CHAPTER VIROBIN FINDS STRANDED WAYFARERS
A biggrey touring-car came slowly along the narrow track, feeling its way round blind corners and hairpin bends. It was not a pleasant road for touring, especially to people accustomed only to the smoothness and width of city streets. The road that led out from Baroin had been metalled for only part of its length: after five or six miles, winter had put a stop to road-making, and the good surface ceased abruptly. Then with each mile as it wound into the hills, the track grew worse. It clung to the steep sides of the rises, a grey ribbon undulating between walls of bracken fern, barely wide enough, in many places, to carry a car: above it the sheer rise: below, a drop of anything from ten to a hundred feet. Sometimes the trees near it had been cleared: more often, they crowded it on both sides, so that the road ran between walls of slender trunks and tossing tree-tops. This gave variety, because any turn might reveal a tree across the track. On the other hand, the trunks might catch a car that went over the side—a helpful possibility, at the narrowest bends.
One drove along the hill-road, hoping earnestly that one would not meet any other vehicle. Should this occur, the proceedings were slow and complicated. A jinker, or a light cart, was nothing, provided the horse did not play up: the steed could be taken out of the shafts and the cart backed until a space was reached wide enough to allow of passing: which might not be for a mile, or perhaps two. Still, it was simple. More harrowing were the times when one motor encountered another, or a team of twelve or fourteen bullocks dragging a heavy waggon. Then might be seen the spectacle of a car feeling its way painfully in reverse gear, along the way it had come—a way sufficiently exciting to drive on the forward journey. Nervous passengers were wont to get out and walk. Pitt-street and Collins-street may have their terrors for the motorist, but they lack the thrills provided by a Gippsland track.
To avoid, so far as might be possible, the dangers of these untoward meetings, the grey touring-car crawled like a snail round bends, and made haste where haste did not seem suicidal. Its driver was a middle-aged man, tanned and weather-beaten, whose ordinarily cheerful face was set, just now, in anxious lines. His wife sat beside him, little, and plump, and pretty. She said nothing, but occasionally emitted short gasps of horror. To ease her feelings—it was clear that she did not ease those of her husband—she leaned forward constantly and pressed the button of the horn, so that their advance was preluded by a succession of piercing shrieks. Occasionally the driver said patiently, “I wish you wouldn’t, Milly.” To which she invariably responded:—“But you mustn’t take a single finger from the wheel, dear, and somebodymusthoot!”
The third member of the party occupied the back seat, amid a litter of luncheon-baskets, cushions, rugs, and fishing-rods. He was a thick-set boy of fifteen, whose dark face betrayed nothing but boredom with his surroundings. The bush through which they travelled did not interest him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. His mother’s nervous gasps moved him only to faint scorn. Finally he produced a paper-covered book from his pocket, and became lost in its pages.
Fate contrived to make Mrs. Edward Lane press unusually hard on the button after a period of silence very grateful to her husband’s nerves. The ear-splitting hoot that ensued made him swerve a few inches—at a spot where there was, unfortunately, not an inch to spare. The bracken, growing thickly from below, hid the fact that the edge of the track had broken off. Bracken, however thick, cannot support the weight of a six-cylinder car. There was a moment’s sick suspense as the big Buick toppled sideways, slid for a few yards, and came to rest, wedged against a huge tree.
Mrs. Lane shot head-first over the edge, landing in a patch of fern, while her husband and son saved themselves in some miraculous fashion. The bottom of the car received them, amid the flying pieces of the shattered windscreen. Considerably astonished at finding themselves alive, they climbed out and hurried to the assistance of the lady of the party, who sat among the ferns, holding her ankle. She had taken her own meteoric flight in silence, but she screamed as she saw their faces.
“Oh, you’re hurt!” she cried. “Barry!”
“Only scratches, Mother,” said Barry Lane, gruffly, his face white under streaks of blood. “Are you hurt?”
She leaned back against her husband’s arm.
“My ankle,” she said. “Something has happened to it. But not much, I think. Are you sure you are not injured, Edward?”
“Quite sure, dear—just scratches and bruises.” He felt her ankle tenderly, while she winced. “No bone broken, thank goodness! Sure you’re all right, Barry-boy?”
“Rather!” said Barry. “A bit of glass just missed my eye—luck, wasn’t it?”
“Then, if neither of you are hurt, I’m glad the suspense is over,” declared Mrs. Lane, with surprising energy. “I knew it had to come, only I was sure it would be where there was a clear drop of half a mile! Now it’s happened, and we’re all alive!”
“I like your philosophy,” said her husband. “It doesn’t deal with the problem of how we’re to get out of this outlandish place, with a damaged car, I suppose?” He was removing her shoe and stocking with deft fingers as he spoke. “Only a bad sprain—poor little woman! Are you perfectly certain you are not hiding anything else?”
“Not a thing,” she assured him, hastily. “I’m scratched, of course, but who wouldn’t be? bracken is such scratchy stuff. Just fancy, if there had been a log in it, what a bump I would have come! And how is the poor car?”
“I’ll look presently. Barry, get the table-napkins out of the lunch-baskets and climb down to the creek—soak them well, and bring them back as quickly as you can. That’s the best we can do for the ankle until we can find a house.”
Barry dived at the car and in a moment was plunging down the hillside. Dr. Lane took out a pocket-flask.
“Drink this,” he said, giving her the little silver cup. “No, I don’t care if you don’t want it—you’re to have it, Milly. There’s a certain amount of shock about a tumble like this, even if we do happen to be all alive. I’m going to have a drink myself. Now I’ll make you a bit more comfortable.” He salvaged a rug from the car, folded it, and arranged it so that she could sit on it, leaning back against a tree: and lifting her as if she were a child, placed her upon it, with a cushion behind her and another supporting the injured foot. Barry returned, panting, with a handful of dripping table-napkins, with which his father bandaged the ankle scientifically.
“That’s ever so much easier,” said Mrs. Lane, smiling at their concerned faces. “How wise it is to take a doctor when one goes for hair-raising trips!”
“I wish we’d taken an ambulance as well!” said her husband drily. “But we’ll get help somewhere. Now, let’s have a look at the car, Barry. You might have washed your face when you were at the creek!”
“Hadn’t time,” said Barry, with a grin. He was poking round the car, pulling away the undergrowth into which it had settled. “I say, Father, she hasn’t come off too badly, I believe!”
“No, I think not—thanks to that providential tree. We should all have been mince-meat, but for it. One wheel is hopeless, of course, and the petrol-tank is badly bashed—but I don’t think there’s much wrong with the engine. Stout old car, and no mistake. But getting her up will be no end of a job.”
“Oh, these country people make a regular living from hauling damaged cars out of difficulties,” said Barry, with the air of a man of the world. “A fellow at school says there’s one place on the Prince’s Highway where the people water the road regularly every night, and keep a team of bullocks handy to pull the cars out of the mud-holes next day! I expect we’ll have the kindly natives along presently.”
Dr. Lane glanced up, and whistled softly.
“Well, there’s the first native, and armed to the teeth, too!” he remarked. “But she doesn’t look as if she could do much pulling, I’m afraid.”
“Well, she’s found game, so we shan’t starve,” Barry chuckled. “Talk about ginger hair!”
Robin, bare-headed, was coming along the track above them—a sufficiently unexpected figure in her blue shirt and khaki breeches, with her red mane glinting in the sun. She carried her gun over her shoulder: a pair of rabbits dangled limply from her hand. Just as the boy spoke she caught sight of them and stopped in amazement. Then she put her gun against the hillside, dropped the rabbits, and plunged down towards them.
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Not badly,” Dr. Lane said, taking off his hat. “But we’re pretty well stranded, as you may see, and my wife has sprained her ankle. Can you tell me where is the nearest township?”
“Merri Creek is nearest, but it is only a village—one store and a blacksmith’s shop. You’re more than twelve miles from Baroin. That is the only place where there is a garage—and a doctor.”
“The garage interests me most—I happen to be a doctor myself,” he said, smiling at her. “We are staying at the hotel at Baroin; we came out this way for a day’s fishing. Twelve miles—h’m! It’s a long way at this time of the evening.”
“Merri Creek has a telephone; you could easily get help for the car to-morrow,” said Robin. She was thinking rapidly, her thoughts running upon the state of the larder at Hill Farm. She remembered the rabbits with a throb of relief. “And there’s bacon and eggs,” she murmured, half aloud.
“I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Lane, staring.
Robin flushed.
“I was only pondering ways and means,” she said. “You must come to our house, of course; it isn’t more than a mile away. My mother will be very glad to do all she can for you. I can run home and bring our horse and buggy.”
“Is it a quiet horse?” spoke Mrs. Lane, for the first time. “I do hope it is really quiet!”
Robin laughed outright.
“When you see Roany you won’t be anxious,” she said. “He’s long past his wild youth. The difficulty is to make him raise anything but a jog!”
“That’s just the kind of horse I like,” Mrs. Lane answered, with a sigh of relief. “But are you sure we shan’t be putting your people to horrible inconvenience?”
“There is only mother and I,” Robin said. “And we have plenty of room. Mother wouldn’t dream of letting you go anywhere else. Indeed, there isn’t anywhere to go—ours is the only house near the road.” She turned, and went up the hillside lightly. From the road she hailed them again.
“Can I bring back anything to make the hurt ankle comfortable?”
“It’s well bandaged with table-napkins, thank you,” Dr. Lane answered. “I think it will be all right until we get to your house.”
“That’s a lass with a head on her shoulders,” he remarked, as Robin gathered up her gun and her rabbits and disappeared round a bend in the track. “We’re in luck’s way, I fancy. One would not expect to meet a girl of her type in this wild place.”
“I was picturing spending the night in a splitter’s camp—and glad to get there,” his wife answered. “She looked so nice and clean—far cleaner than I feel! I wonder what the house will be like.”
“It’s any port in a storm for us to-night,” said Dr. Lane, regarding the wreck of his car ruefully. “Merri Creek must be that little place we saw below us a mile back—the railway terminus. It wouldn’t be a bad idea, Barry, if you got down there and telephoned to the hotel. Tell them to send out things for the night—your mother might as well be comfortable. If you explain what has happened they can send them with a car from the garage, and the garage people can size up the damage of the Buick, and see how we’re to get her in.”
“Right-oh!” said Barry. “But I say—we don’t know the name of the people here. How am I to tell them where to send?”
“By Jove! I never thought of that,” his father said.
“Just ask the people at Merri Creek,” said Mrs. Lane, practically. “I’m certain there can’t be two girls with hair like that walking round these hills in breeches! If you describe her, they will be sure to know.”
“But if a car comes out,” said Barry, “why shouldn’t we go back to Baroin in it?”
“Because your mother isn’t going to drive twelve miles over these tracks after being shot out once,” said Dr. Lane, concisely. “Hurry up, or they’ll never get here before dark.” And Barry went off, wishing that he had a chance of washing his face, on which the blood had dried uncomfortably.
It seemed a long while before they heard the rattle of buggy-wheels and saw Robin driving along the track. She greeted them cheerfully.
“I’ll have to drive on a little way,” she called: “there’s no room to turn here. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”
“Then I may as well get you up to the track,” said Dr. Lane to his wife.
It was not an easy business: both were panting, and Mrs. Lane’s face was very white, when Robin reappeared.
“Mother put a mattress on the floor of the buggy,” she said. “This is what we call an express-waggon, and there’s lots of room behind; Mother said it would be more comfortable than sitting on the seat, with your foot hanging down.”
“Your mother’s a wise woman,” said Dr. Lane, thankfully. He braced his muscles, and lifted his wife into the back of the buggy, where she sat enthroned upon the mattress with the injured foot sticking out stiffly, and declared that she was perfectly comfortable—a manifest untruth, which impressed neither of her hearers. They unloaded the car of all that was portable, and Dr. Lane climbed up beside Robin.
“Ready?” she asked. “Oh—where’s the boy?”
“He has gone to telephone from Merri Creek.”
“But he won’t know where to come afterwards.
“I fancy he’ll find his way—Barry generally gets where he wants to go.”
“I had better drive back for him after I land you at home,” said Robin, without enthusiasm—visions crossing her mind of evening duties among the live stock. There was milking to be done, animals to be fed and poultry to be housed for the night. She had no mind to risk her ducklings among the foxes for the sake of a boy who had looked distinctly cross. Then she remembered his blood-smeared face and mentally rebuked herself for being a pig.
“No need for that, I think,” Dr. Lane was saying, pleasantly. “I can drive back, when I get Mrs. Lane to bed, if you will be kind enough to let me have the trap—I’ll promise not to send it over the edge, as I did the car!”
Robin brightened visibly.
“Certainly you can,” she said. “Old Roany will take you safely over any of these tracks—they’re really not fit for cars.” They jogged peacefully homewards.
“I hope I’m not jolting you very badly;” she said, presently, turning to look at the passenger in the rear. “The road isn’t wide enough to dodge the holes—I can only go slowly.”
“But I’m quite enjoying myself,” said the lady on the mattress. “Only, I want to be introduced, because you aren’t a bit what we expected to meet in the country! Our name is Lane, and we came from Melbourne yesterday for a holiday.”
“I’m Robin Hurst,” the girl told her, smiling down at the pretty face. “Mother and I live at Hill Farm.”
“But you haven’t always lived here?”
“Oh no. But I hope we’re always going to.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Lane, weakly. “It seems a strange hope!”
Robin laughed softly. Dr. Lane decided that he liked the sound.
“You have had an unlucky beginning,” she said. “It really isn’t fair to judge our country when you try to kill yourself on the very first day. Wait until you see the bush in the early morning, before the mists rise—”
“Never!” said Mrs. Lane, firmly. “I dislike seeing anything before breakfast—and not too soon after! I like well-paved streets, without precipices, nicely furnished with electric trams. I can’t see any fun whatever in driving along a mantelshelf on the side of a hill. It makes me afraid: and it is so lowering to one’s pride to feel afraid!”
“But if, before you had the shelf on the side of the hill, you had no road at all, you would look at it differently,” said Robin, laughing. “We regard our road with respect and affection—especially the metalled part!”
“Is there a metalled part?” queried Mrs. Lane. “I hadn’t noticed any. It seemed to me all a terrible series of bumps and pot-holes.”
“You expect altogether too much when you come to the country,” her husband said. “It would do you good to lead the simple life for awhile. I’m sure Miss Hurst could show you how.”
Mrs. Lane shuddered.
“We are giving Miss Hurst and her mother quite enough trouble as it is,” she said, hastily. She gave a sudden gasp. “My dear, have you had measles?”
“Yes.” Robin looked surprised at the sudden query. “Why?”
“My boy has just had them—his quarantine period is almost finished, but they don’t want him back at school before the holidays. And my husband’s eyes had been giving him trouble, so we decided upon a long holiday.”
“What—in Baroin?” asked Robin. Baroin, to her, was the most uninteresting of townships: she could imagine no reason for spending a holiday there.
“The fishing was the lure,” Dr. Lane said. “I have been hearing wonderful things of the trout in the streams here; we thought we could put in a few weeks exploring them, with Baroin as our headquarters. Don’t tell me that the report is only a rumour to catch tourists! I certainly have failed to rise a single fish to-day.”
“There are trout, and big ones, if you know where to go,” Robin told him. “Mother and I often fish.”
“And catch fish?”
“Why, of course.” Robin’s eyes twinkled. “We’re busy people; we haven’t time to fish just for fun, like—like tourists!”
“That’s a fair hit,” Dr. Lane said, laughing. “I will certainly dog your footsteps if I see you going out with a rod.”
“But wouldn’t you like to go out yourself this evening?” Robin asked. “There are two or three good holes in a little creek not far from our place. And the evening rise is the best, unless you get down really early—about dawn.”
“Would I like!” Dr. Lane suddenly looked like a schoolboy. “Can you come too?”
Robin shook her head.
“I can’t come this evening. There is a good deal to do. But I can easily show you where to go.”
“Don’t let him get lost in the bush,” spoke Mrs. Lane. “He is only a tourist, you know!” She turned her head as they came out of a belt of timber. “Oh, what a charming house!”
“That is our place,” Robin said.
Hill Farm had indeed a look of charm in the evening sunlight. Against a sky tinged faintly with rosy pink the white house nestled in the deep green of garden and orchard, ending in the snowy gleam of the newly-painted front fence. The slope before it stretched to the creek, over which they crossed on a rough-hewn bridge: behind it cleared paddocks stretched upwards merging into the stately timbered hills.
“I’ll have to take you round to the back,” Robin said, as old Roany walked slowly up the little hill. “The front gate is too narrow: besides, I painted the fence only this morning, and when I paint anything it takes two or three days to dry. So please be careful, Dr. Lane, if you go out that way. There’s Mother.”
Mrs. Hurst was waiting by the back gate, tall and fresh-looking in her simple grey frock. She greeted them pleasantly, exclaiming with sympathy over the poor, bandaged foot: and presently Mrs. Lane found herself installed in a wide room, smelling faintly of lavender, and exquisitely clean. The windows overlooked the western stretch of great, tree-covered hills. A quaint old-fashioned paper covered the walls, bright with little trails of roses; there were fresh roses on the dressing-table and mantelshelf. A dainty tea-tray stood on a table covered with a snowy cloth.
“I have everything ready for doctoring the foot,” Mrs. Hurst said. “But I was sure you poor things would like a cup of tea first.”
Mrs. Lane heaved a sigh of contentment.
“I could almost weep at the sight of a teapot,” she said. “My husband made me drink whisky, which I hate—I tried to get rid of the taste by eating a gum-leaf, so that my mouth is now a miserable blend of alcohol and eucalyptus! No, no sugar, thank you. Dear me, how good that is!” She looked rather like a mischievous child as she smiled at Mrs. Hurst over her cup.
Dr. Lane stirred his tea reflectively.
“I think we chose the place for our disaster very judiciously,” he said. “Certainly, no stranded motorists ever fared better. Are we putting you to very great inconvenience, Mrs. Hurst? My son has gone to telephone to the hotel to send out our things—we could go back in the car, when it comes, if——”
Mrs. Hurst interposed.
“But that isn’t to be thought of! We shall love to have you; Robin and I live so quietly that to have strangers is quite exciting and delightful, and if you can put up with our bush ways——”
Dr. Lane interrupted in his turn.
“Your bush ways, as you call them, seem ways of smoothing out difficulties for people in distress,” he said. “And frankly, I am not anxious to give Mrs. Lane a jolting drive. She has had a considerable shock.”
“You must all be feeling it, I should imagine,” said Mrs. Hurst. “Please don’t think of hurrying away: we shall be glad to have you for as long as you care to stay. I am sure that ankle needs rest, and the Baroin hotel is not a cheerful place to rest in.”
“Indeed, no!” said Mrs. Lane, with a faint shudder. “My window only opens for about three inches, and the smells—! And the bar is always full of noisy men. But perhaps there is a private hospital where I could go for a few days: I don’t want to spoil the holiday for my menfolk.”
“Oh, I believe there is—but I don’t think you would like it. You are not ill; a couch on our veranda would be better for you than any place in the township.” Mrs. Hurst smiled, as she gathered the tea-things together. “Let us see how you feel in the morning.”
“Whata nice hostess!” breathed Mrs. Lane, as the door closed behind her. “Now, do leave me just as I am, dear, and go to find Barry; he may lose his way.”
“I don’t think he’ll do that,” Barry’s father said. “But I don’t want him to walk too far; he is not really strong yet. Sure you will be quite comfortable until I get back, Milly?”
“Oh, perfectly. Just give me a book, so that I need not watch the scenery all the time—scenery issounchanging! And do take care of yourselves on that horrible hillside. If that horse should shy at a snake, or anything, where would you be?”
“I should be lost in astonishment if that steed shied at anything whatever,” said her husband, laughing. “If ever there were a town mouse—!” He arranged her pillows, gave her a book, and went off with long strides.
Barry was encountered sitting on a log by the wayside. He greeted his father with something of relief.
“Jolly good of you to come back,” he said, climbing into the buggy. “My legs aren’t what they were before I had measles. Mother all right?”
“Oh, yes—it is not a severe sprain. We came off uncommonly well.”
“I expect she’s pining for home,” said Barry. “Is the farm very awful? I can’t imagine Mother in a farm-house.”
“Wait until you see it,” Dr. Lane chuckled. “We fell on our feet, Barry—you’ll have to mind your manners.”
Barry sniffed.
“I expect my manners are good enough for this part of the world,” he said, loftily. “The hotel people were very decent: they said a car with our things would be out pretty soon. Gee, I could do with a cup of tea! I found a bit of a pool and washed my face, but the water didn’t look good enough to drink. Have we far to go?”
“We’re nearly there.” They came in sight of Hill Farm as Dr. Lane spoke. Above them, in the little paddock near the house, could be seen Robin, carrying in each hand a kerosene-tin bucket, and surrounded by an excited retinue of little pigs and a Jersey calf.
“There’s the ginger-haired girl,” said Barry, indifferently. “Regular farm-hand, isn’t she?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if she could teach you a thing or two, old man,” said his father.
“Me!” There was ineffable scorn in the boy’s tone as he climbed out to open the gate. “I don’t think I’ll worry any of the wild natives for lessons, thanks!”
CHAPTER VIIA BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT
“I couldask Mrs. Hurst, of course,” said Mrs. Lane, doubtfully. “I wonder if she would be offended?”
“Not a bit likely, I should think,” her husband answered. “She strikes one as far too sensible a woman to be offended by a simple business proposal. And it might suit her very well: I gathered from something she said last night that they have not much money.”
“And you would not be bored—you and Barry?”
“Barry and I want to fish,” said Dr. Lane. “And here we’re right in the midst of it. I might have explored round here by myself for a week without finding that little creek young Robin showed me last night—and you wouldn’t have had trout for breakfast, my dear!” His eye kindled at the recollection of the previous evening. “Nearly three pounds, the biggest fellow weighed; and four others of quite a respectable size! After failing to get a rise all day it was almost exciting, I tell you, Milly!”
“Yes, dear, it was lovely for you,” said Mrs. Lane, with wifely sympathy. “And how perfectly Mrs. Hurst cooked them!”
“Couldn’t have been better. It was a cheerful contrast to the greasy chops at the Baroin hotel. Of course it will be dull for you, dear, I’m afraid: but not so dull as it would be in the township, I’m certain. If you would let me take you home—”
“That is not to be thought of,” interrupted his wife. “Why, you have not had a holiday for two years!” She smiled at him. “And there is Barry, too.”
“Yes, there’s Barry. I want him to be quite fit before he goes back. He’s keen on the fishing, too, and I must say I should like him to learn something besides city ways. It’s too bad that he’s over fifteen and doesn’t know one end of a rod or a gun from the other. If Mrs. Hurst would have us here, there would be no twelve-mile drive night and morning along that track you dislike so much—”
“That would decide it, if there were no other advantages!” spoke Mrs. Lane, briskly. “I’ll ask Mrs. Hurst, dear: after all, she can hardly be offended. I’ll put it very nicely.”
“I have always remarked that when you are truly tactful you are hard to refuse,” said the doctor, gravely. “So I’ll hope for the best. I do hope you won’t be horribly bored, dear; it’s all very rough on you. You have plenty of books to go on with, haven’t you? Of course I can order anything you like from Town. We can get the mail every day.”
“Oh, I shall manage famously,” she said. “Don’t think of worrying about me. I shall write all the letters I should have written ever so long ago, and read all the books. And I daresay Mrs. Hurst and that nice red Robin will come and talk to me.”
“We seem to be taking it for granted that Mrs. Hurst will consent,” her husband remarked. “It will be rather a blow if she won’t have us.”
But Mrs. Hurst, handled tactfully, proved responsive. At first she felt a quick flush of pride and of outraged hospitality; to make money out of these stranded people who were her guests, seemed an impossible thing. Then common sense came to her aid. The Lanes, also, had their pride; clearly, it was unthinkable that they should remain without making any payment. And their wish to remain was very evident: Mrs. Hurst liked to see it.
Then, too, came in her own urgent need of money. Despite her promise to Robin not to worry, the thought of their tiny bank balance was never out of her mind: it was so flimsy a barrier between them and disaster, should bad times come. Dr. Lane’s offer was a generous one—more, she knew, than he would have paid the hotel in Baroin. She protested against it.
“It is too much for simple farm-house accommodation,” she told him, when he came to join in the discussion. At which he laughed.
“If you saw our stuffy rooms in that hotel—!” he said. “This is luxury; your delightful, airy rooms, and the clean freshness everywhere. It would be ten times the holiday for us. Think, too, of all I shall save in petrol, apart from the joys of the mantelshelf road which your daughter says I must not malign. And my wife cannot help giving you some extra trouble, until her ankle is better.”
“But you do not realize our limitations,” she said. “I can’t always get good meat out here—I have to put up with whatever the travelling cart brings, three times a week. And there are other difficulties. Robin and I live so simply that we do not notice them, but to you—from Melbourne . . . .” She paused unhappily, and he laughed at her again.
“As it happens, meat does not matter much to any of us,” he said. “Fish—such trout as these—is a treat to us, and so are rabbits, which we dare not touch in Melbourne. Barry and I can shoot and fish for the pot, which will give us an extra incentive to do well. Try us for a week, Mrs. Hurst, and see if we give you too much trouble.”
Mrs. Hurst had agreed, with some misgivings, and inwardly wondering how Robin would view the matter. But Robin was frankly delighted.
“Why, we’ll make heaps of money!” she said. “And it will be rather fine, Mother, to have people about: I don’t much like the boy, but his father and mother are dears.”
“Why don’t you like the boy? He seems civil enough.”
“Oh, he’s civil,” said Robin, tilting her nose. “But he thinks too much of himself, and he looks at my hair! He has a kind of lofty manner, as if he thought it was very nice for the country that he came to stay there.”
“Poor Barry!” said Mrs. Hurst, smiling. “Aren’t you a little hard on him?”
“Well, I may be,” admitted Robin. “But I haven’t much time for boys, especially town ones. Danny is worth a paddockful of them! I say, Mother, are you sure it won’t give you too much work?”
“I shan’t mind it at all. I must drop other things, more or less: but the garden is in such good order that it won’t suffer. The sewing can wait.”
“Well, of course I’ll do all the rough work,” said Robin, sturdily. “I can be housemaid and slushy, and you can be head cook and lady-of-the-house. ’Tisn’t everyone could double those two parts, but you could cook with one hand tied behind you! Now, if anyone speaks to me when I’m frying fish, it’s all up with either me or the fish! I can run errands for Mrs. Lane, and carry out her trays—we’ll make her live on trays out on the veranda, shall we, Mother?”
“It sounds uncomfortable,” smiled Mrs. Hurst. “Still—”
“Oh, you know what I mean. We can fix her up in a jolly corner with a couch and a little table, and she really won’t be much bother! I suppose Dr. Lane and Barry will be out all day—that means cutting lunches: I can do that all right. Mother, hadn’t I better go down to Merri Creek this afternoon and telephone to the store in Baroin for things? We haven’t nearly enough groceries.”
“Yes—and you must tell Mrs. Hawkes I shall not be able to send her any butter for awhile. We shall have to plan things, Robin; it won’t do to be caught without food, if fish and rabbits fail.”
“Lucky I was commissariat department at school,” said Robin, with an impish grin. “There are four or five fowls that can be killed.” Suddenly her face clouded. “Mother, I could get Danny to do the killing, couldn’t I?”
“Yes, indeed,” said her mother, hastily. “You didn’t think I would let you do it?”
“I ought to want to do it, and save money,” said Robin, still looking distressed. “But I couldn’t kill my chooks, unless I really had to. Rabbits are different, though I don’t enjoy dealing with them, either. Still, they’re strangers to me, and the chooks are intimate friends. I should feel like the lady who suggested cutting her baby in half for King Solomon!”
The arrangement, begun with many misgivings on the part of Mrs. Hurst, worked with remarkable smoothness. Never, she declared, were paying guests less trouble than hers: they appeared to enjoy everything, never grumbled, and gave as little trouble as was possible. On the other hand, the Lanes rejoiced in the peace and freedom of Hill Farm. The food was simple, but it was well cooked and daintily served: succulent grills and savoury roasts were not, indeed, to be procured, but Mrs. Hurst had the skill of a magician in making the indifferent meat of the travelling cart assume appetizing forms, and Dr. Lane was frankly bewildered by the variations in their meals, and assured his hostess that she was a perpetual surprise. The freshest of vegetables, the yellowest of butter, the thickest of cream—all were delightful to people accustomed to eating food long past its first freshness. “If I have eggs for breakfast here,” said the doctor, “I am morally certain that the hens have scarcely finished cackling over them before I have eaten them! I am growing disgracefully fat!”
Barry and his father fished and shot early and late, comfortably certain that no one minded erratic hours for breakfast and tea. Dr. Lane had at first made a heroic effort to be punctual, and had protested when Mrs. Hurst assured him cheerfully that it was not necessary.
“But what does it matter?” she had asked. “Robin and I have no servants to hamper us: it does not trouble us at all if you do come in late. And we know what it means for you to have the morning and evening rise for fishing; how stupid it would be for you to miss them on account of mere meals! As for the rabbits—if you want them, you simplymustbe out in the evening. I can’t give you dinner at night, but you can have a meal whenever you choose to come in.”
“But the trouble to you—”
“Why, there isn’t any trouble. I make my preparations beforehand, and all the rest can be done while you are taking off your boots or washing your hands.”
“But it is keeping you on duty all the time. If you had heard the frigid warnings of the hotel in Baroin as to what we might expect if we got home after six—!” At which Mrs. Hurst’s head went up.
“But I am not the Baroin hotel, Dr. Lane. You must recognize certain differences between Hill Farm and that haughty establishment.” Dr. Lane had laughed at the twinkle in her eye.
“I thank my lucky stars for them every day,” he had responded. “Well, if you are really sure that it does not make things too hard for you, it is certainly delightful to feel that one can carry on with a free conscience. I’m the slave of a time-table in Melbourne: it is sheer rest to know that at Hill Farm time does not seem to exist.”
“Only so far as you wish it to exist,” Mrs. Hurst had answered. “We want you to enjoy yourselves, Robin and I.”
Mrs. Lane had shaken down to captivity with surprising philosophy. Her husband had devoted his first morning to the manufacture of a makeshift crutch, by means of which she could move about a little, giving her a feeling of independence that added greatly to her cheerfulness. She laughed delightedly at her own clumsy efforts at movement, even while the pain made her wince.
“I was always taught by my mother that grace was essential to a woman!” she said. “Dear me, if she could see me now! Robin, you bad child, don’t laugh at the afflicted—you should be full of sympathy.”
“I am; but you would make anyone laugh,” Robin defended herself. She was standing by, ready to help the guest’s progress towards the veranda. “Do lean on me a bit, Mrs. Lane—I know it’s hurting you horribly, and I don’t believe Dr. Lane would approve.”
“Certainly he wouldn’t—but then, men are so fussy, aren’t they?” responded the afflicted one. “And I won’t be more helpless than I have to be. Just be handy in case I stumble. I shall be much more accomplished to-morrow; this third leg of mine isn’t really broken-in yet.” She reached the couch in safety, and collapsed upon it with a sigh of relief.
“There!—I did it! Just lift the old ankle up for me, my dear, and put that horrid implement where I can’t see it—not out of my reach, though. I may feel the need of exercise later on.”
“I don’t think you ought to feel any such thing,” said Robin, much concerned, although it was impossible not to laugh at the cheerful sufferer. “See, there’s a little bell on your table, Mrs. Lane: do ring if you want anything. I shall be just round the corner.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Thin my turnips; they’re crowding each other out of the ground.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Lane, looking at her respectfully. “You and your mother are people of many activities. I wish you would sit down and be restful for a few minutes: I know I saw you pass my window at five o’clock this morning.”
“Very likely,” Robin said, smiling. “I hope I didn’t disturb you, though.”
“No: I was awake. Do sit down: I know I’ll need something in about two minutes—I don’t remember yet what it is, but it will come to me! So it would be a pity if you went. That’s right; now I can feel more restful myself. Tell me, why do you and your mother live in this big place alone? I know I’m very inquisitive, but I was born so.”
“Well, we must live somewhere,” Robin laughed. “And Uncle Donald left the place to Mother. He was an old widower, and he hadn’t anyone else to leave it to—that’s why we got it.”
“And did he live here alone?”
“Yes, but for a housekeeper. He bought the place very cheaply: of course, he didn’t use it all, but it was so cheap he didn’t mind that. Uncle Donald never could resist a bargain. He used to buy things at sales, just because they were cheap; the house is full of queer old things he picked up.” Robin grinned. “I was the worst bargain he ever made!”
“Did he get you cheaply?”
“He got me for nothing, but he thought I was dear at any price. It was mostly my hair, I think: it had a most irritating effect upon him. Goodness knows, it’s burden enough to carry a flame-coloured head through life, without one’s uncles objecting to it. I thought it should make me an object of sympathy, but Uncle Donald seemed to fancy that the sympathy should be given to him!”
Mrs. Lane chuckled delightedly.
“Then you didn’t get on very well?”
“Well—not exactly,” said Robin, demurely. “We disapproved of each other. I could have put up with that, but I couldn’t stand the way he used to speak to Mother. He really wasn’t a nice old man, Mrs. Lane. You would have said so yourself!”
“He doesn’t sound nice,” said Mrs. Lane. “But I like his house. Don’t you and your mother find it very lonely, though? I can imagine being happy here for a few weeks—but to live here! I should want more civilization and fewer cows!”
“Oh, we’re never lonely. There is too much to do, and we’re so glad to be together. You see, I was away at school for two years, and we both hated that.” She jumped up, suddenly, as her mother appeared, bearing a tray. “Mother, you ought to have called me to carry that!”
“I thought you were in the garden—but I’m very glad to find you sitting down,” said Mrs. Hurst, smiling at her. “Just a cup of eleven o’clock tea, Mrs. Lane. I hope Robin has been looking after you.”
“Excellently—and I have been shamelessly keeping her from her work. But she begins so early!”
“Indeed she does—too early. I was just going to call you in for your tea, Robin.”
“Do have it out here with me,” begged Mrs. Lane.
Mrs. Hurst twinkled.
“I’m not sure that that would be correct behaviour,” she said. “Is it done?—the farm-workers intruding on the guest—?”
“Don’t be horrid!” pleaded the guest. “I am an invalid, and I need special treatment. Robin, dear, do bring your Mother’s tea and your own, and let us have a party. Cheerful companionship is what my ankle needs.”
“But—Madam’s luncheon?” laughed Mrs. Hurst, sitting down, obediently.
“Oh—lunch!” said the afflicted guest, scornfully. “Madam can eat a boiled egg. She consumes nourishment in your house at such frequent intervals that when her ankle is better she’ll only be able to waddle! You bring out to me trays loaded with food, and I strongly suspect you both of perching on the kitchen-table and dining on bread-and-butter.”
Mrs. Hurst shook her head.
“I might,” she admitted, “if it were not that I have Robin—just as Robin certainly would, but for the fact that she has me.”
“Not me!” said Robin, firmly. “I want full rations.”
“She certainly needs them, for she works very hard,” said her mother. “So I make a point of having meals properly served: it is good for us both, for it’s easy for women living alone to get into slack ways. We don’t perch on the kitchen-table; we eat very respectably, on the veranda.”
“But how nice! May I come there, too, when my silly ankle is better? I won’t ask you when Edward and Barry happen to be at home, for I know you would hate to have the whole party there—”
“I would!” Mrs. Hurst smiled, frankly.
“But when it is just we three? At home I have lunch alone every day—it suits Edward better to lunch at his club, and Barry is at school. I hate the sight of the lonely table.”
“We should like to have you very much, if you can bear lunching with people in working clothes. No human power can get Robin out of breeches until the evening, and not always then!”
“I should think not,” said Robin, warmly. “Fancy getting into a frock when one has to feed pigs!”
Mrs. Lane shuddered delicately.
“I don’t know how you do it—and manage to remain so nice!” she said.
“Oh, it’s all fun,” Robin answered. “I haven’t yet managed to see the fun of skinning rabbits, but it has to be done: no doubt the humour of it will strike me in time. Mrs. Lane, when you are better, aren’t you going out with your menfolk? You’d have an awfully good time!”
Again the guest shuddered.
“My dear,” she said, confidentially, “I was never made for the country. I can be quite happy while my men-folk are enjoying themselves, so long as they don’t ask me to join them: I simply loathe a gun, and as for dangling a worm on a fishing-rod, nothing bores me more, unless it is casting a fly, which I find actively irritating—cast as I will, the abominable insect never goes in the right place! I think your veranda is delightful, as long as no one asks me to look at the scenery or to gaze at live cows or chickens—or pigs! All, to my mind, are better in their inanimate forms. You won’t ask me to admire ducklings, will you, Robin, dear?”
“Never—unless cooked!” said Robin, laughing.
“Oh, then I can admire them whole-heartedly. What an understanding child you are! No—I really don’t want my ankle to recover too quickly: then I can lie here with an easy mind, read and write, and realize that civilization is really not far off whenever I see a motor crawling painfully along that awful track below. I can also be devoutly thankful that I am not in it! Life is full of compensations to the injured, I find—especially in a place like Hill Farm.”
“It is very cheering that you can take it that way,” said Mrs. Hurst, smiling at the merry, mischievous face—there were times when it seemed ridiculous to think that Mrs. Lane was really the mother of a boy of fifteen. “I hope your husband and Barry are as happy.”
“My dear, they’re in ecstasies! Edward says he has never been so delighted with a place—as for Barry, he shot two rabbits yesterday and caught three trout and an eel, and apparently life has nothing more to offer him. We are only haunted by a fear that you will find we give you too much trouble, and send us back to that appalling hotel!”
Mrs. Hurst laughed outright.
“Why, you’re no trouble at all! Dr. Lane brings in all his game ready prepared for the table—I wonder does he dream how Robin and I bless him for it!—and as for you, we give you a bell which you never dream of ringing. I caught your husband chopping wood yesterday, much to my horror. He wasn’t in the least impressed by my protests—in fact, he sent me away, and he and Barry brought the wood in, and filled the box!”
“Don’t dream of interfering with his pastimes!” said his wife. “He chops wood at home when he has had an unusually aggravating patient—it seems to work off his pent-up feelings.”
“I hope he has not any feelings of that kind here,” spoke Mrs. Hurst, with some anxiety.
“Oh, no—it’s just the joy of living, in this case: it has to find expression somewhere. Barry works his off by singing in his bath, and as his voice has not quite finished cracking, the effect is blithe, but peculiar. We’re just a very fortunate family, Mrs. Hurst, and we hope you’ll keep us a month!”
Robin rose with an air of determination.
“In that case,” she said, briskly, “I’ve simplygotto go and thin those turnips!”