +"Where do you keep the wool and things?" said Pip, who had a soul +above home-made soap and metal dips for candles; "I can't see any +shed or anything." + +Mrs. Hassal told him they were a mile away, down by the creek, +where the sheep were washed and sheared at the proper season. But +the heat was too much to make even Pip want to go just then, so they +attached themselves to Mr. Hassal, leaving little grandma with +Esther, the General, and Baby, and went over to the brick stables +near. + +There were three or four buggies under cover, but no horses at all, +they were farther afield. Across the paddock they went, and up the +hill. Half a dozen answered Mr. Hassal's strange whistle; the +others were wild, unbroken things, that tossed their manes and fled +away at the sight of people to the farthermost parts where the trees +grew. + +Pip chose one, a grey, with long, fleet-looking legs and a narrow, +beautiful head; he prided himself upon knowing something about +"points." Judy picked a black, with reddish, restless eyes, but +Mr. Hassal refused it because it had an uncertain temper, so she +had to be content with a brown with a soft, satiny nose. + +Meg asked for "something very quiet" in a whisper Judy and Pip could +not hear, and was given a ruggy horse that had carried Mrs. Hassal +eighteen years ago. Each animal was to be at the complete disposal +of the young people during their stay at Yarrahappini, but the rides +would have to take place before breakfast or after tea, they were told, +if they wanted any pleasure out of them; the rest of the day was +unbearable on horseback. Nellie was disappointed in the sheep, +exceedingly so. She had expected to find great snow-white beautiful +creatures that would be tame and allow her to put ribbon on their +necks and lead them about. + +From the hill-top the second morning she saw paddock after paddock, +each with a brown, slowly moving mass; she ran down through the +sunshine with Bunty to view them more closely. + +"Oh, WHAT a shame!" she exclaimed, actual tears of disappointment +springing to her eyes when she saw the great fat things with their +long, dirty, ragged-looking fleece. + +"Wait for a time, little woman," Mr. Hassal said; "just you wait +till we give them their baths." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Cattle-Drafting at Yarrahappini + + + "To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard + With a running fire of stockwhip and a fiery run of hoofs." + + +Pip could hardly sleep one night, a month after their arrival, for +thinking of the cattle drafting that was on the programme for the +morrow. He had been casting about for some fresh occupation, far +he was a boy to whom variety was the salt of life. At first he had +been certain he could never tire of shooting rabbits. Mr. Hassal had +given him the "jolliest little stunner of a gun," and, Tettawonga +had gone out with him the first day; and had been very scornful +about his enthusiasm when he shot two. + +"Ba'al good, gun do. Plenty fellow rabbit longa scrub, budgery +way north, budgery way south; budgery way eblywhere. Ba'al good +barbed wire fence do, ba'al good poison do. Bah!" + +But Pip was not to be discouraged, and really thought he had done +great good to the Yarrahappini estate by shooting those two soft, +fleet brown things. He took them home and displayed them proudly +to the girls, cleaned his perfectly clean gun, and sallied forth +the next day. + +Tettawonga took his pipe from between his lips when he saw him again +and laughed, a loud cackling laugh, that made Pip flush with anger. + +"Kimbriki and kimbriki, too! Rabbit he catti, curri-curri now. Boy +come long with cawbawn gun, rabbit jerund drekaly, go burri, grass +grow, sheep get fat-ha, ha, he, he!" + + +************************************** + +"To-morrow and to-morrow too! Rabbit, he go away quickly now. Boy +come along with big gun, rabbit he afraid directly, go under the +ground." + +************************************** + + +Pip understood his mixed English enough to know he was making fun of +him, and told him wrathfully to "shut up for a Dutch idiot." + +Then he shouldered the gun he was so immeasurably proud of and went +off the other side of the barbed-wire fence, where was the happy +hunting-ground of the little rodent that would not allow Mr. Hassal to +grow rich. + +He shot five that day, four the next, seven the next, but after a +time he voted it slow, and went after gill birds, with more enjoyment +but less certainty of a bag. + +Every day was filled to the brim with enjoyment, and but for the +intense heat that first month at Yarrahappini would have been one of +absolute content and happiness. + +And now there was the cattle-drafting! + +Breakfast was very early the morning of the great event; by +half-past five it was almost over, and Pip, in a fever of +restlessness, was telling Mr. Hassal he was sure they would be +late and miss it. + +Judy had pleaded hard to be allowed to go, but everyone said it was +out of the question--indeed, it was doubted if it were wise to allow +Pip to face the danger that is inseparable with the drafting of the +wilder kind of cattle that had been driven from great distances. + +But he had forcibly carried the day, and dressed himself up in so +business-like a way that Mr. Hassel had not the heart to refuse him. +He came down to breakfast in a Crimean shirt and a pair of old, serge +trousers fastened round the waist with a leathern belt, in which an +unsheathed bowie knife, freshly sharpened, was jauntily stuck. No +persuasions would induce him either to wear a coat or sheathe the knife. + +The grey was brought round to the veranda steps, with Mr. Hassal's +own splendid horse. Mr. Gillet was there on a well-groomed roan; +he had three stock-whips, two quite sixteen feet long, the third +shorter one, which he presented to Pip. + +The boy's face glowed. "Hurrah, Fizz!" he said; standing up in +his saddle and brandishing it round his head. "What 'ud you give to +change places?" + +He dug his heels into the animal's sides and went helter-skelter +at a wild gallop down the hill. + +It was a mile and a half to the cattle yards, and here was the +strongest excitement. + +Pip could not think where all the men had sprung from. There were +some twenty or thirty of them, stockmen, shearers "on the +wallaby," as their parlance expressed lack of employment, two +Aboriginals, exclusive of Tettawonga, who was smoking and looking +on with sleepy enjoyment, and several other of the station hands. + +In the first yard there were five hundred cattle that had been driven +there the night before, and that just now presented the appearance of +a sea of wildly lashing tails and horns. Such horns!--great, +branching, terrific-looking things that they gored and fought each +other madly with, seeing they could not get to the common enemy +outside. + +Just for the first moment or two Pip felt a little disinclined to +quit the stronghold of his horse's back. The thunder of hoofs and +horns, the wild charges made by the desperate animals against the +fence, made him expect to see it come crashing down every minute. + +But everybody else had gone to "cockatoo"--to sit on the top rail +of the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at length +he fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly to follow +their example. + +At a sudden signal from Mr. Hassal the men dropped down inside, +half along, one side and half the other. The object was to get a +hundred or two of the cattle into the forcing-yard adjoining, the gate +to which was wide open. Pip marvelled at the courage of the men; +for a moment his heart had leaped to his mouth as bullock after +bullock essayed to charge them, but the air resounded with cracks from +the mighty stock whips and drafting-sticks, and beast after beast +retreated towards the centre with its face dripping with blood. + +Then one huge black creature, with a bellow that seemed to shake +the plain, made a wild rush to the gate, the whole herd at his heels. +Like lightning, the men made a line behind, shouting, yelling, +cracking their whips to drive them onward. Pip stood up and halloed, +absolutely beside himself with excitement. Then he held his breath +again. + +Mr. Hassal and one of the black boys were creeping cautiously up +near the gateway through which the tumultuous stream of horns and +backs was pouring. Half a dozen mighty blows from the men, and +the last leader fell back for an instant, driving the multitude back +behind him. + +In that second the two had slipped up the rails and the herd was in +two divisions. + +Two lines of stockmen again, whip-crackings, bellows, blood, horns, +hide and heels in the air, and some forty or fifty were secure in a +third yard, a long narrow place with a gate at the end leading into +the final division. + +Pip learnt from Mr. Gillet the object of these divisions: some of +the beasts were almost worthless things, and had been assigned to a +buyer for a couple of pounds a head, just for the horns, hides, and +what might be got for the flesh. Others were prime, fat creatures, +ready for the butcher and Sydney market. And others again were +splendid animals, of great value for prize and breeding purposes, +and were to be made into a separate draft. + +The man at the last gateway was doing the all important work of +selecting. He was armed with a short thick stick, and, as the other +men drove the animals down towards him, decided with lightning speed +to which class they belonged. A heavy blow on the nose, a sharp, +rapid series of them between the eyes, and the most violent brute +plunged blindly whither the driver sent him. All the day work went on, +and just as the great hot purple shadows began to fall across the +plain they secured the last rail, the battle was over, and the animals +in approved divisions. + +Pip ate enough salt beef and damper to half kill him, drank more tea +than he had ever disposed of at one sitting in all his fourteen years, +swung himself into his saddle in close imitation of the oldest +stockman, and thought if he only could have a black, evil-looking +pipe like Tettawonga and the rest of the men his happiness would be +complete and his manhood attained. + +He reached home as tired as "a dozen dogs and a dingo," and +entertained his sisters and Bunty with a graphic account of the +day's proceedings, dwelling lengthily on his own prowess and the +manifold perils he had escaped. + +The next day both Esther and Judy rode with the others to the yards +to see the departures. + +The best of the contingent, which Mr. Hassal had only wanted to +separate, not to sell, were driven out through the gate and away +to their old fields and pastures stale. + +The "wasters," some hundred and fifty of them, with half a dozen +stockmen mounted on the best horses of the place told off for +them, were released from their enclosure in a state of frenzied +desperation, and, with much cracking of whips and yells, mustered +into a herd and driven across the plain in the direction of the road. +And some hour or two later the best "beef" lot were driven forth, +and quiet reigned at Yarrahappini once more. During the two days +of excitement the children all decided upon their future professions, +which were all to be of a pastoral nature. + +Pip was going to be a stockman, and brand and draft cattle all the +days of his life. Judy was going to be his "aide-de-camp", provided +he let her stay in the saddle, and provided her with a whip just as +long as his own. Meg thought she should like to marry the richest +squatter in Australia, and have the Governor and the Premier come up +for shooting and "things," and give balls to which all the people +within a hundred miles would come. Nell decided the would make soap +and candles, coloured as well as plain, when she arrived at years +of discretion; said Baby inclined to keeping paddocks full of pet +lambs that never grew into sheep. + +Bunty did, not wax enthusiastic over any of the ideas. + +"I'd rather be like Mr. Gillet," he said, and his eyes looked dreamy. + +"Pooh! no books and figures far me; give me a run of Salt Bush country, +and a few thousand sheep," said Pip. + +"Hear! hear!" chimed in Judy. + +"Stoopids!" said Bunty, in a voice of great scorn. "Doesn't Mr. +Gillet keep the store keys--just think those currants and figs." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +The Picnic at Krangi-Bahtoo + + +Esther had gone to a ball, not in a dress of delicate colour with +great puffed sleeves, and a dazzling neck bare and beautiful under its +wraps, not through the darkness to a blaze of lights and swinging +music. + +She had gone, in the broad light of the morning, in a holland suit +with a blue Henley shirt, a sailor hat, and a gossamer. + +Under the front buggy seat where Mr. Hassal sat was a box containing +a beautiful gown, all daffodil silk and delicate wavelets of chiffon. +And there were daffodil shoes and stockings, a plume fan in a hat-box +on her knee, and a lovely trained white underskirt with billowy +frills of torchon, the very sight of which made Meg wild to +be grown up. + +But none of these things were to be donned for many an hour yet. + +The ball was a neat little matter of fifty-five miles away, across +country, so she had to start tolerably early, of course, in order to +have comfortable time to "titivate," as Pip expressed it. + +The children, as compensation for having no part in this pleasure, +were to have a very, out-of-the-way kind of picnic all to themselves. + +In the first place, the picnic ground was fourteen miles away; +in the second, the journey was to be made, not in everyday buggies, +or on commonplace horses, but on a dray drawn by a team of twelve +yoked bullocks. + +A boundary-rider had reported that a magnificent blue gum that +they had long called King Koree had been blown down during a violent +gale, and Mr. Hassal immediately declared that, whatever the +trouble, it must be brought for the foundation of a kind of dam +across the creek at Krangi-Bahtoo, the picnic spot. The fallen +bush monarch lay twenty miles away from the station, and six beyond +the place chosen for the picnic; so it was arranged the trolly +should carry the party for the fourteen miles, leave them to +picnic, go forward for the tree, bring it back, and deposit it near +the creek ready for future operations, and bring the children +back in the cool of the evening. + +But for escorting his daughter to the ball, Mr. Hassal would have +gone himself to the place and seen about it in person. As it was, he +placed the great trolly in the charge of four men, with instructions +to pick up a couple of men from distant huts to help in the task. + +Krangi-Bahtoo--or Duck Water, as, less prettily, we should call +it--was the name given to the head of the creek, which had scooped +out the earth till it made itself a beautiful ravine just there, +with precipitous rocks and boulders that the kangaroos skipped across +and played hide-and-seek behind with hunters, and great towering +blue gums and red gums, that seemed to lose themselves in the blue, +blue sky-canopy above. + +Tettawonga told of a Bunyip that dwelt where the trickling water +had made a pool, deep and beautiful, and delicate ferns had crept +tenderly to fringe its edge, and blackwood, and ti-trees grown up +thick and strong for a girdle. The water-hen made a home there, +the black swan built among the grass-like reeds, the wild duck +made frequent dark zigzag lines against the sky. From the trees +the bell-bird, the coach-whip, the tewinga, the laughing-jackass, +the rifle-bird and regent, filled the air with sound, if not with +music. And the black snake, the brown snake, the whip, the diamond, +and the death adder glided gently among the fallen leaves and +grasses, and held themselves in cheerful readiness for intruders. +That was why a condition was attached to the freely granted picnic. + +Everyone might go, and go on the bullock-dray, but the picnic was +to take place above the ravine, and no one was to venture down, on +pain of being instantly packed back to Sydney. + +They all promised faithfully. Mrs. Hassal, tiny as she was, had a +way of commanding implicit obedience. + +Then an incredible number of hampers, brimming over with good things, +was packed. + +Mr. Gillet went, to give an appearance of steadiness to the party, +and to see no one got sunstroke. + +He had a Heine in one pocket against the long, unusual day, a bulging +Tennyson in the other, and a sheaf of English papers under his arm +as he climbed on the trolly, where the whole seven were already seated. + +The SEVEN? Even so, Judy had refused to stir without the General, +and had promised "on her life" not to allow any harm to come near him. + +Mr. Gillet gave a glance almost of dismay when he found the whole +number was to be present, without the subtraction of the mischievously +disposed ones, or the addition of anyone but himself weighted with +authority. For a moment he distrusted his own powers in such a +situation. + +Judy caught the doubting look. + +"You're quoting poetry to yourself, Mr. Gillet," she said. + +"I?" he said, and looked astonished. "Indeed, no. What makes you +think so, Miss Judy?" + +"I can hear it distinctly," she said. "Your eyes are saying it, +and your left ear, not to mention the ends of your moustache." + +"Judy!" reproved Meg, whom something had made strangely quiet. + +He pretended to be alarmed--shut his eyes, held his left ear, +covered his moustache. + +"What can they be saying?" he said. + + "'Oh that I was where I would be! + Then I would be where I am not: + But where I am I still must be, + And where I would be I cannot.' + +"Meg, I WISH you would stop treading on my toes." + +So after that even Mr. Gillet grew gay and talkative, to show he +was enjoying himself, and the bullocks caught the infection of the +brimming spirits behind them, and moved a LEETLE bit faster than +snails. When they had crept along over about ten miles, however, +the slow motion and the heat that beat down sobered them a little. + +"Miss Meg, that silver-grey gum before you, guileless of leaves, +indicates Duck Water." + +How glad they were to unfold themselves and stretch out their arms +and legs on the ground at last. No one had dreamt riding behind a +bullock team could have been so "flat, stale, and unprofitable," as +it was after the first mile or two. + +Then the trolly continued its course. + +"I doubt if they will be back before the sun goes down, if they +don't go a little quicker," Mr. Gillet said; "it is lunch-time +now." + +They were in a great grassed paddock that at one end fell abruptly +down to the ravine and swamp lands known as "Duck Water." + +A belt of great trees made a shade at one side, and along the other +was the barbed-wire fence that showed they had not got away from the +Yarrahappini estate even yet: higher up was the lonely bark hut of +one of the stockmen. + +They went up in a body to speak to him before he joined the bullock +team, and to view his solitary dwelling. + +Just a small room it was, with a wide fireplace and chimney, where +hung a frying-pan, a billy, a cup, and a spoon. There was a bunk in +one corner, with a couple of blue blankets on it, a deal table and one +chair in the middle of the room. Over the fire-place hung a rough +cupboard, made out of a soap-box, and used to hold rations. From a +nail in the low ceiling a mosquito-net bag was suspended, and the +buzzing flies around proclaimed that it held meat. The walls were +papered with many a copy of "The Illustrated Sydney News", and +"The Town and Country Journal"; there was a month-old "Daily Telegraph" +lying on the chair, where the owner had laid it down. + +A study in brown the stockman was, brown, dull eyes; brown, +dusty-looking hair; brown skin, sundried and shrivelled; brown, +unkempt beard; brown trousers of corduroy, and brown coat. + +His pipe was black, however--a clay, that looked as if it had +been smoked for twenty years. + +"Wouldn't you like to be nearer the homestead?" Meg asked. "Isn't +it lonely?" + +"Not ter mention," the brown man said to his pipe or his beard. + +"What do you do with yourself when you're, not outside?" asked +Pip. + +"Smoke," said the man. + +"But on Sundays, and all through the evenings?" + +"Smoke," he said. + +"On Cwismas day," Baby said, pressing to see this strange man; +"zen what does you do?" + +"Smoke" he said. + +Judy wanted to know how long he'd lived in the little place, and +everyone was stricken dumb to hear he had been there most of the time +for seven years. + +"Don't you ever forget how to talk?" she said, in an awestruck +voice. + +But he answered laconically to his beard that there was the cat. + +Baby had found it already under the kerosene tin that did duty +for a bucket, and it had scratched her in three places: brown, +like its master, it was evil-eyed, fiercely whiskered, thin +as a rail; still, there was the affection of years between the two. + +Mr. Gillet told him of the squatter's wish that he should go with the +other men and help with the tree. He pulled a brown hat over his brow +and moved away towards the bullock-dray, which had crept up the +winding road by now, to the hill-top. + +"Water in tub, nearer than creek," he muttered to his pipe before he +went, and they found his tub-tank and gladly filled the billy ready +for lunch. + +Mrs. Hassal's roast fowls and duck tasted well; even though they +frizzled on the plates as if the sun were trying to finish their +cooking. And the apple tarts and apricot turnovers vanished speedily; +and of the fruit salad that came forth from two screw-top +bottles, not a teaspoonful remained to tell a tale. + +Mr. Gillet had brought materials for a damper, by special request, +and after lunch prepared to make it, so they might have it for +afternoon tea. + +"Pheough!" said Judy. "Is THAT how you make it? You need not give +ME any." + +It certainly was manufactured with surprising celerity. + +Mr. Gillet merely tossed some flour from a bag out upon a plate, +added a pinch of salt and some water; then he shaped it into a cake +of dough, and laid it on the ashes of the fire, covering it all over +with the hot, silver ash. + +"HOW dirty!" said Nell, elevating her pretty little nose. + +But when it was cooked, and Mr. Gillet lifted it up and dusted the +ash away--lo! it was high and light and beautifully white. + +So they ate it, and took mental marginal notes to make it in the +paddocks at Misrule for each and every picnic to come. + +They piled up two plates of good things and put in the brown man's +cupboard, and Mr. Gillet laid his unread English papers on the chair +near the cat. + +"That 'Telegraph' is a month old," he said deprecatingly seeing Meg +smile upon him her first smile that day. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A Pale-Blue Hair Ribbon + + + She in her virginal beauty + As pure as a pictured saint, + How should this sinning and sorrow + Have for her danger or taint? + +The reason our sweet pale Margaret had been reluctant of her smiles +was on account of the very man who alone missed them. + +Quite a warm friendship had sprung up during the month between the +little fair-faced girl, who looked with such serene blue eyes to a +future she felt must be beautiful, and the world-worn man, who looked +back to a past all blackened and unlovely by his own acts. + +He rode with the two girls every-day, because Mrs. Hassal did not +like them going long distances alone; and, seeing Judy seldom walked +her horse, and Meg's steed had not a canter in it, it fell out that +he kept beside the slow and timid rider all the time. + +"You remind me of a little sister I had who died," he said slowly to +Meg once, after a long talk. "Perhaps if she were alive now I should +not be quite so contemptible." + +Meg's face flushed scarlet, and a shamed look had come into her eyes. +It seemed altogether terrible to her that he should know she knew of +his failing. + +"Perhaps it makes her sorry now," she said in a whisper he scarcely +heard, and then she grew pale at her boldness, and rode on a little +way to hide her distressed looks. + +On the way home the pale-blue ribbon, that tied the strands of her +sunny plait together, blew off. He dismounted and picked it up. +Meg stretched out her hand for it, but he untied the bow and folded +it slowly round his big hand. + +"May I keep it?" he said in a low voice. "For my blue ribbon? +I know the conditions that attach." + +"If you would--oh, if you would!" Meg breathed rather than said. +Then Judy galloped up and they rode home three abreast. It was +such happiness to her all the hot, long days that followed; to a +girl just entering life there can be no purer, deeper feeling of +pleasure than that brought by the knowledge that she is influencing +for good some man or woman older than herself, more sin-worn and +earth-wearied. Poor little Meg! Her tender rose dreams had +pictured her big _protege_ a man among men again, holding up his +head once more, taking his place in the world, going back to the +old country, and claiming the noble lady her fertile imagination +had pictured; waiting so patiently for him; and all this because +she, Meg Woolcot, had stepped into his life and pointed the way +he should go. + +And then she went to swing in a hammock on the back veranda, +and all her castles came tumbling about her ears, dealing her sharp, +bitter blows. There was a thick creeper of passion-fruit vines +behind her, and through it she could hear Tettawonga talking to +the cook. + +"Marse Gillet on the burst agen," he said, and chuckled through +the side of his lips where his pipe did not rest. + +Meg sat up in horror. Since she had been at Yarrahappini she had +heard the phrase applied to too many of the station hands: not to +know that it meant a reckless drinking bout. + +"Lor'! I'M not surprised," the woman said, "he's been too sober late +days to keep it up; s'pose he's been trying to last the visitors out, +but found it too much. Who's got the keys?" + +"Mis' Hassal," he said, "you to helpin' her--ba`al good for +stores to-day, Marse Gillet--he, he, ha, ha!" + +So that was what had happened to him all these three days she had +not seen him! She had heard he had ridden over to the next station on +business for Mr. Hassal, but had not dreamed such 'a thing had +overtaken him. The fifth day she had seen him in the distance, once +coming out of the storeroom and looking exactly like himself, only +his shoulders stooped a little more, and once smoking outside his own +door. + +The sixth day was the picnic. + +Just as light-hearted and merry as the others she could not feel, +with this disappointment at her heart, this shaken trust in human +nature. + +How weak he was, she thought, how ignoble! + +All her pity was swept away in a young, large indignation. + +She had hardly shaken hands when they had met in the morning, +and all the long drive she was persistently cold towards him. + +After lunch the party became scattered. Judy took the General and +went over to the belt of trees; Pip and Bunty occupied themselves +with catching locusts; Baby and Nell gathered wild flowers. Meg +knelt down to collect the spoons and forks: and put the untouched +food back into the baskets away from the ants. + +"I will do this--you look hot, Miss Meg; sit down quietly," Mr. +Gillet said. + +"Thank you, but I prefer to do it myself," Miss Meg said, with +freezing dignity. + +She did not look at him, but there was a certain tightness about +her lips that made him know the light in her clear young, eyes was +a scornful one. + +He did not offer again, but sat and watched her pack up the things +with an untranslatable look on his face. When she had almost +finished he took something out of his pocket. + +"I have to give you this again," he said, and handed her the blue +length of ribbon, folded smoothly, but showing the crease where it +had been tied. + +She took it without lifting her eyes, crushed it up in her hand, and +slipped it into her pocket. + +"I had almost hoped you would say I might keep it, in spite of +everything," he said, "just as a talisman against the future, but +your lips are too severe, Miss for me to cherish the hope longer." + +"It would be as useless as it has been," she said stiffly. Her +hands moved nervously, however, and she wrapped up the remains of +a duck and a jam tart together. + +"Then I am not to have another chance?" he said. + +"It would be no use," Meg repeated, gathering up bananas and oranges +with a heightened colour. + +He does not realize how wicked he has been, he thinks he ought to be +forgiven at once was her thought. + +He emptied the billy slowly on the ground, he put on its blackened lid +and tied the newspaper around it. Then he looked at her again, +and the way her soft hair fell on her forehead made him think +of his young dead sister. + +"I BEG you to give it to me again, little Miss Meg," he said. + +Meg's heart and head had a rapid battle; the former was tender +and charitable, and bade her take the little ribbon and give it to +him instantly; the latter said he had sinned greatly, and she must +show him her disapproval by her manner, even if she yielded what he +asked her in the end. The head won. + +"My influence is evidently useless--that bit of ribbon would make +no difference in the future," she said very coldly. + +He leaned back against the tree and yawned, as if the subject had no +more interest for him. + +"Ah well," he said, "I dare say you are right." Meg felt a little +taken down. + +"Of course, if you really want the ribbon you can have it," she said +loftily. She took it from her pocket and tendered it to him. + +But he made no effort to take it. + +"Keep it to tie your hair again, little girl," he said; "after all, +I don't suppose it would be any use." + +Meg continued her packing with burning cheeks, and he filled up his +pipe and smoked it, watching her idly the while. + +"It's an odd thing," he said, more as if making an observation +than addressing her, "but the gentlest-looking women are nearly +always the hardest." + +Meg opened her mouth to speak, but found nothing to say, so closed it +again and began to count Mrs. Hassal's forks for the fourth time. + +"I wonder would you mind if I gave you a little advice, Miss Meg, in +return for all you have given me," he said, taking his pipe from +his mouth and looking at it as if he were trying to find out the +lettering on its nickel plate. + +"Certainly not." + +She laid down the bundle and looked at him with calm, surprised +eyes. "Say whatever you please, I do not mind in the very least." + +He sat up and played with the handle of a strap while he spoke. + +"You have brothers," he said; "some day they will go a little +astray--for it is only women like you, Miss Meg, and angels who +can keep to the path always. Don't be too hard on them. Don't +make an effort to show them the difference between your whiteness +and their blackness. They will see it right enough, but they +won't like you to draw their attention to it. Try and look gentle +and forgiving--they'll feel quite as miserable as you could wish +them to feel. The world has a beautiful frown of its own, and an +endless vocabulary of cold words--wouldn't it do if the little +sisters left it the monopoly of them?" + +"Oh-h-h!" said Meg. Her cheeks were crimson, and all the dignity +had oozed out of her voice. + +He buckled the strap round nothing with infinite care, and went on +again in a low tone: + +"Suppose Pip did something very wrong some day, and the world flung +stones at him till he was bruised all over. And suppose feeling +very wretched, he came home to his sisters. And Meg, because +wickedness was abhorrent to her, threw a few more little stones, +so that the pain might teach him a lesson he could not forget. +And Judy, because he was her brother and in trouble, flung her arms +round him and encouraged him, and helped him to fight the world again, +and gave him never a hard word or look, thinking he had had plenty. +Which sister's influence would be greater, Miss Meg?" + +Meg's little soft mouth, was quivering, her eyes were on the ground, +because the tears would have splashed out if she had lifted them. + +"Oh-h-h!" she said again. "Oh, how very horrid I have been--oh-h-h!" + +She covered her face with her hands, for one of her quickly gathered +tears was trembling on her lashes. + +Mr. Gillet dropped the strap and the pipe, and looked across to her +with tender eyes. + +"I am more than twice your age, Miss Meg, old enough nearly to be +your father--you will forgive me for saying all this, won't you? +I was thinking, of my sister who died. I had another little sister, +too, a year older, but she was hard--only event to her once. +She is one of the best women in England now, but her lips are severe. +Little Miss Meg, I could not bear the thought of you growing hard." + +Half a dozen big tears had fallen down among the forks. Meg was +crying because it was borne upon her what a very hateful creature +she was. First Alan lectured her and spoke of his sister, and now +this man. + +He misinterpreted her silence. + +"I have no right to speak to you like this, because my life has been +any colour but white--that is it, isn't it, Miss Meg?" he said with +great sadness. + +Meg dropped her sheltering hands. + +"Oh, no," she said, "oh! how CAN you think so? It is only I am so +horrid." She rummaged in her pocket and brought out the ribbon. + +"Will you take it again?" she said--"oh, PLEASE, just to make me +feel less horrid. Oh, please take it!" + +She looked at him with wet, imploring eyes, and held it out. + +He took it, smoothed its crumpledness, and placed it in his +pocket-book. + +"God bless you," he said, and the tone made Meg sob. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Little Judy + + +Across the grass came a little flying figure, Judy in a short +pink frock with her wild curls blowing about her face. + +"Are you a candidate for sunstroke--where IS your hat, Miss Judy?" +Mr. Gillet asked. + +Judy shook back her dark tangle: + +"Sorrow a know I knows," she said--"it's a banana the General +is afther dyin' for, and sure it's a dead body I shall live to see +misself if you've eaten all the oranges." + +Meg pushed the bag of fruit across the cloth to her, and tried to +tilt her hat over her tell-tale eyes. + +But the bright dark ones had seen the wet lashes the first moment. + +"I s'pose you've been reading stupid poetry and making Meg cry?" +she said, with an aggressive glance from Mr. Gillet to the book on +the grass. "You really ought to be, ashamed of yourselves, SICH +behaviour at a picnic. It's been a saving in oranges, though, +that's a mercy." + +She took half a dozen great fat ones from the bag, as well as four +or five bananas, and went back with flying steps to the belt of trees, +where the General in his holland coat could just be seen. + +He was calmly grubbing up the earth and putting it in his little red +mouth when she arrived with the bananas. + +He looked up at her with an adorable smile. "BABY!" she said, swooping +down upon him with one of her wild rushes. "BABY!" + +She kissed him fifty times; it almost hurt her sometimes, the feeling +of love for this little fat, dirty boy. + +Then she gathered him up on her knee and wiped as much of the dirt as +possible from his mouth with the corner of his coat. + +"Narna," he said, struggling onto the ground again; so she took the +skin from a great yellow one and put it in his small, chubby hand. + +He ate some of it, and squeezed the rest up tightly in his hands, +gleefully watching it come up between his wee fingers in little +worm-like morsels. + +Then he smeared it over his dimpled face, and even rubbed it on his +hair, while Judy was engrossed with her fifth orange. + +So, of course, she had to whip him for doing it, or pretend to, which +came to the same thing. And then he had to whip her, which did not +only mean pretence. + +He beat her with a stick he found near, he smacked her face and pulled +her hair and bumped himself up and down on her chest, and all in such +solemn, painstaking earnestness that she could only laugh even when +he really hurt her. + +"Dood now?" he said at last anxiously. And she began to weep noisily, +with covered face and shaking shoulders, in the proper, penitent way. +And then he put his darling arms round her neck and hugged her, and +said "Ju-Ju" in a choking little voice, and patted her cheeks, and +gave her a hundred eager, wide, wet kisses till she was better. + +Then they played chasings, and the General fell down twenty times, +and scratched his little knees and hands, and struggled up again. +and staggered on. + +Presently Judy stood still in a hurry; there was a tick working +its slow way into her wrist. Only its two back legs were left out +from under the skin, and for a long time she pulled and pulled without +any success. Then it broke in two, and she had to leave one half in +for little Grandma and kerosene to extract on their return. + +Two or three minutes it had taken her to try to move it, and when +she looked up the General had toddled same distance away, and was +travelling along as fast as ever his little fat legs would carry +him, thinking he was racing her. Just as she, started after him he +looked back, his eyes dancing, his face dimpled and mischievous, and, +oh! so dirty.. + +And then--ah, God! + +It is so hard to write it. My pen has had only happy writing +to-do so far, and now! + +"You rogue!" Judy called, pretending to run very quickly. +Then the whole world seemed to rise up before her. + +There was a tree falling, one of the great, gaunt, naked things that +had been ringbarked long ago. All day it had swayed to and fro, +rotten through and through; now there came up across the plain a puff +of wind, and down it went before it. One wild ringing cry Judy gave, +then she leaped across the ground, her arms outstretched to the little +lad running with laughing eyes and lips straight to death. + +The crash shook the trees around, the very air seemed splintered. + +They had heard it--all the others--heard the wild cry and then the +horrible thud. + +How their knees shook what blanched faces they had as they rushed +towards the sound! + +They lifted it off the little bodies--the long, silvered trunk with +the gum dead and dried in streaks upon it. Judy was face downwards, +her arms spread out. + +And underneath her was the General, a little shaken, mightily +astonished, but quite unhurt. Meg clasped him for a minute, but then +laid him down, and gathered with the others close around Judy. + +Oh, the little dark, quiet head, the motionless body, in its pink, +crushed frock, the small, thin, outspread hands! + +"Judy!" Pip said, in a voice of beseeching agony. But the only +answer was the wind at the tree-tops and the frightened breathings +of the others. + +Mr. Gillet remembered there was no one to act but himself. He went +with Pip to the stockman's hut; and they took the door off its +leather hinges and carried it down the hill. + +"I will lift her," he said, and passed his arms around the little +figure, raising her slowly, slowly, gently upwards, laying her on +the door with her face to the sky. + +But she moaned--oh, how she moaned! + +Pip, whose heart had leapt to his throat at the first sign of life, +almost went mad as the little sounds of agony burst from her lips. + +They raised the stretcher, and bore her up the hill to the little +brown hut at the top. + +Then Mr. Gillet spoke, outside the doorway, to Meg and Pip, who +seemed dazed, stunned. + +"It will be hours before we can get help, and it is five now," he +said. "Pip, there is a doctor staying at Boolagri ten miles along +the road. Fetch him--run all the way. I will go back home--fourteen +miles. Miss Meg, I can't be back all at once. I will bring a buggy; +the bullock-dray is too slow and jolting, even when it comes back. +You must watch by her, give her water if she asks--there is nothing +else you can do." + +"She is dying?" Meg said--"dying?" + +He thought of all that might happen before he brought help, and dare +not leave her unprepared. + +"I think her back is broken," he said, very quietly. "If it is, it +means death." + +Pip fled away down the road that led to the doctor's. + +Mr. Gillet gave a direction or two, then he looked at Meg. + +"Everything depends on you; you must not even think of breaking down," +he said. "Don't move her, watch all the time." + +He moved away towards the lower road. + +She sprang after him. + +"Will she die while you are away?--no one but me." + +Her eyes were wild, terrified. + +"God knows!" he said, and turned away. + +It was almost more than he could bear to go and leave this little +girl alone to face so terrible a thing. "God help me!" she moaned, +hurrying back, but not looking at the hot, low-hanging sky. "Help +me, God! God, help me, help me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +When the Sun Went Down + + +Such a sunset! + +Down at the foot of the grass hill there was a flame-coloured sky, +with purple, soft clouds massed in banks high up where the dying +glory met the paling blue. The belt of trees had grown black, and +stretched sombre, motionless arms against the orange background. +All the wind had died, and the air hung hot and still, freighted +with the strange silence of the bush. + +And at the top of the hill, just within the doorway of the little +brown hut, her wide eyes on the wonderful heavens, Judy lay dying. +She was very quiet now, though she had been talking--talking of +all sorts of things. She told them she had no pain at all. + +"Only I shall die when they move me," she said. + +Meg was sitting in a little heap on the floor beside her. She had +never moved her eyes from the face on the pillow of mackintoshes, she +had never opened her white lips to say one word. + +Outside the bullocks stood motionless against the sky--Judy said +they looked like stuffed ones having their portrait taken. She +smiled the least little bit, but Meg said, "Don't," and writhed. + +Two of the men had gone on superfluous errands for help; the others +stood some distance away, talking in subdued voices. + +There was nothing for them to do. The brown man had been talking--a +rare thing for him. + +He had soothed the General off to sleep, and laid him in the bunk +with the blue blanket tucked around him. And he had made a billy +of hot strong tea, and asked the children, with tears in his eyes, +to drink some, but none of them would. + +Baby had fallen to sleep on the floor, her arms clasped tightly +around Judy's lace-up boot. + +Bunty was standing, with a stunned look on his white face, behind +the stretcher. His eyes were on his sister's hair, but he did +not dare to let there wander to her face, for fear of what he should +see there. Nellie was moving all the time--now to the fence to strain +her eyes down the road, where the evening shadows lay heavily, now +to fling herself face downward behind the hut and say, "Make her +better, God! God, make her better, make her better! Oh! CAN'T You +make her better?" + +Greyer grew the shadows round the little but, the bullocks' outlines +had faded, and only an indistinct mass of soft black loomed across +the light. Behind the trees the fire was going out, here and there +were yellow, vivid streaks yet, but the flaming sun-edge, had dipped +beyond the world, and the purple, delicate veil was dropping down. + +A curlew's note broke the silence, wild, mournful, unearthly. Meg +shivered, and sat up straight. Judy's brow, grew damp, her eyes +dilated, her lips trembled. + +"Meg!" she said, in a whisper that cut the air. "Oh, Meg, I'm +frightened! MEG, I'm so frightened!" + +"God!" said Meg's heart. + +"Meg, say something. Meg, help me! Look at the dark, Meg. MEG, +I can't die! Oh, why don't they be quick?" + +Nellie flew to the fence again; then to say, "Make her better, +God--oh, please, God!" + +"Meg, I can't think of anything to say. Can't you say something, +Meg? Aren't there any prayers about the dying in the Prayer Book?--I +forget. Say something, Meg!" + +Meg's lips moved, but her tongue uttered no word. + +"Meg, I'm so frightened! I can't think of anything but `For what +we are about to receive,' and that's grace, isn't it? And there's +nothing in Our Father that would do either. Meg, I wish we'd gone +to Sunday-school and learnt things. Look at the dark, Meg! Oh, Meg, +hold my hands!" + +"Heaven won't--be--dark," Meg's lips said. Even when speech came, +it was only a halting, stereotyped phrase that fell from them. + +"If it's all gold and diamonds, I don't want to go!" The child was +crying now. "Oh, Meg, I want to be alive! How'd you like to die, +Meg, when you're only thirteen? Think how lonely I'll be without +you all. Oh, Meg! Oh, Pip, Pip! Oh, Baby! Nell!" + +The tears streamed down her cheeks; her chest rose and fell. + +"Oh, say something, Meg!--hymns!--anything!" + +Half the book of "Hymns Ancient and Modern" danced across Meg's brain. +Which one could she think of that would bring quiet into those +feverish eyes that were fastened on her face with such a frightening, +imploring look? + +Then she opened her lips: + + "Come unto Me, ye weary, + And I will give you rest, + Oh, bl-- + +"I'm not weary, I don't WANT to rest," Judy said, in a fretful tone. + +Again Meg tried: + + "My God, my Father, while I stray + Far from my home on life's rough way, + Oh, teach me from my heart to say + Thy will be done!" + +"That's for old people," said the little tired voice. "He won't expect +ME to say it." + +Then Meg remembered the most beautiful hymn in the world, and said +the first and last verses without a break in her voice: + + "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, + The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide. + When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, + Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me! + + Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes, + Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. + Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee + In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me! + +"Oh! and Judy, dear, we are forgetting; there's Mother, Judy, dear--you +won't be lonely! Can't you remember Mother's eyes, little Judy?" + +Judy grew quiet, and still more quiet. She shut her eyes so she +could not see the gathering shadows. Meg's arms were round her, +Meg's cheek was on her brow, Nell was holding her hands, Baby her +feet, Bunty's lips were on her hair. Like that they went with her +right to the Great Valley, where there are no lights even for stumbling, +childish feet. + +The shadows were cold, and smote upon their hearts; they could +feel the wind from the strange waters on their brows; but only +she who was about to cross heard the low lapping of the waves. + +Just as her feet touched the water there was a figure in the doorway. + +"Judy!" said a wild voice; and Pip brushed them aside and fell +down beside her. + +"Judy, Judy, JUDY!" + +The light flickered back in her eyes. She kissed him with pale lips +once, twice; she gave him both her hands, and her last smile. + +Then the wind blew over them all, and, with a little shudder, she +slipped away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +And Last + + + "She seemed a thing that could not feel + The touch of earthly years." + + "No motion has she now--no force; + She neither hears nor sees; + Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, + With rocks and stones and trees." + + +They went home again, the six of them, and Esther, who, all her +days, "would go the softlier, sadlier" because of the price that +had been paid for the life of her little sweet son. The very air +of Yarrahappini seemed to crush them and hang heavy on their souls. + +So when the Captain, who had hurried up to see the last of his poor +little girl, asked if they would like to go home, they all said +"Yes." + +There was a green space of ground on a hill-top behind the cottage, +and a clump of wattle trees, dark-green now, but gold-crowned +and gracious in the spring. + +This is where they left little Judy. All around it Mr. Hassal had +white tall palings put; the short grave was in the shady corner of +it. + +The place looked like a tiny churchyard in a children's country +where there had only been one death. + +Or a green fair field, with one little garden bed. + +Meg was glad the little mound looked to the east; the suns died +behind it--the orange and yellow and purple suns she could not +bear to watch ever again while she lived. + +But away in the east they rose tenderly always, and the light crept +up across the sky to the hill-top in delicate pinks and trembling +blues and brightening greys, but never fiery, yellow streaks, that +made the eyes ache with hot tears. + +There was a moon making it white and beautiful when they said +good-bye to it on the last day. + +They plucked a blade or two of grass each from the fresh turfs, +and turned away. Nobody cried; the white stillness of the far moon, +the pale, hanging stars, the faint wind stirring the wattles; held +back their tears till they had closed the little gate behind them +and left her alone on the quiet hill-top. Then they went-back +to Misrule, each to pickup the thread of life and go on with the +weaving that, thank God, must be done, or hearts would break +every day. + +Meg had grown older; she would never be quite so young again as +she had been before that red sunset sank into her soul. + +There was a deeper light in her eyes; such tears as she had wept +clear the sight till life becomes a thing more distinct and +far-reaching. + +Nellie and she went to church the first Sunday after their return. +Aldith was a few pews away, light-souled as ever, dressed in gay +attire, flashing smiling, coquettish glances across to the Courtneys' +pew, and the Grahams sitting just behind. + +How far away Meg had grown from her! It seemed years since she +had been engrossed with the latest mode in hat trimming, the dip +of "umbrella" skirts, and the best method of making the hands +white. Years since she had tried a trembling 'prentice hand at +flirtations. Years, almost, since she had given the little blue +ribbon at Yarrahappini, that was doing more good than she +dreamed of. + +Alan looked at her from his pew--the little figure in its sorrowful +black, the shining hair hanging in a plait no longer frizzed at the +end, the chastened droop of the young lips, the wistful sadness +of the blue eyes. He could hardly realize it was the little +scatterbrain girl who had written that letter, and stolen away +through the darkness to meet his graceless young brother. + +He clasped her hand when church was over; his grey eyes, with the +quick moisture in them, made up for the clumsy stumbling words of +sympathy he tried to speak. + +"Let us be friends always, Miss Meg," he said, as they parted at +the Misrule gate. + +"Yes, let us," said Meg. + +And the firm, frank friendship became a beautiful thing in both their +lives, strengthening Meg and making the boy gentler. + +Pip became his laughing, high-spirited self again, as even the most +loving boy will, thanks to the merciful making of young hearts; but +he used to get sudden fits of depression at times, and disappear all +at once, in the midst of a game of cricket or football, or from +the table when the noise was at its highest. + +Bunty presented to the world just as grimy a face as of old, and +hands even more grubby, for he had taken a mechanical turn of late, +and spent his spare moments in manufacturing printing machines--so +called--and fearful and wonderful engines, out of an old stove and +some pots and rusty frying-pans rescued from the rubbish heap. + +But he did not tell quite so many stories in these days; that deep +sunset had stolen even into his young heart, and whenever he felt +inclined to say "I never, 'twasn't me, 'twasn't my fault," a tangle +of dark curls rose before him, just as they had lain that night when +he had not dared to move his eyes away from them. + +Baby's legs engrossed her very much at present, for she had just +been promoted from socks to stockings, and all who remember the +occasion in their own lives will realize the importance of it to her. + +Nell seemed to grow prettier every day. Pip had his hands full with +trying to keep her from growing conceited; if brotherly rubs and +snubs availed anything, she ought to have been as lowly minded as +if she had had red hair and a nose of heavenward bent. + +Esther said she wished she could buy a few extra years, a stern +brow, and dignity in large quantities from some place or other--there +might be some chance, then, of Misrule resuming its baptismal +and unexciting name of The River House. + +But, oddly enough, no one echoed the wish. + +The Captain never smoked at the end of the side veranda now: +the ill-kept lawn made him see always a little figure in a pink +frock and battered hat mowing the grass in a blaze of sunlight. +Judy's death made his six living children dearer to his heart, +though he showed his affection very little more. + +The General grew chubbier and more adorable every day he lived. +It is no exaggeration to say that they all worshipped him now +in his little kingly babyhood, for the dear life had been twice +given, and the second time it was Judy's gift, and priceless +therefore. + +My pen has been moving heavily, slowly, for these last two +chapters; it refuses to run lightly, freely again just yet, +so I will lay it aside, or I shall sadden you. + +Some day, if you would care to hear it, I should like to tell +you of my young Australians again, slipping a little space +of years. + +Until then, farewell and adieu. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Seven Little Australians, by Ethel Sybil Turner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVEN LITTLE AUSTRALIANS *** + +***** This file should be named 4731.txt or 4731.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/3/4731/ + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling. 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