CHAPTER XVIII

“The little creature was evidently concerned with a thorn or splinter its bare black foot had picked up.”

CHAPTER XVIII

And yet there is no refugeTo shield me from distress.Except the realm of slumberAnd great forgetfulness.

And yet there is no refuge

To shield me from distress.

Except the realm of slumber

And great forgetfulness.

—Henry Kendall.

QUICK as they were, the black woman was quicker.

She was lying full length on her face when Norah’s startled voice rang out across the camp. Almost with the first word she was on her feet, twisting to an erect position with a quick movement curious in one so ungainly. Like a flash, also, the child was running to her, screaming with sudden terror. The gin caught her up with a swift clutch, and in three strides had gained the shelter of the scrub.

“Oh, Wally, run!” Norah cried.

But Wally was running. His long legs took him across the grass so swiftly that he seemed to gain the scrub almost at the same instant as the lubra. Behind him came Jean and Norah, scarlet with excitement. They pulled up sharply.

There was no sign of any one. The spring that had its source near the plateau trickled out at the side, and the scrub grew more densely than anywhere else. It seemed to have swallowed up their quarry. Not even a broken or trembling branch or a mark in the bushes told where she had gone. They listened, their hearts thumping heavily.

Then, from the left, came the sound of a breaking twig, and Wally turned in its direction, and went crashing through the undergrowth, the girls at his heels. For a moment he feared that he was on the wrong track; then, with a great throb of relief, he caught a glimpse of a faded red print skirt, and ran wildly on.

Once he looked back with a quick call.

“Don’t get bushed if we miss each other. I’ll coo-ee!”

“Right!” Norah had no breath for more.

They ran madly through the scrub, dodging, twisting, scrambling among the saplings and bushes. The stones were the worst; they cropped out of the ground, often with a coating of dry lichen or dead leaves disguising their outlines, and it was almost impossible to dodge them, running at top speed, in the gloom of the trees. A dozen times the pursuers tripped and went sprawling over the unseen and unyielding obstacles, only to pick themselves up, bruised and shaken, to run harder than ever, to make up for lost time.

The black gin always kept before them. Sometimes they caught a glimpse of her red skirt, and once Wally saw her across a little cleared space, fleeing silently, with the child clasped to her breast; but generally she was out of sight, and they could only follow her by sound. She ran with all the stealthy cunning of her race, her bare feet making little noise when contrasted with the crashing of her pursuers, who shouted to her loudly and unavailingly to stop. Nor did she ever run in a straight line—like a hare she twisted and doubled, though always as if she had some definite end in view, for, despite her tortuous course, she always kept to the same direction. The child uttered no sound; the woman ran as though she had no burden.

Norah fell behind presently; not only was the pace too much for her, but she feared to leave Jean, who was lagging far in the rear. She waited for her to catch up, and they jogged on together, listening anxiously for Wally’s voice.

Wally had set his teeth, suddenly indignant at being outpaced for so long by a woman—“a black one at that!” he uttered, forgetting that no woman, save a black one, would have had the slightest chance of keeping ahead. The pride of the schoolboy, to whom none of his mates had been able to show the way on the football field, surged up in him, and he flung himself forward, shouting. He knew he had lost sight of Norah and Jean—and they must not be left to run the danger of getting “bushed.” The chase must end.

He was gaining yard by yard—the pad of flying bare feet came closer and closer. Then he heard a heavy fall, and a loud, piteous cry—a child’s cry—that sent the honest blood surging to his heart. He was almost upon the black woman as she picked herself up, clinging to the child—and then she doubled suddenly, twisting herself through a gap between two great boulders. Not quite quickly enough; had the boy been a dozen yards further off he might never have seen where she disappeared. But he was on her heels, following. Then he knew that the chase was over.

They were in a tiny triangular space, nearly filled by a “wurley” formed by roofing in the stones with boughs, and leaving a few upright ones as a doorway. The boulders hemmed it in. The place was hardly larger than a dog kennel at Billabong—searchers might have passed it a hundred times, never guessing that there was any space left among the masses of rock. It had evidently been inhabited a long while, for the ground was beaten hard, and it reeked with the “blackfellow” odour that is worse than the majority of smells. The black gin dived into the tiny hut, and faced about; Wally could see her fierce eyes gleaming—could hear her breath, loud, panting gasps. He was panting himself; the “Coo-ee!” he uttered, turning towards the direction where he had last seen the girls, quavered a little. He sent it echoing through the bush twice before an answer came. Then the boy’s heart gave a throb of relief as Jean and Norah came into view.

“Got ’em!” he said, indicating the “wurley” with a jerk of his hand. “Moses! can’t that lady run! I’d like to enter her for the Oaks! Are you girls all right?”

They nodded.

“Is it—is the kiddie——?”

“Blest if I know!” said Wally, laughing. “You said so, and so I ran. If it isn’t some one else’s youngster, then the lady in here has a mighty uneasy conscience on some other score, that’s all. But if you’ve given me that little jog-trot for nothing, young Norah——!” He broke off, endeavouring to look threatening.

“Why, I saw it laugh!” said Norah. “And it was the face of that photograph and Mrs. Archdale’s face rolled into one!”

“Never saw Mrs. Archdale with a face as black as that,” Wally rejoined. “You aren’t complimentary, Nor. Let’s have a look at them, anyway.”

But the black gin cowered back in her den, and refused to move. Persuasion and threats alike were unavailing. Finally Wally shrugged his shoulders.

“Awfully sorry to pull your house about your ears, ma’am,” he said. “But if you won’t come out, it’ll have to be. Look out, you girls—I shall stir up awful smells!”

He fulfilled his prediction as he pulled away the interlacing boughs—hygienic principles are not in vogue in an aboriginal “wurley.” It was pitifully scanty—a moment’s work sufficed to reveal the lubra and the child she grasped firmly. She tried to hold its face against her—but the baby wriggled free at the strange voices, facing the grave young faces.

Now that they were so close only a glance was needed to show that this was no black picaninny. A dark stain covered the child’s face and its legs and arms: but through it the features were those of the baby who had laughed to them from the blue wall of the little room at Mrs. Archdale’s. And there was no fear in the wide, dark eyes that met theirs—but rather an unspoken greeting, as though instinct told her that she was once more among her own kind. Norah held out her hand to her; but the black gin cowered back, holding the little body yet more closely.

“Mine,” she said; “that pfeller picaninny mine!”

“Qui s’excuse s’accuse,” said Wally, in his best French. “We never said she wasn’t, old lady—’twas your own guilty mind. That feller Mrs. Archdale’s picaninny, Black Mary.”

“Mine,” she said, sullenly, fear glowing in her eyes. “Baal you take her?”

“Baal I’ll leave her?” retorted Wally. “You give it me that picaninny, one time, quick!” He swung round at a step behind him. “Thank goodness, here’s Billy! I don’t think I’m much good at international complications.”

Billy grasped the situation in a few words. Then he addressed a flood of guttural remarks to the black gin, who shrank visibly from him, and answered him, trembling. He turned to Wally.

“That pfeller, Lucy,” he said, briefly. “She bin marry mine cousin, Dan. S’pos’n’ she have picaninny, it tumble-down (died) one-three time. So Dan he gone marry Eva.” He told the small tragedy of Black Lucy, unconcernedly, and the lubra listened, nodding.

“So that pfeller Lucy plenty lonely,” went on Billy. “Then, s’pos’n him meet li’l white picaninny down along a scrub, him collar that pfeller. That all. Every pfeller lubra want picaninny,” finished Billy in a bored voice, as if marvelling at the ways of womenkind.

There was a long pause. At last Wally spoke, hurriedly.

“Well—she knows we’ve got to take the kiddie, anyhow, doesn’t she?”

“Mine bin tell her that,” said Billy. “She bin say not.”

The black woman broke in, in a high, shrill voice.

“Not take her. That li’l pfeller, picaninny belongin’ to me.”

“Picaninny’s mother’s wanting her,” Norah said her voice pitying.

“Mine!” said the black woman, uncertainly—“mine!” She held the child closer, rocking her to and fro; and the children stared at her, not knowing how to solve the problem.

Billy had no illusions. He grasped the gin’s arm, and jerked her to her feet.

“Baal you be a fool?” he said, roughly. “S’pos’n’ p’liceman come, you bin find yourself in lock-up, plenty quick! P’lice bin lookin’ for you this long time ’cause you bin steal picaninny.”

She winced and shivered, looking at him with great stupid eyes, like an injured animal’s.

“You come and see my father,” said Norah, gently, putting one hand on her arm; and somewhat to their surprise, the gin came, making no further outcry, but holding the child to her. So they went back through the scrub. Billy led them swiftly, making but a short distance, in a straight line, of the long and tortuous race that the fugitive had led them. It seemed a very few minutes before they saw the canvas of the tent shining white through the trees, and heard voices beyond.

Quite suddenly, the black gin stopped. For a moment she held the child to her so savagely that the little thing cried out in pain. She muttered over her.

“My li’l pfeller picaninny!” she said. “Mine!” She turned to Norah.

“Mine bin good to her,” she said, thickly. “Baal mine ever beat that one!” Just for an instant she stood looking at them in dumb agony. Then she put the child down with a swift gentleness, and, turning, fled into the gloom of the Bush.

CHAPTER XIX

The gray gums by the lonely creek,The star-crowned heights,The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak,The cold white light,The solitude spread near and farAround the camp-fire’s tiny star,The horse bells’ melody remote,The curlew’s melancholy noteAcross the night.

The gray gums by the lonely creek,

The star-crowned heights,

The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak,

The cold white light,

The solitude spread near and far

Around the camp-fire’s tiny star,

The horse bells’ melody remote,

The curlew’s melancholy note

Across the night.

—G. Essex Evans.

WELL, she’s a queer little atom,” said David Linton, surveying the treasure trove. “Strong and healthy, too, I should say, if one could see anything for stains and dirt. She’s inconceivably dirty. Has she made any remarks on the situation?”

“She seems to approve of you, at any rate, Nor.,” said Jim. “What on earth are you going to do with her?”

“Bath her,” said Norah promptly. “Thank goodness, Mrs. Archdale isn’t going to see her looking like that!”

“I don’t fancy the poor soul would worry over that point of view,” said her father. “But bath her, by all means—you’ll certainly require to do so, as she’ll have to be in your tent all night.”

“A mercy we’ve got the washing-up tin,” remarked Norah, looking with approval at a half kerosene tin which had formed a somewhat disputed part of their pack; “and ammonia—I’d never get her clean without it. Brownie put in a bottle in case of insect stings.”

“You’ll need it all,” Jim said, grimly. “Will she speak, Nor.?”

“She won’t say a word so far,” Norah answered. “I wonder if she has forgotten how? A baby like that would forget nearly everything in a year and a quarter, wouldn’t she?”

The child stood in the midst of the group, one hand clinging tightly to Norah’s finger. She had said nothing since she had been suddenly left among the strangers. As the black woman rushed away from her she had made an instinctive movement to follow her, but Billy had been too quick, his hand falling on her tiny shoulder before she had taken two steps. At his touch the little thing had given a terrified start, and then, moved by some hidden instinct, had fled to Norah, whose hands were held out to her. Since then she had not relinquished her grip on Norah’s finger. She gazed from one to the other with great, unwinking eyes.

“Perhaps she hasn’t forgotten her name,” Jean suggested. “Try her.”

So Norah knelt down before the ragged little figure.

“Babs!” she said softly. “Babs!”

The baby looked at her. Something like a gleam of recognition came into her eyes. But beyond that she would give no sign, and at last Norah gave up the attempt.

“I’d better bath her now,” she said; “her hair must be quite dry before she goes to sleep. Billy, you boil the billy quick as you can.”

“What on earth are you going to dress her in?” Jim asked. “You can’t put those rags on her again.”

“I should think not!” his sister answered, eyeing the malodorous tatters disgustedly. “Jean and I will fix up something.”

“You had better fix it up out of a blanket, then,” her father observed. “I don’t suppose she has encountered water for fifteen months—and we don’t want her to take a chill.”

“All right,” said Jean, nodding wisely. “I’ve got an idea, and we have needles and thread.”

“Then we can leave it to you two,” said Mr. Linton, with relief.

“You can,” said Norah. “Only keep the supply of hot water going!”

They needed all they could get, and the soap was at a low ebb and the ammonia bottle empty before they made little Babs Archdale clean. At first she objected strenuously to the process, and her screams rent the air, and she struggled furiously, so that it took both attendants of the bath to hold her, and much soap went in her eyes. But once her hair was washed and tucked up out of her way, she suddenly became good, and submitted happily to their ministrations, revelling in the warm soapy water.

They stripped her rags off with gingerly movements, and Jean carried them on a stick into the scrub. All the child’s skin was stained with some dark juice and grimed with the dirt of long months; but it yielded to the scrubbing, and Babs emerged from the final rinsing water a very different being from the grubby picaninny who had gone in—the white skin of her shining little body a startling contrast to the deep sun-brown of her face and arms and legs. Norah rolled her in a towel and tossed her upon a bunk in the tent, rubbing and patting her gently, in sheer happiness over the slender, sweet-smelling little form. Out of the final towelling, Babs sat up, glowing and dimpling. She broke into sudden, happy laughter.

“Oh, you darling!” Norah said, catching her up. “Jean, isn’t she just lovely? Babs! Oh, I do want your mother to see you!”

Babs looked at her, opened her mouth, and then closed it.

“Muvver!” she said, quite clearly. “Muvver!” At which Norah and Jean, unable to contain their emotions, hugged each other very heartily—to the great delight of Babs, who sat upon the bed like a piebald Cupid and dimpled into laughter again at this strange pair.

Over the tangled curls both girls worked despairingly, while Babs submitted with a stoicism that said much for her sojourn as an aboriginal.

Norah stopped at last, and put down the comb.

“I think we’re a pair of duffers,” she said. “We might work all night at that mop, and it wouldn’t be right—indeed, I believe most of it will have to be cut off. But can’t you imagine how Mrs. Archdale will just love doing it!”

“Well, it’s clean, at any rate,” said Jean philosophically. “And that’s the main thing.”

It was a quaint little figure that they led out for inspection; and the boys roared with laughter, to the great disgust of the object of their mirth, who tucked her damp head into Norah’s neck and refused to face the audience for some time. Finally she condescended to sit on David Linton’s knee and inspect his watch—and brought down rounds of delighted applause by suddenly bending forward and “blowing” in the time-honoured fashion for the case to be opened.

“Jean, may I employ you as a tailor?” Wally asked, solemnly.

The small person was attired in a fearful and wonderful garment contrived by Jean out of a soft blanket—coming high round her neck, and ending in brief trouser legs, from which the bare, brown knees emerged. Over it she wore a linen coat of Norah’s—the sleeves turned back almost to the shoulders, and a world too wide for the tiny arms that seemed to be lost within them. But there was no doubt that Babs was happy and comfortable, albeit not clad according to the dictates of fashion.

“It’s peculiar, isn’t it?” said Jean, surveying her handiwork. “Most of it is sewn together on her, and she’ll have to be unpicked for her next bath. Don’t you think I was clever to manage to get the pink stripes right down the front?”

“You’re a genius!” Wally said, greatly impressed. “There is, however, a sterner side to it. Do I not recognize my blanket?”

“You do,” said Jean. “It happened to be the softest. Anyway, you’ve got another, and it’s going to be a hot night.”

“A fair exchange isn’t any robbery,” said Norah, with striking originality. “The other part of Babs’ attire is in the scrub, if you’d care for it!”

“I scorn you both,” said Wally. “It’s an abominable thing to be made a philanthropist against one’s will!” He fell to tickling Babs’ brown toes with a stem of grass, to the great delight of the mite.

She was quite friendly with them all by the time tea was ready, when she displayed an appetite that would, Wally averred, have shamed a hippopotamus, and ate until she bulged visibly, and Norah had fearful visions of her exploding. Nothing, apparently, came amiss to her, and her cheerful desire to eat anything whatever led to harrowing conjectures as to what could have been her principal diet during her life in the scrub.

“Kangaroo rat and wallaby, most likely,” Jim remarked; “varied with fish, in various stages of preservation, and nice succulent tree-grubs!”

“Be quiet, you disgusting creature!” said Wally, in extreme horror. “You spoil my appetite.” He helped himself to a mammoth slice of cake.

“Looks like it!” Jim grinned. “Well, Babs can’t furnish you with details of her late guardian’s menu, I suppose; but I wouldn’t mind betting it didn’t vary much from my ideas.”

“Bless her!” said Norah, fatuously. “We’ll give her everything we’ve got that’s nice now to make up.” She tempted Babs with a chocolate, and Babs swiftly fell before the temptation.

“I think you’d better call a halt,” observed Mr. Linton. “That child has eaten as much as any two of the party—and she’ll be asleep in about a minute. You ought to put her to bed, Norah—we shall want to make an early start for Atholton.”

Babs was nearly asleep by the time Norah had tucked her into her bunk. She clung to her finger still, and drowsily put her face up to be kissed—a forgotten instinct, coming back as consciousness slipped away. And all through the night she nestled to her closely, one little hand clinging to her sleeve. Norah did not sleep much. She did not want to; it seemed to her that she dare not cease protecting the tiny dreaming mite for this last night—to keep her safe for the morrow, that meant such bewilderment of joy for the forlorn hearts in the little cottage by Atholton. At the thought she thrilled with an eagerness that left her almost trembling. Even the short few hours seemed long to wait—thinking of Babs Archdale’s mother.

“But it’s only one more night!” she whispered. “You’ll know soon.” She smiled in the moonlight, raising herself a trifle to watch the little face nestling near her.

David Linton slept across the tent doorway this night.

“Just as well,” he said. “I wouldn’t risk to-morrow for the Archdales for all Billabong!”

And out in the gloom of the scrub, where the moonlight scarcely filtered through the tracery of boughs to the boulder-strewn ground, a woman crouched, lonely, in her ruined wurley among the rocks. Sometimes she muttered angrily; sometimes her wild eyes, fiercely stupid, closed in sleep, and then her hands moved restlessly, seeking for a little body that no longer lay against her breast. She was outcast, loathsome, a pariah; every man’s hand would be against her, and only the wild hills left to her for refuge. But perhaps the calm stars, that see so many lonely mothers, looked down pityingly upon this black mother, who had been lonely, too.

CHAPTER XX

Oh, little body, nestled on my heart!

—M. Forrest.

THEY fixed a saddle-pad for Babs in front of Norah, and she rode proudly into Atholton. The horses did not make her afraid at all; indeed, she welcomed them with shouts of glee, appearing a little doubtful as to whether they were pets or things to eat—but in either case greatly to be desired. And when she was mounted before Norah, with one hand clutching a lock of old Warder’s mane and the other holding Norah’s finger, she had nothing left to wish for. She chuckled at frequent intervals; any object along the track, from a kookaburra to a lizard, moved her to little shouts of laughter, though it was painfully certain that she wished to devour the lizard. “I never saw such a merry baby,” said Jean.

Gradually words came back to her. At first they caught fragments of native dialect, chiefly unintelligible; but, with the talk about her, and the kind voices that spoke to her, English words returned brokenly to the baby tongue. She answered quite soon to her own name, looking up whenever she heard “Babs” with a quaint, elfish half smile; and before breakfast was over she had made a hesitating attempt at “Norah”—finding the “r” altogether too hard a stumbling block. Her vocabulary was not large, but she made the most of it. And all the time as they rode down Ben Athol, Norah taught her one word—leaning forward, holding her closely, one arm round the quicksilver little body. One word, over and over again—Mother, Mother, Mother.

Norah never could have told much about the way down. It was steep, she knew, and stony; she was glad old Warder was surefooted, since to him was left most of the responsibility of the track. There were birds singing everywhere, in the Bush and in her own heart; there was blue sky overhead, and a little breeze that just redeemed the day from heat. It could not have been otherwise than a perfect day. But for Norah there was no view beyond the mat of black curls against her breast; no thought beyond the one that surged and sang within her. An old verse beat in her happy brain—“For this thy brother was dead and is alive again; and was lost and is found.”

“Contented, my girl?” David Linton asked, riding beside her.

“I’m happy,” Norah answered, and smiled up at the tall man on the great black horse. “I’m not quite contented yet. But I will be, soon.” Then Babs developed a determination to ride Monarch, and lurched forward so suddenly that she only saved her by a spasmodic grip that included some of Babs, as well as her clothing—to the no small indignation of Babs.

“Don’t be ambitious quite so early, my lass,” said Jim, gravely, regarding the scarlet and wrathful picaninny with a judicial air. “Time enough to hitch your waggon to a star when you’re a bit older.” Hearing which profound reflection, and understanding no syllable of it, but deciding that she liked the voice in which it was proffered, Babs promptly transferred her affections to Garryowen, and was with difficulty restrained from transferring herself as well. Norah evaded both difficulties by seizing advantage of a tiny stretch of flat ground and, cantering across it, thereby so entrancing her passenger that she was never again satisfied with anything so ordinary as a walking pace—which was unfortunate, as to canter down Ben Athol demanded four-footed agility usually withheld from all but circus horses. There was no lack of excitement in riding with Babs Archdale.

They lunched on the lower slopes of the mountain—cutting the spell short, since Norah’s restlessness to be gone made it impossible for her to sit still. Then, still in the early afternoon, they saw the roofs of Atholton below them, half hidden in the timber.

On the flat, just where the hills ended, they shook up their horses and cantered quickly over the half-mile that lay between them and the village. Scarcely any one was in sight; Atholton slumbered peacefully, oblivious of intruders. The storekeeper, shirt-sleeved and with pipe in mouth, lounged on his verandah, and greeted them jovially as they came up, Jim and his father in the lead.

“Got back, have you?” he said. “And had a good trip, by the looks of you!” His eye travelled back to Norah. “Didn’t knock you up, Miss Linton——” His voice stopped abruptly on a note of amazement. Staring, he was silent, and his pipe clattered from his mouth to the ground. “Why!” he gasped. “Good Lord—you’ve got little Babs Archdale!”

“Let us have a frock of some kind for her—quick as you can, Green,” said David Linton. “Anything will do.”

“I’ll take her in,” said Norah, slipping from the saddle, and carrying into the shop the extraordinary vision in the suit and blanket. They emerged in a few moments, the blanket hidden by a brief dress of blue print; and Babs reluctantly consented to allow the strange man to lift her up to Norah again. Mr. Green found his tongue, with some difficulty.

“I never heard of such a thing in all me born days!” he said. “Gad! to think of Mrs. Archdale——” He stared after them, open-mouthed, as they clattered off, swinging round the bend of the track. The sound of the cantering hoofs echoed in the still afternoon air as Mr. Green, leaving his store to its own devices, hurried off to tell the township.

Near the cottage David Linton pulled up.

“There are too many of us,” he said. “You three youngsters found her—go and give her back!” Jim and he moved into the shade of a big messmate tree, and the others rode on.

The little white cottage was fresh and inviting, the garden gay with flowers. The front door stood open; at any moment they looked to see Mrs. Archdale’s tall figure come out upon the verandah. Suddenly Norah found she was trembling, and that the cottage wavered mistily before her.

At the garden gate they got down, and Wally tied up the horses. There was no sign of any one. But Babs gave them no time to wonder. The gate was ajar, and she flung herself at it, uttering shrill little squeals of joy, and raced up the path.

“I say—catch her!” Wally said. “The shock may be too much for Mrs. Archdale.”

Babs was battering at the steps of the high verandah as Norah caught her. She wriggled fiercely in her arms.

“Down!” she said. “Want down!”

“Wait a minute, darling!” Norah begged her. “Wally, you go on—find her. I—I’m going to howl!” She sat down on the step, desperately ashamed of the sobs that shook her; and Jean, in no better case, patted her back very hard.

Perhaps Wally was not very sure of himself either. He cleared his throat as he stood at the door, after knocking, not sorry that no answering step came at once. Presently he came back to the girls.

“There’s no one about,” he said. “I’ve been round to the kitchen. Wonder where they are?”

“Let’s come and look,” Norah answered, doubtfully sure of herself once more. Wally picked up Babs, who wriggled and squeaked on his shoulder, a quicksilver embodiment of excitement that she could not voice in words, since words were all too slow. So they went through the silent house.

There was no sign of any one. In the little blue room the bed was dainty and fresh, with crisp linen, and roses smiled a welcome from the table; and the fire burned low in the kitchen stove, where a kettle bubbled busily. But the house was empty. They looked into Mrs. Archdale’s room, half afraid to find her ill; but she was not there; and Babs went into a fresh ecstasy of excitement at the vision of her own picture, which laughed down at her from the wall.

“Babs!” she cried, and pointed a brown forefinger; “Babs!”

“You blessed kid,” said Wally, in perplexity, “I wish you could tell us where to look for your mother.”

“Muvver!” said the lady addressed. She wriggled ecstatically, and grasped a handful of Wally’s hair, to his extreme agony. A fresh effort of memory came to her. “Dad,” she said, half inquiringly, and drummed her heels upon her bearer’s chest.

At the back of the house the little kitchen garden stretched to the brush fence. Beyond came a narrow, timbered paddock, and then the deep green of the scrub—the unbroken curtain that had fallen behind the baby on Wally’s shoulder more than a year ago. They came out of the back door and stood looking towards it doubtfully.

Then from the scrub they saw Mrs. Archdale coming slowly. No one might say what dreadful pilgrimage had led her into its silent heart. She stumbled as she walked, bent as though her body had given way under the stress of agony of mind too great to be borne. Even across the shining grass it was plain that she did not know where she walked—that all that her eyes could see was the dark maze of the Bush, where a little child had wandered, and called to her. A fallen log lay across her path, and she sat down upon it, burying her face in her hands.

“Oh, Wally, go and tell her,” Norah said. “I’m such an idiot—I’m going to howl again. Let me have Babs—I’ll bring her.” She followed Wally slowly down the path, with Babs patting her tear-stained cheek gently, saying, “Poor, poor,” in a little crooning voice.

Mrs. Archdale raised her head as the swift steps came to her across the grass, and looked at the tall lad for a moment without recognition. Then she collected herself with an effort that was pitiful in its violence, and smiled at him.

“Why, you’ve got back!”

Wally nodded, seeking desperately for words. His brown face was flushed and eager.

“I——” he said, and stopped. “We——. Mrs. Archdale.” Words fled from him altogether, and he pushed his hat back with a despairing gesture. “I’ve got something to tell you; and I’m such a fool at telling it.”

“Nothing wrong?” she asked him swiftly. “Not little Norah?”

“No—nothing wrong. Everything’s all right; everything’s perfect!” he told her. He put out a lean, boyish hand, and gripped hers strongly. “We saw you—coming away from the scrub.”

“Don’t!” She flushed, miserably.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said poor Wally, his task almost beyond him. “I only want to say you needn’t ever go there again. She—she isn’t there, Mrs. Archdale!”

“Are you mad?” The colour died out of her face, and for a moment the agony of her eyes robbed the boy of speech.

“I mean it,” he said, faltering. “If it was all—all wrong, Mrs. Archdale? If your little kiddie had never died?” Something choked his voice; he could only look at her with honest, pitying eyes. But the mother’s eyes were keen.

“You know something!” she said; “there is something!” Her voice rose to a wailing cry. “Tell me, for God’s sake!”

Across the grass came a voice that rang shrilly sweet.

“Muvver!”

Babs came running with swift bare feet; behind her, Norah, half afraid, yet wholly unable to restrain her once the remembered voice had raised its mother cry. At the sight of the baby form, with outstretched arms, the mother uttered a low, incredulous sob—a sound so piteous that Wally turned away sharply, lest he should see her face. Her feet would not carry her to meet her baby. She fell on her knees on the grass, and Babs flung herself bodily upon her, soft and sweet, and quivering with love.

There came a clatter of hoofs. Jack Archdale, riding home, had pulled up to speak to Mr. Linton and Jim; and suddenly he broke from them like a madman, and, not waiting for gates, put his horse at the log fence of his paddock, cleared it, and raced to the house. He flung the bridle over a post, and ran wildly to them—past Jean and Norah, sitting together on a stump, not able to speak, and speechless himself, to where his wife crouched over their child; Babs, who stroked her mother’s cheek gently, crooning in her funny little voice: “Poor—poor!”

Norah felt Wally’s hand upon her shoulder.

“Come on,” he said. “I guess we’d better get back to the horses.”

CHAPTER XXI

And thro’ the night came all old memories flocking,White memories like the snowflakes round me whirled;“All’s well!” I said. “The mothers still sit rockingThe cradles of the world!”

And thro’ the night came all old memories flocking,

White memories like the snowflakes round me whirled;

“All’s well!” I said. “The mothers still sit rocking

The cradles of the world!”

—W. H. Ogilvie.

SO you’ll come?” David Linton asked.

“Yes, and glad to.” Jack Archdale pulled at his pipe, which would not draw. He took it out of his mouth, shook it, and put it back again with a shrug. It needed a grass stalk to clean the stem; but that is a performance that demands two hands, and one hand was given over to Babs, who sat on her mother’s knee on the next step of the verandah, imprisoning her father’s big finger in her moist little grasp. So the pipe went out, its owner deriving what comfort he might from holding it in his mouth.

“I never want to see the place again,” Archdale went on. “I’d have left it long ago but for the one thing. Now I’d go to-morrow if I could. Wouldn’t we, Mary?”

Mrs. Archdale nodded. Babs had one forefinger tucked into her neck, and nothing else mattered very much just then.

“Do you see, Jack?” she asked, smiling at him. “It’s her old trick; she always put her little finger into my collar. She hasn’t forgotten anything.” They bent together over the baby form, and forgot the world.

“I’ll have to sell off here,” Archdale said, straightening up, presently. “That won’t take very long, though. Then whenever you’re ready for me, sir——?”

“Any time next month,” the squatter answered. “The storekeeper goes on the first, and I suppose Mrs. Brown will want a few days to have the cottage put in order for you. She has violent ideas on disinfecting; not that I’m quite sure what she wants to disinfect, but it seems to make her happy.”

“But come soon,” Norah said eagerly. “I want to see Babs again before I go back to school.”

“I guess,” said Jack Archdale,—“I guess what you and Mr. Wally want about Babs is likely to happen, if ever I can manage it. You’ve got a sort of mortgage on her now, haven’t they, Mary?” To which Wally, who was lying full length on the grass with Jim, near the verandah, was understood to mutter, “Bosh!”

“Maybe it’s bosh; I don’t know,” Archdale said, drawing hard at his cold pipe. “But that’s the way we look at it. I—we . . . Well, it’s no darned good tryin’ to say anything.”

“It was only a bit of luck,” Wally mumbled, greatly embarrassed.

“Any one would have found her,” said Norah, incoherently. “We just happened to.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Archdale said, her cheek against Bab’s black curls. “I suppose I may be foolish—but it seems to me it was a bit because you cared so much. It—it seemed to hurt you, just like it did Jack and me.”

“And lots of people would never have noticed that the kid wasn’t really a picaninny,” Archdale put in. He put his great hand down and took Bab’s little bare foot in it, looking at it with eyes half misty, half proud. “Well, thank the Lord, you wasn’t born flat-footed, my kid!” he said—and Babs chuckled greatly.

She climbed down from her mother’s knee presently, and after falling over Jim and Wally, and treating each with impartial affection, toddled off round the corner of the house, on a voyage of discovery. It was curious to see how little she had forgotten, and what joy she found in the old familiar places. Archdale watched her go, and with the last flutter of the scanty blue frock heaved his long form up from the step, and followed slowly.

“It don’t seem safe to let her get out of one’s sight,” he said as he went. “I wouldn’t trust that black gin not to be hanging round in the timber.”

Mrs. Archdale followed them both with her eyes.

“Jack swears he’ll tell the police if old Black Lucy shows up,” she said. “But I don’t want him to. It wouldn’t do any good—and I’m too happy now to care. She had lost all her kiddies, poor thing—and, after all, she took care of my baby.”

“You would have been sorry for her if you’d seen her,” Norah said. “I know you would.”

“Well, after all, you can’t judge them by our standards,” said the squatter. “They are only overgrown children, and we haven’t left them so much that we can blame them altogether for seizing at a chance of happiness. Probably old Black Lucy’s family owned Billabong, and can’t quite see why I should hold it now; and certainly she would find it hard to understand why her babies should all die while other women keep their children.”

“To be broken-hearted with loneliness—and then to find a little child wandering alone in the scrub—oh, I don’t know that I blame her,” said Bab’s mother, wistfully. “You—you’d really think it was sent to you. I only lost one, and I thought my trouble was greater than I could bear. And she had lost three!”

“Yes—but you can’t quite look at it that way,” Mr. Linton said. “The blacks don’t regard a child’s life quite as we do.”

“Don’t they?” Mary Archdale asked, doubtfully. “Perhaps not.” She pondered over it, and shook her head, at last. “Oh, I don’t believe your colour makes much difference to you when you’ve lost your baby!” Her voice broke—just for a moment she was back in the wilderness of pain, where she had wandered for so many weary months.

Then, round the corner, came her husband, with Babs perched high on his shoulder—triumphant in her elevation, yet with her tangled black head nodding sleepily, and the sandman’s dust making her eyelids droop.

“Some one’s sleepy,” Archdale said, smiling at his wife. “Coming, mother?”

“I’ll put her to bed,” she said, rising and stretching her arms to the little daughter. Archdale put Babs tenderly upon the grass.

“I guess there’s two of us in that contract,” he said. “Say good-night, Babs.”

They watched her with quick curiosity to see if the command would be intelligible. It was long since Babs had said “good-night.” But some far-off echo was awake in the childish brain, and she obeyed mechanically; moving from one to the other with drowsy, soft kisses and drowsier “Dood nights”—until the last was said, and she turned to her father again and held up little brown arms to him. He picked her up, with infinite gentleness in his strength. One arm went round his wife’s shoulders as they disappeared into the silent welcome of the lighted house.

* * * * *

Outside the slow moon climbed into a starry sky, and for a while no one spoke. Far off, a bittern boomed in some unseen marsh—the eerie note that makes loneliness more lonely, and warm companionship the more comforting, by contrast. Then two mopokes began to call to each other across a belt of scrub, and a fox barked sharply. The fragrant peace of the summer night lay gently upon the blossoming garden.

Norah leaned back against her father’s knee, with Jean close at hand. It was to Jean that Mr. Linton spoke presently. There were many times when, between him and Norah, speech was not necessary.

“Well, you’re not having anything resembling the holidays I planned for you, Jean,” he said. “All the same, they have not been without incident!”

“It’s lovely!” Jean breathed. “Thank goodness, they’re not over yet!”

For to-night they were to sleep in Mrs. Archdale’s little blue room. The men of the party, scorning the excitements of the hotel, were to camp near the scrub; already preparations were made, and the white tent glimmered faintly in the moonlight. To-morrow would begin the ride back to Billabong.

“I heard from Town to-day,” the squatter observed. A sheaf of letters had awaited him at Atholton. “They will be able to begin work on the house next week, so the rebuilding won’t be so long drawn-out an affair as I feared.”

“That’s a mercy, anyhow,” Jim said, fervently. “I’ll be jolly glad not to see those blackened walls. Seems to hurt you, somehow. But how does that affect your plans, Dad?”

“What plans?” Norah asked.

“Well, Jim and I, as the only level-headed members of this irresponsible party, have been planning,” said her father. “Billabong being unfit for habitation, and two young ladies, to say nothing of one Queensland gentleman, on our hands, justly expecting an agreeable vacation——”

“Dad, how beautifully you talk!” said Norah.

“Such wealth of language!” breathed Jim.

“Diogenes revivified! Or was it Demosthenes?” said Wally, uncertainly.

“Diogenes inhabited a tub, if I remember rightly,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “As far as I can see, I am likely to be driven to somewhat similar expedients, until I have a house again. However—not that any of you deserve my kind explanations, except Jean, who probably wouldn’t deserve them either but that she’s too shy to voice her thoughts in the way you do.”

Jean giggled assentingly.

“H’m,” said Mr. Linton, gazing at her severely “I thought so. If ever there was an unfortunate brow-beaten, burnt-out man, he sits here! Well, to come to the point—if you’ll all let me—Jim and I came to the conclusion that we must migrate somewhere for the remainder of the holidays. We thought of the seaside—Queenscliff or Point Lonsdale, or possibly the Gippsland Lakes. That was to be a matter for general consideration. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t adhere, in the main, to the plan. But since the workmen will be at the station, we’ll have to choose a spot not far away, as I must be most of my time at home. I can go backwards and forwards, and Brownie can go with you to keep a watchful eye on your pranks.”

“H’m!” said Jim thoughtfully. “That’s pretty rotten for you, isn’t it?”

Nobody spoke for a few minutes. Then Wally said.

“What’s the matter with Billabong?”

Jean conquered her shyness with a tremendous effort, sitting up abruptly.

“If you’re going away for me, Mr. Linton,” she said, speaking very fast, and plucking grass with great determination of purpose, “please don’t. I don’t want to be taken anywhere.”

“But, my dear child,” David Linton said, “I can’t have you all in tents. And there isn’t any house. You didn’t come for your holidays to rough it.”

“There isn’t any roughing it,” said Norah, quickly. “If Jean and Wally don’t mind——”

“Mind!” said Wally. “Why, I’ll feel like a motherless foal if you take me away, and go about bleating!”

“Well, there you are!” said Norah, inelegantly, but very earnestly. “Oh, Dad—let us all stay! We don’t want to go away. You don’t want us to go, do you?”

“Why, no; I don’t,” said her father, in perplexity. “As a matter of fact, I’d far rather be at home; indeed, I couldn’t be away for more than a very few days at a time. But the whole place will be upset, and I can’t see much fun for you youngsters in being there. It doesn’t seem quite fair to you.”

Jim began to laugh.

“It’s uncommonly difficult to plan for people who don’t want to be planned for, isn’t it, Dad?” he said. “Such a waste of noble effort! I believe we may as well give it up—they don’t seem to hanker after fleshpots!”

“Well, are you any better?” asked his father, laughing. “This was to be your holiday, too. You know you’ve put in a year of fairly hard work on the place, and I think you’re about due for a spell.”

“Me?” said Jim, in blank amazement. “Why, I haven’t killed myself with work—at least, I didn’t think so!” He grinned widely. “But I’m glad to know my valiant efforts impressed you. Anyhow, you needn’t make plans so far as I’m concerned; the old place is good enough for me, and if the other chaps don’t want to go away, I’m certain I don’t!”

“You see, Dad,” said Norah, earnestly, “we’ve got the tents—and perhaps we might put up a bigger one, in case of bad weather, and make a really ship-shape camp down by the lagoon, and just have our meals at the cottage. And everything will be so interesting at the house—and we’d have the horses!”

“It’s really all your own fault, sir,” Wally told him. “You’ve given us the taste for tent life, and you can’t blame us for becoming nomads. There’s already something of the Arab sheikh about Jean, and any one would mistake Jim for a dervish! Fancy shaking down to a boarding house at Queenscliff after this!” He waved a brown hand towards the dim outline of scrub, seen faint against the starlit velvet of the sky.

“It would be awful!” said Jean, with such fervour that every one laughed.

“And we can’t leave you, Dad,” Norah said. “It would spoil everything. I don’t believe you’d enjoy it, and certainly I wouldn’t call it really holidays unless we were with you. It seems all wrong to go away—not a bit like being mates. And we’re always mates.”

David Linton found her hand looking for his in the dusk, and gripped it tightly.

“Very good mates, I think,” he said. “Well—if you’ve all agreed, I’m not likely to want to hunt you into exile. Only remember, it will not be quite like home—tents are a poor substitute.”

“But—it’s Billabong!” said Norah, happily.

THE END

Ward, Lock & Co., Ltd., London.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.

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