CHAPTER VIIIMAKING FRIENDS
“Whatare those things?” asked Barry, lounging at the shed doorway, hands in pockets.
“Rabbit-skins,” answered Robin, shortly. She was kneeling by an open box, packing what looked like piles of envelopes of parchment.
“Don’t look much like rabbits.”
“I don’t suppose our skins would look much like us if they were pulled off inside out,” Robin responded, grimly practical. “Ten—eleven—twelve!” She tied a string round the bundle she held, made a note on a piece of paper, and proceeded to count a fresh dozen.
“Where’d you get them?”
“Shot them.” Robin looked ruefully at a much-punctured skin which had apparently been shot at too close quarters, hesitated a moment, and then, with reluctance, decided to reject it. Barry sniggered.
“Gave him the whole cartridge, didn’t you? Did he sit still while you walked up and potted him?”
“Yes—ours always do. Haven’t you noticed? I thought that was how you managed to shoot the two you got.”
Barry flushed. He was grimly aware of the number of cartridges he had expended. Apparently this provoking farm-girl knew something about it, too. He decided to pursue the matter no further.
“What do you do with the skins?”
“Send them to Melbourne.”
“What—are they worth anything? We never keep ours.”
“Don’t suppose you do,” said Robin, carelessly. Her tone classed Barry finally among the people who toil not, neither do they spin: and somehow, Barry fully understood that it was not a compliment.
“Never thought of it,” he responded, equally carelessly. “Who gets yours ready for you?”
“Myself. Seven—eight—nine,” counted Robin.
“You don’t skin rabbits?”
“Yes, I do. Why not?”
“Didn’t think it was a girl’s job, that’s all.” Barry whittled a stick with an unconscious air. “Of course, I suppose country girls are different.”
“How do you mean different?”
“Oh, well, town girls simply couldn’t do jobs like that.”
“Because they wouldn’t know how?”
“Partly. They wouldn’t like it, either.”
“Well, country girls don’t exactly revel in it,” responded Robin. “But we don’t make a silly fuss about doing necessary things. We’ve got more important things to think of than town girls have.”
Barry sniggered again.
“That’s a good one,” he said. “I’d like some of the girls I know to hear you. They’d be amused.”
“They’d be welcome to their amusement, poor things!” said Robin, in a tone of lofty pity. “By the way, do you mind moving out of the light? Thanks—eleven—twelve.” She tied up a new dozen, and Barry felt the warm indignation of a very small boy who has been told to run away and play while older people work. He took up a position on the other side of the wide doorway, whittling more vigorously.
“Ever been in Town?” he asked.
“Oh, yes—now and then. Why?”
“I was thinking it would be rather a surprise to you, in some ways.”
“It is,” said Robin, with surprising meekness. “Awfully exciting, crossing the streets, don’t you think? I get terribly scared.”
Barry assumed the patronizing air of a complete man of the world.
“I suppose you would,” he said. “All the country people do. Awfully funny to see them at Show time—they always get on the wrong trams, and try to talk to the drivers.”
“Nearly as funny as the Town people out at the Show,” said Robin. “Ever seen them trying to understand a disc-plough? And they talk about a horse’s back-foot.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” queried Barry, unwisely.
“Well—if you don’t know. . . . . .” Robin smiled with extreme sweetness, and packed another dozen.
Barry pondered uneasily for a moment, and decided to seek information on the matter from a more sympathetic source. He sought to change the subject, but no inspiration presented itself except rabbit-skins.
“How d’you get those things into that flat shape?”
“Stretch them on bent wires. There are some hanging up,” said Robin, nodding towards a corner of the shed, where skins hung in a dismal row.
“Must need a lot of wires. Do you buy them ready-made?”
“No—catch us wasting money that way! Danny made me those.”
“Oh—that big lout from over at the next farm?”
The gunpowder stored beneath Robin’s red thatch exploded suddenly. Barry, had he not been somewhat overwhelmed by the concussion, might have congratulated himself on having drawn blood at last.
“Don’t you talk like that!” she said, sharply. “I’ve got to be polite to you, ’cause your mother and father are so nice, but if you think you can sneer at our friends you’re jolly well mistaken, Mr. Barry Lane! Danny a lout, indeed! Danny’s got more sense in his little finger than you, or any other town boy, have in your whole body! He could show you the way about everything that really matters, only he wouldn’t be seen wasting his time over you!” She whirled past him, scarlet with anger, and left him to digest her words.
“Whew-w!” whistled Barry. “I put my foot well in that time, didn’t I?” His dark skin had flushed hotly. “Scissors, can’t she flare up! And all over that big farm-chap. He looks a lout, anyhow. But I suppose, living in the country, she doesn’t notice it.” He pondered the matter rather uneasily, realizing, somewhat to his own disgust, that he had transgressed his own code. When you were staying with people you did not abuse their friends. Apparently, that was what he had done.
He strolled round to the front of the house, disconsolately. Dinner was over: before him stretched a long and lonely afternoon. The mail, arriving in the middle of the day, had brought with it a request to Dr. Lane for a paper on some abstruse medical subject for a learned society: the doctor, groaning heavily, had shut himself up in his room, to write until evening. Barry was left to his own resources, and at the moment they seemed to him insufficient.
Mrs. Lane was on her couch. The injury to her ankle was a week old, but she declared that the joint still needed rest, although, to the unprejudiced eye, it looked much like the other. She greeted her son with a quick little smile. He sat down on the edge of the veranda near her.
“Bored, Barry-boy?”
“Oh, no. I’ll go fishing, I think.”
“Then what is wrong?”
Barry grinned at her, recognizing the detective eye. They told each other most things.
“I’ve been cheap,” he said.
“And nasty?”
He nodded. “Yes, a bit.”
“To Robin?”
He nodded again.
“Want to tell me?”
“No, I don’t think so, Mother. Not worth it. But I came to the conclusion I was cheap.”
“When that happens,” said little Mrs. Lane, looking like a wise mother-bird, “the only thing to do is to get back to the level where one belongs. Otherwise one remains marked-down, like the damaged goods at a sale. You’ll find a way. I would go out, if I were you, and show Father you can catch trout without him.” She smiled at him.
“Right-oh!” he said, rising. “I’ll get my kit.”
He came out again presently, in a scout shirt and knickers, with stout wading boots, looking younger than in his customary long trousers.
“I had never thought to see your knees again,” said his mother. “I thought they had disappeared into trousers for ever!”
“Father knew what he was about when he made me bring shorts,” said Barry. “They dry in no time after wading—and you can’t fish these creeks without wading half your time. Great pair of knees, aren’t they, Mother?”
“They’re like a cross-word puzzle, with scratches. How do you manage to knock them about so?”
“Oh—blackberries, and wild raspberries, and prickly-Moses, and other affectionate plants,” he said. “They all seem to cling to me. I’m as clumsy as a bear in the bush—never manage to dodge anything. Father says one doesn’t develop the sense of moving in the bush all at once, so I can only hope it will come.”
“But you like it, Barry?”
The boy’s dark face lit up suddenly.
“Oh, I love it,” he said. “It bored me stiff that first day, but now it grows on me more each time I’m out in it. Father’s an awfully good mate, you know: he shows me ever so many things I’d never see for myself. He’s jolly patient too—I make a fool of myself in heaps of ways, but he never seems to mind.”
“He tells me you are developing a good deal of common sense with your gun.”
Barry beamed.
“Does he? I’m jolly glad. I know I did a lot of idiotic things at first. I nearly hit him the second night—did he tell you, Mother?”
Mrs. Lane repressed a shudder. But her voice was quite calm.
“No, he didn’t tell me, son. I don’t suppose he would tell me that sort of thing. Was it—very near?”
“Oh, well, I hit a tree about ten yards from him. But that wasn’t the point—it might just as well have been Father, because I didn’t know that the blessed thing was going off. I thought it wasn’t cocked.” He looked at her ruefully, and found her smile very comforting.
“As you didn’t hit him, it was probably a very good thing it happened,” she said. “It would teach you a good deal, Barry-boy.”
“That’s just what it did,” he said. “I thought I knew all about it before, and it just showed me what an utter fool I was. Mother, I don’t think I’d ever be that particular kind of idiot again. I just shook for about ten minutes. And he was such a brick about it. I was scared he’d say I mustn’t use a gun again, but instead he said that was just the time to go on using it—so that I wouldn’t be likely to forget. I guess I won’t, either!”—and Barry set his jaw in a hard line.
“Your grandfather believed in that,” said Mrs. Lane. “When I was quite small—yes, I know I am small now, but I was still smaller then!—I used to ride a great grey mare on which I felt rather like a pea sitting on an elephant. I fell off her one day, and was sure I was killed—I believed grandfather thought so, too, until he had picked me up and discovered nothing worse than bruises. Then he caught the grey mare and put me on her at once, while I howled vigorous protests, assuring him that I would fall off again at once. But he only laughed, and said, ‘Not you, Milly!’ ”
“And did you?” Barry asked, much interested.
“Certainly not. I stuck on, and we galloped home in triumph. And I rode that mare for years, and never had another toss: more than that, I was never afraid again. And you never will be in doubt again as to whether your gun is cocked or not, Barry—you’ll know it is not cocked unless you want to fire!”
“I believe I won’t,” he said. “But I won’t be cock-sure, Mother! Gracious, wasn’t that brilliant, for me, and I never meant to say it, either! I think I’d better go fishing, or I may make more puns.” He took off his cap as she blew him a kiss, and went striding down the hill, his rod over his shoulder.
Luck was kind to him at first: he hooked a trout in a long stretch of rippling water, and managed to land it after five minutes’ highly unscientific play, trembling all the while for fear of making a fatal mistake; quite certain that no rod could stand the strain of being bent like a whip, with a leaping, fighting fish at its delicate end. When he finally managed to net it, after two unsuccessful attempts, and had killed it with a swift, merciful blow, as his father had taught him, he laid the still-twitching body on the grass and fairly gloated. The sunlight rippled on the golden-brown sides, spotted with scarlet. It was a fine fish, nearly two pounds. Barry felt that he had made a definite step towards manhood.
“Lucky for me you were hooked so firmly, old chap,” he said. “I’d have lost you for a certainty if you’d been lightly hooked. Golly, I am glad I got you!” He cleaned the trout and stowed it in his bag.
After that the goddess of Luck removed her face from him, and he fished pool after pool in vain: growing somewhat impatient as the afternoon wore on, and no new capture had gone to join his first prey. Still, it was jolly in the quiet stillness of the bush, where only bird-calls broke the stillness: even if the fish were shy there was fresh excitement in trying each promising bit of water, and always failure was solaced by the comforting weight of the bag—he could go home and show them that a town boy could hook and kill a decent trout unaided. The red-haired girl evidently didn’t think much of townsfolk. Well, he would show her! And then he grew a little less cheerful, for when the red-haired girl was concerned Barry was still feeling cheap.
He was thinking of her when suddenly he came upon her, as he rounded a scrub-covered bend. Ahead was a wide pool with a little rushy island in its midst: he had fished it with his father, and had looked forward to getting to it again, for it was a good pool. But Robin had got there first: a fine trout on the bank beside her, almost as big a fish as his own, showed that she had not wasted her time. As he came, she flicked her spinner across the water again—and uttered an exclamation of annoyance as it caught in a little bush in the island.
Robin tried to twitch it free, but it was evidently held strongly, and she dared not risk breaking her rod. She laid it down on the bank and pulled and jerked the line—all to no purpose. The bush swayed, but the hooks of the spinner clung closely.
“Well, you are a pig!” said Robin, heartily. She glanced round and saw Barry.
“That’s hard luck,” he said. “What will you do?”
“Wade, I suppose,” she answered, shortly.
“Easier to break the line, wouldn’t it?”
Robin looked her scorn of this suggestion.
“That’s a new spinner, and the best cast I’ve got,” she said. “I can’t afford to waste tackle.” She turned from him and looked doubtfully at the water.
“Is it deep?” he asked.
“I’m not sure; it might be better to swim than to wade. It might be snaggy—you never can tell, in these pools, what snags may have floated down and sunk. Oh, I’ll chance wading: if it gets too deep I’ll have to go home and get bathing-togs and swim.”
“I’ll swim over for you,” he offered eagerly.
“It’s all right, thanks,” was Robin’s stiff reply. Evidently she had not forgotten their encounter after lunch: she would not accept any favour from him. She waded out into the pool, while Barry watched her uneasily. The water, swift and brown, seemed to him altogether too deep for wading—especially for a girl.
“I wish you’d let me swim,” he called. “Here, I’ll get my boots off: it doesn’t matter if I get wet.”
He sat down on the bank and unlaced his boots hurriedly, heedless of the fact that Robin had not answered. The socks followed the boots, and he stood barefooted on the bank, again begging her to come back. But Robin’s “red-haired streak,” as her schoolfellows had called it, was uppermost, although she began to realize that the water was too deep for wading. Had she been alone, she would have turned back to the bank: but not before the supercilious youngster who had called good old Danny a lout. “I’ll give it a yard more,” she muttered to herself. “It may not get any deeper than it is now.”
A stone turned under her foot. She lurched forward uncertainly in the knee-deep water, saving herself from falling only by taking a long step. Her foot went down—down: there was no bottom anywhere, and no drawing back. She gave a little choked cry as the water closed over her red head. It was a cry that expressed exasperation more than fear.
She kicked downwards as she sank, to send herself up to the surface, and something closed like a vice upon her foot. Something that held and clung, tantalizing her with a swing that felt as though it were yielding, but never releasing its grip. She knew what it was, as she struggled in sick fear: knew how the old, water-logged gum boughs lie along the bottom, spikes driven into the mud holding the crooked, forked limbs that swing and sway with the current, never released until they rot away and mingle with the stream. She knew how little time she had to fight. Already her lungs seemed bursting with the effort of holding her breath: already her limbs were heavy and helpless. And the grip was no less tight.
On the bank, Barry had uttered an exclamation of dismay as Robin disappeared. He was not alarmed, for she had spoken easily of swimming: still, he knew that no girl likes an involuntary ducking. He waited for the red head to bob up again, prepared to shout sympathetically to her. Fifteen seconds went by: thirty: and suddenly the boy found his heart beginning to pump like an engine.
“She’s been under nearly a minute!” he muttered. “Something’s wrong.” He blessed the impulse that had made him kick off his boots, as he dived into the pool.
The water was muddy with Robin’s struggling, but he came upon her quickly. Sinking down, his hands encountered the imprisoned foot, and he grasped the bough. One of his feet, as he kicked, found a moment’s purchase upon another snag; it held as he put all his force into a desperate tug, slipping off just as the bough broke short at the fork. An inch less, and it would still have gripped Robin’s boot. As it was, Barry saw her float slowly upwards.
He was after her like a flash and drew her into the shallow water: she had not lost consciousness, but was capable of only the feeblest paddling. They reached the bank, and she lay down on the grass, still gasping.
“Swallow any water?” he asked, anxiously.
She shook her head. Under water, Barry Lane was entirely capable: on land he became a rather scared boy, without the faintest idea of what to do for a half-drowned lady in distress. So he rubbed her hands very hard, and uttered disjointed words of encouragement, such as “Buck up, old chap!”—which perhaps was as effective as anything he could have done. At any rate, Robin presently sneezed violently, gave a feeble grin, and sat up.
“I was nearly a goner that time!” she remarked, inelegantly. Her voice shook, and Barry frowned.
“Better lie down again,” he counselled. “I vote you keep quiet and I’ll run up and fetch Father—and some brandy.”
“No—I’m all right. At least I will be in a minute or two,” she shuddered. “Ugh, it was awful down there—I thought I’d never get free. Never would, either, if you hadn’t come. However did you do it?”
Barry grinned feebly.
“Oh, it was easy—I was born in Queensland, and I could swim under water almost before I could walk. We used to have competitions to see who could stay under longest and pick up most things. Only this water was so jolly muddy that it was hard to make out anything.” He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “Sure you’re all right? Golly, you gave me a fright!”
“I’m all right, but I’m awfully cold. I think I’d better move.”
“Let’s help you up,” Barry said. He hauled her ungently to her feet, and she promptly staggered and caught at his shoulder. In a moment her head steadied.
“Now I’m better,” she said. “I’ll just walk home slowly.” She turned, but stopped as he moved towards the creek. “What are you going to do?”
“Just get your spinner,” he said, carelessly. “You go on—I’ll catch you up with the rods.”
“You aren’t going back into that beastly creek!”
“I’m not going to waste your tackle,” he said, laughing. “Don’t worry—I’ll look out for snags.” He swam across carefully, keeping his body almost on the surface, and freed the spinner from the clutches of the bush. In a moment he was back on the bank beside her.
“I say—do go on!” he protested. “I’ve got to get my boots on, and you’ll certainly get pneumonia or something if you stand there with your teeth chattering.”
She stared at him without speaking for an instant. Then she turned and walked unsteadily away, while Barry forced his wet feet into his boots and gathered up the rods and fish. He caught her up in the next paddock.
“Feel all right?”
“Oh, yes—right enough. Just a bit shaky, but nothing to matter.”
“You want a good rub-down and a hot drink,” counselled Barry. “I hope your mother won’t be scared.”
“She won’t, ’cause she’ll see I’m alive,” said Robin, with something of her usual twinkle. It was a washy twinkle, but Barry was relieved to see that it was there. “But we’re a lovely pair, to be coming home!”
“Better wet than dead!” grinned her dripping companion. “And anyhow, we’ve brought home our breakfast!”
“Yes, and you saved my tackle. That was awfully decent of you. You saved my life, too, but you might have felt you had to do that—but there was no need for you to go back after that spinner. I—I’m just awfully obliged to you.” The speech was an effort, and she hurried on, squelching in her wet boots.
Barry might reasonably have felt bewildered at this peculiar distribution of gratitude, but he saw nothing to criticize. He was oppressed by the necessity of making a speech himself.
“I was no end of a swine this morning,” he said, flushing. “What I said about Danny, I mean. It was a low-down thing to say—I’m sorry, Robin.”
She flashed a smile at him.
“That’s all right,” she said, with embarrassment. “I was rather a pig, too. I won’t be again, if you won’t.”
“Rather not!” said Barry. They squelched companionably towards the house.
CHAPTER IXTHE MERRI CREEK FALLS
“I thought, a week ago,” said Dr. Lane, “that my son and your daughter intended to remain for ever in a state of armed neutrality. They bristled at sight of each other, like two terriers, and politeness was all that restrained them from combat. There were even indications that the politeness was wearing thin. And look at them now!”
He waved a hand towards the little flat below the house, where Robin and Barry, mounted on ponies borrowed from Mr. Merritt, had erected a brush hurdle and were taking turns in jumping. The ponies were awkward, and the riders not highly skilled; when they succeeded in making the steeds face the hurdle they did not always get them over; when they got them over they rarely remained in the saddle. These minor defects did not chill the ardour of the riders. Shouts of laughter echoed up the hill, mingled with mutual comments that lacked nothing of frankness. Beyond doubt, the partnership was firmly established.
“This seems to be the result of impromptu mixed bathing,” said Mrs. Hurst, laughing, as her eyes dwelt on Robin. “I still shiver at the thought of my girl’s danger—but I am not altogether sorry it happened. They are very happy together. And it is so good for Robin to have a friend. She did not realize how lonely she was.”
“She didn’t suggest loneliness. I think the companionship between you was very delightful, and she will find it so again when Barry has gone. But youth calls to youth. As for Barry—it has always been our regret that he has no sister. To be friends with a girl like your Robin is very good for him.”
“Barry doesn’t in the least regard Robin as a girl,” said Mrs. Lane, from the couch where she was generally to be found, in spite of the fact both silk-clad ankles were equally slender. “He told me this morning that the best thing about her was that she was just like a boy. ‘No silly girl-tricks!’ said Barry. ‘I can’t stand girls!’ And he was quite sure he meant it.”
“And yet he has many little chivalrous ways with her that he certainly would not show for another boy,” Mrs. Hurst remarked. “I do not think he even knows he has them. But they are there, all the same.”
“I’m glad to hear that you have noticed that,” said Dr. Lane. “I thought I had, too: but I was afraid it might be only desire to think so on my part!”
“Oh, no; I have seen a dozen little proofs. Why, I found him cleaning her boots to-day!”
“That is indeed a proof, for it is hard enough to make him clean his own when he is at home,” said Mrs. Lane, laughing. “When Barry cleans a boot he declines to perceive that it has any back. Oh, look!—his pony jumped the hurdle without knocking it down, and he didn’t fall off! My Barry will be a jockey before he leaves here.”
“I only hope we shall return him to you undamaged,” said Mrs. Hurst.
For it had been settled that Barry should stay another month at Hill Farm. Business was calling Dr. Lane to Queensland, and his wife insisted that he should not go alone: but Barry hated the hot weather of the North, and was so happy in the bush that his parents had begged Mrs. Hurst to keep him. Barry himself welcomed the suggestion with delight; anything was better than to grill for weeks in Brisbane in midsummer; and Hill Farm, where he had settled down as though it had always been his home, was a very lucky alternative.
The partnership between him and Robin had deepened into a firm friendship. Barry’s feeling of natural superiority as a boy had quickly vanished before the girl’s leadership in all bushcraft. He was a clumsy new chum where she trod with the sure, quick step of one who has entered into her kingdom. The dense scrub that puzzled him was to her an open book, for she had that instinctive knowledge of direction and of unconscious observation that marks the bushman born. It irritated Barry, now and then, that she should know so much. “For, after all, you haven’t been here so awfully long yourself,” he would say. Robin could not explain it. “I feel as if I’d been born knowing the bush,” she would answer, half apologetically. “But you’re getting on splendidly, Barry, so don’t worry.”
Already the month for which the Lanes had asked had gone by, and Dr. Lane was, as he said, “screwing-out” a few more days before he and his wife must go North. It had been a very happy month; everything had gone smoothly, the Lanes had been the most cheerful and considerate of paying-guests, and Mrs. Hurst marvelled at the ease with which she had managed her big household. There was satisfaction in that, as there was in the thought of the comfortable little balance mounting up in the bank: solid satisfaction, too, in the knowledge that she and Robin had made good friends. The Lanes declared that nothing should prevent their visit being a yearly one, so long as Hill Farm would have them: they had exacted a half-promise that Robin and her mother should visit them in Melbourne. The vision of the future, when Robin must go to the city to learn typing, lost half its terrors for the anxious mother now that she knew that her child would not be friendless.
On the flat below, the riders decided that their ponies had had enough tuition in jumping—perhaps induced to this conclusion by their own bruises. They came cantering up, passed the house with a gay shout, and presently appeared on the veranda, flushed and hot.
“What have you done with the ponies?” asked Mrs. Hurst.
“Taken them back to their own paddock: Mr. Merritt wants them to-morrow. Oh, Mother, we’ve had fun!”
“You seemed to be enjoying life,” Dr. Lane said. “I hope the ponies enjoyed it too.”
“Oh, they were quite happy. They knew ever so much more about it than we did—but we managed to get the same point of view after a while. Jumping’s great sport,” Barry ended.
“When you stick on?”
“Yes—or even when you don’t. The grass is so thick down there it’s like falling on a carpet, and if we fell off the ponies always stopped very kindly and began to feed. It must be much more disheartening to fall off and see your horse disappearing into the distance: I like them trained to pause, like these.”
“I never had the luck to ride a pauser,” remarked Dr. Lane. “When I quitted the saddle they invariably quitted me, at the rate of knots, and I had to walk miles before I found them. Hence, I prefer motors, which do not run away——”
“Not even down a hillside?” asked Robin, wickedly. “I knew a Buick—”
“The very thing to prove what I was saying,” returned Dr. Lane. “Even when the wicked tracks of Gippsland let a good car over the edge, what does the good car do? Somersault to the bottom? Certainly not. It hastily finds a tree, and leans up against it, waiting for its master!”
“Uttering gentle bleats, to attract his attention,” finished Robin, softly. “That’s what I noticed about the car I mentioned. And everyone seemed so pleased with it!”
“It played us a very good trick, at all events,” remarked the doctor, shaking his fist at her. “Think what a holiday we have had because it chose that spot to fall over the edge, and what a hideous time we should have had if it had gone peacefully on its way to Baroin. I refuse to hear one word against my car. But there’s something else I want to consult you about, Robin. Do you know the way to the Merri Creek Falls?”
Robin knitted her brows.
“I’ve never been quite to the Falls,” she said. “I did go a good deal of the way with a camping-party more than two years ago. We gave it up: I was young then, and they were all soft, and the going was certainly very bad. I believe there is a better track now. Why, Dr. Lane?”
“Well, I’d like to go there,” he said. “A man I met fishing yesterday told me they were well worth seeing. It’s a bit of a rough trip, he said, but we could do it in the day if we made an early start. I thought you and Barry and I could tackle it, if your mother were willing. I have got permission from my headquarters”—he nodded meekly towards his wife. “This fellow told me there was good fishing in the creek below the falls. He had been camping there.”
“I am quite willing, but I should strongly advise against fishing,” Mrs. Hurst said.
“The track is exceedingly rough; I don’t think you realize what a nuisance rods would be to you on a long walk in such country: and fish, if you got them, would be an added burden on the way back.”
“That sounds common-sense,” said the doctor, regretfully. “Well, after all, I have had better fishing here than I ever hoped to have, so I may as well put it out of my head. But I would like to see those falls. Feel inclined, Barry?”
“My Aunt!” said Barry, eagerly. “It would be a ripping day!”
“And what about you, Robin?”
“Oh, I’m always ready for an excursion,” she said. “But I warn you, it will be rougher walking than anything you have done about here. We shall have to wade the creek ever so many times; I remember we walked in the creek itself for a good way, but perhaps the track will save us that now. When would you like to go, Dr. Lane?”
“To-morrow, I thought; it’s beautiful weather, and I have so few days left.”
“Do you think we could get breakfast at five o’clock, Mother?” Robin asked.
“Five!” exclaimed her four hearers in various notes of horror. But Robin only smiled.
“I’ve tried to get to those Falls, and you haven’t,” she said. “I’m all for an early start, to get as far as we can before the day grows hot. We can always rest on the way—and we’ll want to!”
“I’m beginning to think this is a more serious expedition than I had imagined,” laughed the doctor.
“Oh, I don’t know that it’s serious,” Robin answered. “But itisrough, and I warn you that I don’t know any short cuts.”
“Could you get lost?” demanded Mrs. Lane. “If so, I shall hang bells on all three of you before you start!”
“You wouldn’t be up,” said Barry, solemnly.
“I should rise to the occasion,” was his mother’s lofty reply. “But tell me, Robin: I am going to enter a protest if there is any fear of your being bushed.”
“Oh, we can’t get bushed if we stick to the creek,” Robin said. “There are short cuts, I know, that make the distance much less, but of course, it wouldn’t be safe to tackle them. So we must be prepared for a long day. I could get breakfast ready to-night, Mother, and pack the lunch.”
“Yes: I will help you. You must all eat enormous quantities of eggs and bacon before you start—then I shall feel more easy about you,” Mrs. Hurst said.
“If anyone, a month ago, had told me I could devour eggs and bacon at five o’clock in the morning, I should have thought him mad,” said Dr. Lane. “But I feel now that I could tackle anything that was offered me, at any hour. That’s the result of Hill Farm, Mrs. Hurst!”
Even though it was almost midsummer, it was chilly enough in the deep gullies when they set out the next morning. The mists had not yet risen: ahead of them the bush was dim and mysterious, and every bough dripped with moisture. For the first few miles they were able to keep above the creek, following sheep-tracks through the hill settlers’ country: they walked steadily, anxious to get as far as possible before the real fatigue of the journey began. Then they came to the last of the clearing. Before them ranged the tall rounded masses of the hills, covered with dense scrub and giant trees.
“Now we’ll have to stick to the creek, unless we can find a track,” Robin said.
They went down the steep hillside, and were lucky in coming upon a narrow path that followed the windings of the creek. It was not easy travelling: the track was so narrow, the greedy march of the bush so swift, that the undergrowth brushed their faces, and often they were forced to hold it apart while they forced their way through. Sometimes it curved sharply round the butts of huge trees, leaving only the barest footing, where one went, clinging to any stray shoot of musk or hazel as a support: sometimes it dipped into waterworn gullies where brambles disputed every yard of the way. But still, it was a track; and Robin, at least, was duly grateful for it. Below them the creek sang and rippled on its way: occasionally they caught glimpses of the brown water, gurgling over its boulder-strewn bed. But for the most part the scrub undergrowth hemmed them in, and they went in single file, seeing nothing but the dense green wall on either side.
It was past nine o’clock when the track suddenly ended in an enormous fallen tree, the butt of which, six feet high, made a grey wall before them. Its roots, now intertwined with scrub, stretched down to the creek. They followed along its great length, and the pale shadow of a track seemed to them to stretch away northward into the bush. But Robin, looking at it, shook her head.
“It might be our track,” she said. “And then, again, it mightn’t. I don’t like trying experiments in this sort of country.”
“No experiments for me, thank you,” Dr. Lane said, briskly. “The creek is definite: we’ll stick to it.” He looked at his companions. “How are you two feeling?”
“First-rate,” said Robin and Barry in chorus.
“That’s good. Still, I think we’ll have twenty minutes’ spell, not because we are tired, but because the wise man rests before he is tired. Let us climb round this large vegetable which is blocking the way and get down to the creek.”
They fought their way round the fallen tree—it took them five minutes to do it: and so came to where the brown water gurgled and chattered over a bed of huge rounded stones. Barry lay down with his face in a pool, and drank as a dog drinks, inelegantly, but thoroughly.
“My word, that’s good!” he said. “Have some: I left plenty for you!”
“That was kind of you,” said his father. He produced from his pocket little collapsible aluminium cups, and screwed them up, offering one to Robin.
“These are handy things,” he said. “Sometimes they collapse at the wrong moment, and it is very awkward, especially if you are drinking coffee in a railway carriage. Here, we should probably enjoy it, so they won’t collapse. Sandwiches—yes, please Robin, I think that is a very good idea.”
“I made a little parcel for our first halt,” said Robin. “We ought to have lunch at the Falls, if we have any luck.”
“I could eat an enormous lunch now—and at the Falls, too!” said Barry. “This is a hungry stroll we’re taking!”
“Supplies wouldn’t hold out,” said Robin, practically.
They lay on the soft grass just above the water’s edge and nibbled their sandwiches economically, to make them last longer. Below them a great veil of maidenhair fern trailed downward to the stream that washed its fronds: above towered the tall brown shafts of tree-ferns, their spreading crests mingling with sarsaparilla and clematis. Just across the stream stood a clump of Christmas-bush, already a starry mass of white. There were birds everywhere among the bushes, happy and unafraid; bell-birds chimed ceaselessly in the tree-tops far above them. Once, a wallaby hopped upon an open space on the farther bank, looked at them serenely for a moment, and then hopped back into cover.
“You were right, Robin,” Dr. Lane said. “We have not seen any bush like this—nothing so quiet and utterly undisturbed. It makes one feel oneself an intruder.”
“We’d see lyre-birds if we could stay here long enough without moving,” Robin said. “Look—there’s a platypus!” She pointed to a tiny promontory across the creek, where a queer flat creature, furry and with a bill like a duck’s, paused for a moment before sliding head-first into the water.
“First I’ve ever seen,” commented Barry. “My word this is a jolly place! I wish we could have a camp here.”
“We’ll think about it next year, when we come back,” said the doctor. “Meanwhile, I’m afraid we had better move: we don’t know how rough the going will be after this.”
They were soon after to prove the melancholy truth of the foreboding contained in this remark. There was no track at all to be found near the creek, and the banks were so overgrown that each yard of progress had to be fought. So they took to the water, a slow process, since it was necessary to follow the creek through all its windings: a laborious one, because most of the way was over smooth and slippery stones, where each foothold had to be tested. All were wearing rough spiked boots, which gave them more security in treading; but they also made walking tiring, when heavy with water. The creek rarely rose above Barry’s knees: but it was swift, the power of the current increasing as they mounted higher and higher into the hills; and it was hard to gauge the depth of the pools. There was more than one moment when Dr. Lane asked himself doubtfully if they should give up the attempt to reach the Falls.
The children, however, scouted the suggestion indignantly. To have come so far, and then to turn back, seemed to them an unthinkable idea.
“I had to do it once, and I’ve been sorry ever since,” Robin declared. “And I wasn’t fourteen then. We can’t be so very far from the Falls now.” She peered ahead into the dim tunnel of greenery—it was long since they had seen the sun, shut in by the trees as they were. “Look—I believe it is a little clearer ahead. We might have another try at walking on the bank.”
“Let’s see,” said Barry, eagerly. “Gee, but my feet are sore from these old stones!”
They waded on as quickly as they could. As Robin had thought, they came upon a break in the dense wall of undergrowth. There were signs of old axe-marks on some of the trees, and many felled stumps, now rotten and overgrown with creepers and moss.
“Probably some old prospector lived about here ages ago,” said Robin. “He’d have to clear a way down to the water. This is most likely his old track.”
“Did they ever find gold here?”
“No—at least, only the merest traces. But there are always fossickers about in the hills who believe they will hit on gold some day. Some people think that these hills hold all sorts of things—marble, and limestone, and valuable clays, and even oil. I suppose they’ll be discovered by-and-bye.”
“What a lark if we found an oil-well on your place!” said Barry. “How does one look for oil, Father?”
“Other people do the looking, and then they make you buy shares, my boy,” said his father, gloomily. “I’ve lost more than I care to think of in that way. The last oil-well in which I was interested spouted only hot water instead of oil, and so, much of my hard-earned money went up in steam. I’ve given up buying things I can’t see. Let us try the old prospector’s clearing, and see if it leads us to anything. We won’t go far from the creek, though.”
The clearing was so overgrown that to speak of it as cleared was only to distinguish it from the impenetrable scrub on either hand. Still, it was possible to find a way through it; and presently, to their delight, they came again upon the track, and saw, through a rift in the timber, that they were not far from the head of the gully where the creek came down. They forgot fatigue as they hurried onward, making light of the many difficulties in the way: anything was better than wading over the smooth round stones that hurt the feet so cruelly.
Presently, as they went, a sound came to their ears: a low boom which at first they took for the soughing of a far-off wind coming across the tree-tops. It grew louder as they advanced, almost unnoticed by them: one does not lend a very attentive ear to sounds, when one is fighting every step of an uphill climb. But at length, in a moment when the going was easier, it suddenly brought Dr. Lane to a standstill.
“By Jove!” he said, with a touch of excitement unusual in him. “I believe that is the noise of the Falls!”
They halted, listening. The sound was a dull, steady roar that never varied. Wind and sea have light and shade in their stormy note, but falling water comes with a ceaseless and unalterable boom: a roar that has lasted since time began, and will last down the ages when the little races of men are dust. There was no doubting the sound now.
Barry gave a joyful cry and dashed ahead. They heard him shout again as they hurried after him.
The path ended in a wide space clear of trees. On their left, the creek had broadened out until it was a great pool; a whirlpool of wild water that boiled and foamed and eddied, before it rushed away over the stony bed between the walls of scrub. Behind it the hill rose sharp and rugged, a mass of grey rocks, where mosses and lichen clung, and stunted bushes struggled for a foothold. A huge, rough mass showed near the top, fifty feet above them: and over it, in a smooth and glistening curve, lit by a dancing rainbow where the sun’s rays struck it, poured the waters of the Fall.
Half-way down, the wonderful wall of shining water was broken by a fang of rock that jutted from the hillside. The fall split upon it, shooting out on either side, to meet again, lower down, so that the united curtain flung its whole weight into the boiling waters of the pool. But where it was cleft by the jutting rock, a dancing curtain of spray hung like a misty veil before it, catching the rainbow light from above and multiplying it into a myriad gleams of flying colour. One might fancy one saw all the fairies of air and water dancing in the opal mist.
“Oh!” said Robin—“oh!” She sat down on the grass, hugging her knees, and stared up as though she were worshipping. It was long before any of them spoke.
“Well!” said Dr. Lane at last—leaning near her, because of the roar of falling water. “It was worth the walk, don’t you think, kiddies?”
They nodded: there was awe on each young face.
“Come along,” Dr. Lane said. “We can’t afford to wait too long, considering the track home; and the billy must be boiled. Let us get a little farther back, where we can watch the Falls and hear ourselves speak as well.”
But no one seemed to have much wish to speak: the wonder of the Falls held them all silent. They boiled their billy and ate lunch under a big tree at the edge of the scrub, saying little, but watching the dancing mist-rainbows on the face of the water, and the splendid curve above, like polished black marble. Robin sighed heavily when at length Dr. Lane gave the word to march.
“Well, I was always sorry that I didn’t see it,” she said. “But it was worth waiting for. It’s like a dream, to take home for keeps. If only I could make Mother see it too!”
“We don’t know what is going to happen next year,” Dr. Lane said, wisely. “If we managed to camp where we halted to-day—and found a man who could tell us more about the track—and got the two Mothers into hard condition by judicious exercise—who knows what we may not arrive at! At any rate we’ll have a try. Red Robin!”
“Barry, I think your Father is the nicest ever!” said Robin, solemnly.
“Tell us news!” was Barry’s lofty response.