CHAPTER XIIRepairing the Damage
When Rumple, perched on the back of Rockefeller, had crept quietly away into the darkness, the three elders sat straining their ears into the night for some sound that should let them know help was coming. Once or twice they spoke to each other in whispers, but for the most part they were quite silent. The two younger boys had drowsed off to sleep, while Ducky lay in a profound slumber, her warm little body seeming in some strange way to bring comfort and courage to Sylvia, in whose arms she lay. An hour dragged away, and then, to the unspeakable joy and relief of the watchers, a grey light stole over the hills, then broadened and spread until it was full dawn. There was no crimson flush of sunrise this morning, the sky was too heavy with clouds that had been blown up from the south-east; but at least it was daylight, and the comfort of being able to see what was going on made them all feel better.
The children woke up then, clamorous for breakfast. Only, as provisions were so scanty it was necessaryto have a little council of ways and means straight away.
"We could make some porridge, for here is some corn-meal in a tin!" cried Nealie, who had been industriously stirring among their overturned goods and chattels since daylight came to brighten the prospect.
"But we have no wood for a fire, and we can't make porridge without a fire," objected Sylvia.
"Ducky and the boys can get us some twigs and little bits of wood from those bushes just over the hill," said Nealie. "We shall all feel better for having something warm to eat, as the weather is so uncomfortable this morning, and while they are looking after the fire we three can clear the things from the wagon in readiness for having it set right way up once more. Never, never will I be so careless again as to leave it standing on a slope at night!"
"I should not grieve overmuch about that if I were you, for I fancy the wagon being on its side last night saved us from things more unpleasant still," replied Rupert; and then Nealie shivered and said no more about regretting her carelessness, which, after all, had not been so much carelessness as overcarefulness, because she had been so anxious that they should be stationed where the wind would not trouble them.
By the time Ducky and the boys had got a fire going, and the porridge—a kind of mush—safely on in course of preparation, the three elders had got the wagon cleared of all it contained and were ready to do their best to get it on its feet, or rather on its wheels again. But without Rockefeller to help this appeared to be a task quite beyond their power to accomplish, although they tugged and tugged with all their might.
"Whatever shall we do?" cried Sylvia in despair. "If only Rumple would come back with the horse we might manage it."
"I know," said Nealie, and, struck with a sudden bright idea, she rushed off to the heap of properties lying at a little distance, and selecting a stout iron bar which had been used as a stay for the rack at the back of the wagon she came running back with it.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Rupert curiously, failing to see what possible help the iron bar could be to them.
"I am going to use the bar as a lever and jack the wagon up. You see, we can lift it a little piece and poke something under; there are plenty of big stones and boulders lying about that will do, and if we lift it a few feet we may then be able to drag it over; at least we can try that plan, and if it does no other good it will keep us warm, and I am mostdreadfully chilly," said Nealie, who was secretly very anxious lest Rupert should get a chill in the cold wind, and was also weatherwise enough to know that it might rain at any minute now.
"The mush is ready; will you have breakfast first?" called Don, who was cook-in-chief, while the others ran hither and thither doing his bidding.
"We will get the wagon up first, and then the mush will be the reward for our exertions," replied Nealie. She was bustling about with feverish anxiety now, for she had felt a spot of rain, and it was too dreadful to think what might happen if a downpour began before their belongings could be got under shelter.
"Yes, we will get the wagon up first," echoed Rupert, for he too had felt a spot of rain and was as anxious as Nealie to get the wagon right way up once more. "Leave Ducky to look after the mush and do you two come and help us here, for every ounce tells, you know."
Don and Billykins came at a run and collected stones, which Rupert wedged under the wheel every time Nealie and Sylvia managed to jack it a trifle higher. But what hard work it was! The perspiration poured from the faces of the two girls, and Rupert panted with haste and exertion as he struggled with the stones which Don and Billykins brought in lavish abundance.
"Hurrah, she rises!" cried Sylvia in a jubilant tone.
"We can pull her up now, if we are careful!" yelled Rupert, who was to the full as much excited; and then, calling to the small boys to come and pull, the three of them hung on to the rope, putting all their strength into the task, while Nealie and Sylvia, chanting a funny refrain:
"Heave ho, my boys, heave ho,With strength of arm, and might and main,Heave ho, my boys, heave ho!"
bent to the task of lifting with the iron bar. The wagon shivered and trembled like a live thing, swayed, rocked, and finally with a jarring crash settled on its four wheels once more, while ringing hurrahs broke from the hard-working five, which were echoed in Ducky's shrillest treble.
It was at this moment that Rumple hove in sight again, clinging in a very undignified fashion to the neck of Rockefeller, while the old horse came on at a lumbering trot, warranted to stir up the most sluggish liver.
"What is all the row about?" he demanded, when Rockefeller, stopping short with disconcerting suddenness, pitched him off anyhow on to a pile of mattresses, tinware, and other miscellaneous properties.
"We are so delighted to see you back, for one thing,and for another we are rejoicing to have our house on wheels standing erect on all-fours," said Nealie, just stopping to give him a big hug, and then, running up to the horse, she dropped a resounding kiss on his nose, held a lump of sugar out for the wise animal to eat, and then, slipping the hobbles back on his legs, sent Rocky off to forage for himself.
"We must get these things put back before we have breakfast; for it is going to rain, and it will never do to let the bedding get wet," she said decidedly, and, hungry though they were, they came to the task without a murmur, only Ducky remained stationary at the fire, carefully stirring the mush, which was slowly cooking there.
But although everyone worked their hardest, the rain was coming down steadily before they had done, and they were all rather damp when they climbed into the wagon, carefully carrying the pot of mush, which was all that could be mustered for breakfast, owing to their stock of provisions having run out.
"Now, Rumple, let us hear your adventures?" said Nealie, who was reclining at ease on a rolled-up mattress at the back of the wagon, while Rupert acted as master of the ceremonies and served out the mush in such fragments of basins as were not too smashed up in the disaster of the night, and on tin plates, his ownportion being eaten from the inverted lid of the one saucepan contained in the wagon outfit.
They all made a great deal of fun of that saucepan lid, and the favourite diversion of Sylvia and Rumple was continually to ask Rupert to pass them something, because it was so funny to see him have to balance his awkward plate carefully on the top of the saucepan before he could do what was required of him.
Then Nealie came to the rescue with her question about Rumple's adventures, and at once the hero rose to the occasion, puffing out his chest with such an air of unconscious importance that Sylvia at once called him a pouter pigeon, to his great disgust; for he said it always made him feel sick to look at those conceited birds.
"Never mind the pigeons, they will keep; tell us what you did while you were away," said Rupert, eating in a great hurry, so as to get done before anyone required anything more at his hands.
"I was precious careful when I rose the hill to lie along Rocky's neck, so that anyone who noticed us would only think that it was a horse out on the feed," said Rumple. "But I put the old horse along when we went down the next slope, only I kept on the grass, for I could hear the men ahead of me, and I did not want them to know that I was following. Then there came a long hill and I could see them ever so farahead of me, as it was beginning to get light. Luckily they disappeared over the crest of the hill before it was full daylight, or I guess that they would have spotted me, though I was lying along the horse like a sack of meal. When I got to the top of that hill, and it is something like a hill too, the sort of thing that will work the starch out of poor old Rocky if we take the wagon that way, the men had disappeared and there was no one in sight for miles and miles. Presently I saw someone coming towards me mounted on a jolly fine horse, and I felt quaky from my hat right down to my boots. Then I caught a gleam of buttons, and I was sure that it was a mounted policeman; so I cooeyed for all I was worth and he rode up at a smart gallop to ask me if I had run away from home or what was the matter."
"What an impudent person!" cried Sylvia wrathfully.
"I don't think that he meant to be impudent," said Rumple, shutting his eyes with a languid air. "But I suppose it is not a common thing to see a kid like me doing extraordinary things!"
"Hear him!" cried Nealie, with derisive laughter, clicking her spoon against her tin plate.
"Well, I suppose that it is a little out of the ordinary for a boy of my size to do detective work on the track of a mob like those fellows who rode past us in the night," said Rumple, with edifying modesty. "Anyhow,he sat up and treated me with real respect when I told him what I was doing, and at once offered to take the job on for me; to which, as you may guess, I hadn't the ghost of an objection. So I told him all that we knew about them, and then I turned round and came back while he rode off after the men."
"But didn't you see anything of the cattle which bowled us over so neatly last night?" asked Sylvia.
"No, I didn't, and I can tell you it puzzled me no end, for I went miles and miles and I did not see so much as the swish of a tail," answered Rumple, with a dramatic flourish of the broken basin from which he had been eating his portion of mush.
"Mrs. Warner told me that stampeding cattle will run sometimes for many miles without stopping, and sometimes they kill themselves by their exertions," Nealie said as she wriggled into a more comfortable position against the mattress.
"It struck me as just wonderful what a lot Mrs. Warner knew about cattle," remarked Sylvia, with a yawn. "Her knowledge made me feel quite tired; for beyond the fact that a cow had four legs, two horns, and a tail, I had never realized that there was anything to know about cattle."
"There is something to know about everything; just see what a lot Mr. Wallis knew about horses," replied Rupert.
"Yes, and about other things too; but I do wonder what he will say when he hears how nearly I wrecked his beautiful wagon," said Nealie, with a sigh, for the thought of her shortcomings worried her a good deal.
"He won't trouble, or, if he does, he knows that Mr. Melrose will see that everything is put straight," said Sylvia.
"I do not like being indebted to the promiscuous charity of strangers, and Mr. Melrose was hardly more than a stranger to us," Nealie put in a little primly. Being the eldest, it was natural she should be a little more conventional than the others.
"Oh, Mr. Melrose likes being kind to people! Mrs. Warner told me so," remarked Rumple, with the air of knowing all that there was to be known. "He is most awfully rich, too, and he came into his money quite by a fluke."
"What is a fluke?" demanded Billykins, who was catching rainwater in the tin dish in which he had been eating his breakfast, so that he could have a wash-up after his feed.
"A fluke is what happens," explained Rumple vaguely. "It was a fluke that toppled our wagon over last night."
"There was not any money in that," said Don decidedly.
"Very much the reverse, I should say," laughedNealie. "Think of the broken basins, the waste of marmalade and pepper, not to say anything of the damage to our clothes, and all the rest of it. There are flukes and flukes, and our kind, unfortunately, was not the sort that pays. But, do you know, I don't believe that it rains as fast as it did, and so I am going to harness Rocky, and then we will crawl ahead for a few miles; for if we stop here we shall starve, and I want some dinner."
CHAPTER XIIIIn Sight of Hammerville
It was the next day but one, and Rockefeller was toiling along the heavy road outside Pomeroy, when a man in a cabbage-tree hat, red flannel shirt, and long boots rode up to Hutton's store, which stood on the outskirts of the town, and, seeing the van coming, dismounted, threw his horse's bridle over the fence, and walked towards it.
"Are you the Plumstead lot?" he asked, with a jerk of his hat towards Nealie, which was meant for politeness and accepted in the same spirit.
"We are," she answered, with a bow, wondering nervously if he were a bushranger, of which she had read so much during the voyage and yet had not set eyes on since landing.
"Which is Dalrymple Plumstead?" demanded the red-shirted individual, fixing a ferocious gaze on Rupert, who flushed and turned a trifle pale, wondering what could be the matter.
"I am Dalrymple," said Rumple, dodging roundfrom the shady side of the wagon, where he had been walking and trying to compose blank verse about Australian roadside scenery, but not succeeding over-well.
"Why, you are only a kid!" exclaimed the man in ludicrous disappointment, falling back a step and surveying Rumple with an expression of bewildered surprise.
"It is a fault that will mend with time," replied Rumple, with such crushing dignity that Sylvia, who was sitting behind Nealie in the wagon, gurgled and choked.
The red-shirted person threw back his head with a great burst of laughter, then, thrusting out a brown, hairy hand, cried eagerly: "Well, you are plucky anyhow, every ounce of you! Shake, will you? I'm downright proud to make your acquaintance, sir, and if you have come to these parts to settle, all I've got to say is that we are proud to have you among us."
This was quite too much for Sylvia, who choked so badly that Ducky thought she had a bone in her throat, and patted her with great concern.
But Rumple flushed up in an offended fashion, for he thought that he was being laughed at, and it made him angry, although, as a rule, he was remarkably even-tempered.
"Perhaps I should understand better if you explainedyour business with me," he said, puffing out his chest in what Nealie called his best pigeon manner, and which caused her to turn her head abruptly to gaze at the fence on the other side of the road, so that the stranger should not see that she was laughing so much.
"Well, I take it that you are the young gentleman that stalked the cattle thieves out by Russell Downs, and kept them from getting clear away with five hundred head of my cattle; and if that is not cause for thankfulness I don't know what is," said the man, gripping Rumple hard, and sawing away at his hand much as if it were a pump handle and the water was hard to fetch.
"Oh, they were your cattle that stampeded, and bowled our wagon over in the dead of night!" exclaimed Nealie, while Rumple turned pink with pleasure at the thought of being so much appreciated.
"No, Miss, I should say it was the other lot, which belong to Tom Jones of Hobson's Bottom, and if you want to make any claim for damages you had better send it in to him, seeing that he is much better off than I am, and his cattle are the wildest lot in the New South Wales boundary," said the red-shirted person, with such an air of wriggling out of it that the whole seven burst into a shout of laughter, and then promptly apologized for their apparent rudeness.
But he waved his hand in an airy fashion, and begged them to have their laugh out.
"And it does me good to see young things so lively," he exclaimed, taking his hat right off and bowing to right and left, as if he had received an ovation. "My name is Tim Callaghan, and I am Irish on my father's side, though I never saw old Ireland, and am never likely to."
"We are very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Callaghan, and we are quite sure that it must have been Mr. Jones's cattle that knocked our wagon over, so we will give his address to Messrs. Peek & Wallis, if there is any complaint of damage made to us about the wagon when it is returned to the owners," said Nealie; and then she asked in an interested tone; "But how did you hear anything about it? Were you helping to drive the cattle?"
"No; if I had been I would have taken good care that there was a better watch set," replied Tim Callaghan. "I couldn't leave because my wife was ill, but I heard through the police, who sent me word that I should be fined for letting my cattle stray to the danger of other people's property, and that I should have doubtless lost the greater part of my mob for good and all if it had not been for a Mr. Dalrymple Plumstead, who rode after the thieves and gave warning to the police. There is one comfortabout it, and that is that Tom Jones will be fined too, and it will do him a world of good to be taken down a peg or two. And now what can I do for you, ladies and gentlemen?"
"You might tell us which is the best place in Pomeroy to buy food, for our provision box is nearly empty, and things are so dear in these country places," said Nealie rather wistfully, for her money was running very low, and there was always present with her the dread that she would not have enough to keep them going until they reached Hammerville.
"You had better come along with me to Gil Addington's; he is about as reasonable as anyone in Pomeroy, and we are having a deal over some pigs that may help me to pull his prices down a bit for you, and they will stand a little paring off at most times," said Mr. Callaghan, who was uncommonly glad to pay his debt of gratitude in this fashion, since the cost would fall upon someone else.
"We ought to have some corn for Rockefeller too, if we can manage it," said Nealie rather anxiously. She knew that it was the poorest sort of economy to let the good horse go underfed, and ungrateful as well, seeing what a useful beast it had been. But corn for horses was a tremendous price in most of the little towns through which they had passed, and food for Rockefeller had become a very big item in the expenses.
"Want some corn for the hoss, did you say?" demanded Mr. Callaghan in a breezy tone. "Well, I don't know as I can't let you have half a bushel free, gratis, and for nothing, as they say in the old country. My wagon is in the town now, I believe, and the corn is in it safe enough, unless someone has stolen it, which isn't likely."
A queer, choky feeling came into the throat of Nealie as she drove Rocky along the main street of Pomeroy, with Mr. Callaghan riding on ahead. How kind people were to them! Of course she did not know that in common decency Tim Callaghan should have paid Rumple fifteen shillings or a sovereign for the service rendered in caring for the cattle, and that he also should have paid something towards the damage sustained in the overturning of the wagon. Ignorance was certainly bliss in her case, and she esteemed the Irishman a benefactor indeed, when as a matter-of-fact he was doing his level best to shuffle out of his obligations.
However, he beat Gil Addington's prices down to a figure so low that Nealie worried considerably as to whether she would not be a party to a fraud if she took the goods at Mr. Callaghan's valuation, and was not even consoled when he whispered to her in a loud aside that Gil was quite sharp enough to make the next customer run up his profits for him.
Still, it was an amazing comfort to find the provision box full once more, to know that there was enough corn to last Rocky to the end of the journey, and to feel that she had still a little money left in her purse. On shipboard there had seemed to be no anxieties at all, but ever since landing she had carried a very heavy load indeed.
There were a good many miles yet to travel, and the worst of it was that, although they had a very good map of the route, which Mr. Wallis had marked for them, they had several times made mistakes, and had gone miles out of their way in consequence. And in a journey like theirs such things tell seriously in the mileage.
The weather had grown very hot again, and everyone, including the horse, was feeling the effects, while Rupert and Ducky, the most delicate of the party, were almost in a state of collapse. Rupert, according to his wont, made no complaint at all, but Ducky, who had less self-control, enquired fifty times a day how soon it would be before they could live in a nice cool house again, and have beds with sheets to them.
Sylvia did her utmost to keep these plaints from reaching the ears of Nealie, for surely the elder sister had more than enough of worry and care. Sylvia had never troubled herself about things of this sort in the days at Beechleigh, when she had been as irresponsiblein her way as either Don or Billykins, but the long journey and the sense of responsibility in being so peculiarly on their own had steadied her and developed her character in quite a wonderful manner.
She rigged Ducky up a little shelter at the back of the wagon, because it was cooler there, and the dust was less. Then she would walk behind for miles, finding all sorts of things to interest the petulant little maiden, and beguile her from fretting, while Rupert sat on the front seat and drove.
By this time the boots of the most active members of the family began to show signs of heavy wear and tear; but that really mattered very little, as the weather was for the most part dry, and they had all a spare pair to put on if those in active use became too aged to be worn.
One day which followed a succession of other hot days Sylvia paused at a little wooden house by the roadside to interview a woman who had eggs and milk to sell. Even after the purchasing was completed she lingered talking to the woman, while the wagon lumbered on along a winding road that gave peeps of exquisite beauty here and there, where a river valley opened to view.
Presently she came running to overtake the wagon, crying, in an excited fashion: "Nealie, Nealie, what do you think?"
"I think a good many things when I have time, but I have not had much lately, and so the thinking has not been done," replied Nealie, who was riding this morning because she had stockings to darn. They washed their stockings most nights, and hung them on the tilt of the wagon to dry in the morning, and then it was Nealie's business to darn them, while Rupert drove; and as so much walking induced holes and thin places in every direction, the task was one of magnitude.
"The woman at the house yonder told me that when we reached the top of the next high ground we should see the smoke of the Hammerville factories right away in the distance."
"Hurrah!" cried Nealie, forgetting her occupation, and clapping her hands, with the result that she stuck her needle into her finger with such violence that it brought the tears to her eyes and made her wince.
"And she says that last winter, when her little boy was ill, a Dr. Plumstead came out from Hammerville to see him," chanted Sylvia, whirling round on the tips of her toes in the dusty track, and flinging up her hands like an Italian dancing-girl, which made Rocky snort and plunge as if he wanted to join in the fun.
"Steady there, steady, old fellow, we don't want you bolting at this time of day!" called Rupert in awarning tone. "Control your transports, Sylvia, for the sake of Rocky's nerves, or we shall have the old fellow developing a temperature, and then what shall we do?"
"You look as if you had a temperature yourself. Do you feel bad, Rupert?" asked Sylvia, coming closer to the wagon, and speaking so anxiously that Nealie glanced quickly up from her stocking-darning to look at her brother's face.
"Oh, I'm right enough!" he answered quietly. "I feel a bit heavy, but that is because of the weather. I think we shall have a storm before night."
"Oh, I hope not!" cried Nealie in a tone of dismay.
"It would cool the air, and that would be a blessing. Don't you think it is very close this morning?" he asked, wiping his face with the hand that was not occupied with the reins.
"It is hot certainly, but so it is every day," she said, glancing up at the sky, and feeling relieved to see that there were no storm clouds hovering in sight. "Give me the reins, Rupert, and do you go astern and lie down beside Ducky. You will be cooler there, and these stockings can wait."
"I think that it is a great mistake to mend stockings at all in weather like this, for holes are much cooler than little lumps of darning cotton," remarked Sylvia.
"I don't see the use of wearing them at all. I am comfortable enough with bare feet in my shoes, and so would you be if only you were used to it," said Rumple, coming up with a sackful of grass for Rocky's midday feed on his back. The younger boys took it in turns to provide Rocky's luncheon, and to-day was Rumple's turn.
"Sylvia and I are not boys, you see, and so the same rules do not apply to us, for girls always have to observe the conventions," said Nealie, with the prim little air which she sometimes put on for the sake of her juniors.
"What are they?" demanded Billykins, who at this moment ran up from the other side. But Nealie was spared a lengthy explanation by the timely arrival of Don upon the scene, calling shrilly upon the others to come and see a snake which was swallowing a frog, and getting choked in the process.
"I suppose we ought to kill the snake," said Rupert wearily. "But personally I would rather not."
"That is how I feel; for after all we have no quarrel with the snake, and it may be a very harmless creature after all," said Sylvia. "Don't you remember that Mrs. Warner told us a great many people keep a snake in their houses in preference to a cat, just to keep the mice down."
"Well, there is no accounting for tastes," said Nealie,and then she deftly guided Rocky on to the side of the road, drawing rein under the drooping branches of a lightwood tree, where they could rest for two or three hours until the fiercest heat of the day was past.
They were not as merry as usual to-day. The heat was so great that they all wore a more or less wilted appearance.
Presently a breeze sprang up and moaned its way through the trees, and Nealie decided, with nervous haste, that it was time to be moving on. She had a great horror of thunderstorms, although she mostly kept it to herself, and to-day she was vaguely oppressed by a brooding sense of coming disaster, which was doubtless the effect of the electricity in the air.
The way at this part was very solitary. Once they passed a bark-roofed hut standing close to the road; but when they knocked at the door they found that no one was at home, and so went on their way, by no means certain that they were taking the right direction, for although the route lay clear enough before them on paper, in actual fact it was very hard to find, especially here, where there were so many roads and beginnings of roads that did not show upon the map.
After some consultation they took the road which seemed the best and the most used, and, following it, arrived in time on very high ground, from whencethey had a fine view over a great stretch of country, dotted here and there with little townships and solitary stations, a rich and fertile land apparently, most of it being under close cultivation.
Thunder grumbled in the west, and the lightning played fitfully along the distant horizon.
"There is Hammerville!" cried Sylvia, flinging out her hand in the direction where tall chimneys stood outlined against a copper-hued sky.
"What a long way off!" cried Nealie, with a new note of dismay in her voice. She had thought that it would be possible to reach the goal of their journeying before the storm broke, but those chimneys were at least eight or ten miles away, and Rocky was showing signs of being nearly done up, for the hills had been heavier than usual, and the heat had been enough to try the mettle of the strongest horse.
"We had better camp for the night in the first convenient place, and then to-morrow we can arrive in style," said Sylvia, who was quite pink with excitement at the thought that when those distant chimneys were reached she would see her father again.
"I suppose that will be better; but, oh, I had so hoped that we should have reached home to-night, so that Rupert would not have to sleep on the ground any more! I am so worried about him," said Nealie, who had jumped down from the wagon, and wasstanding in the road trying to make up her mind which was the best pitch for a camp, always a time of anxiety for her since that night when the stampeding cattle had bowled the wagon over in their mad rush down the steep hillside.
"Let the boys have the wagon to-night, and we will sleep underneath. I should love it!" cried Sylvia, clapping her hands and whirling round on the tips of her toes, bowing to an imaginary audience, then giving a sideway skip to show the lightness of her poise.
But at that moment there was a crackle of thunder right above their heads, a blaze of lightning, and then a downpour of rain, as if the roll of the thunder had opened the floodgates of the clouds. It was no longer a question of where to camp or where to sleep. They just had to crowd into the wagon and stay there until the tempest had spent itself.
CHAPTER XIVThe Arrival
Never had any of the seven seen a storm to equal the one that followed. The thunder was almost incessant, while the lightning played in blue forks and flashes round a couple of stringy barks growing by the side of the road a little farther on, darting in and out like live things at play, until Nealie forgot half of her fear in the fascination of watching them.
Ducky had crept under the roll of mattresses at the back of the wagon, and was hiding there in the dark from the terror of the storm, while Rupert and Rumple were doing valiant service, one at either end of the wagon, in holding the curtains together, as the fierce wind kept ripping them open, letting in sheets of rain upon the group cowering within.
Rocky had been tied by his halter to the lee side of the wagon to prevent him from wandering under the trees and courting speedy destruction there. He stood with bent head and bunched hindquarters, as if in stolid resignation, although Ducky cried because he was too big to be taken into the shelter of thetilt—to be made comfortable, as she said. It was quite in vain that Don and Billykins sought to console her by saying that horses rather enjoyed being out in the rain. She was quite positive that they knew nothing about it, and told them so with brisk decision that left them without anything more to say on the subject. But the interest of the argument had dried her tears and taken away so much of her fear of the storm that everyone felt it was well worth while to have roused her to such a pitch.
It was dark before the rain ceased, and by then Rupert and Rumple were just about wet through from their efforts at keeping the rain from the others. There was no question of who should sleep under the wagon to-night, for by the time sundown came they were surrounded by about two feet of water, and although this would doubtless run off before very long, the mud which was left behind was every bit as bad as the water when considered in the light of a foundation for one's mattress.
So they all sat in chilly discomfort in the wagon, making a frugal supper from damper left over from breakfast, eked out with biscuits. Then, leaning against each other's shoulders, they tried to forget their discomfort in sleep.
Nealie had insisted that Rupert and Rumple should strip off their wet jackets and wrap themselves inblankets; but the worst of it was that Rupert was wet below his jacket, which was thin, to suit the heat of the day, and so, as might be expected, he took a violent chill, and as he had been very unwell on the day before, his condition, when morning dawned, fairly frightened Nealie. For he was blazing with fever, and talking all sorts of nonsense about his mother and Aunt Judith.
It was his constant harping on the people who had died which so worried her; because, of course, she very naturally thought that he was going to die too.
The driving on this day was left to Sylvia and Rumple, who put Rockefeller along at his very best pace, for they were all frightened at Rupert's sad plight, which was to rob their arrival of all the delight they had pictured when they should drive up to their father's house and personally announce to him the arrival of his family.
Don and Billykins trotted along the road by the side of Sylvia and Rumple, all four walking to ease the load, so that the wagon might get along faster. Ducky sat on the front seat, her small face pinched to a wistful anxiety, while Nealie knelt at the back end of the wagon trying to soothe Rupert, who lay on a mattress wildly declaring that he must get up, because his mother and Aunt Judith were in trouble and calling out to him for help.
"Will dear Father be able to cure Rupert quick?" asked the little girl, leaning forward to let her voice reach Sylvia, who walked on one side of the horse while Rumple walked on the other.
Sylvia held up her hand with a warning gesture. "Sit up, Ducky darling, or you will be tumbling off your perch, and we do not want any more disasters this trip if we can help it," she said, adding: "Of course Father will be able to make Rupert well. The poor, dear boy is only running a temperature, you know, and the shaking of the wagon aggravates it."
"Then it will only walk when we get home?" asked Ducky wistfully, with a scared backward glance over her shoulder as Rupert burst into a wild peal of laughter, and told Nealie that he had taken an engagement as a circus rider.
"What will only walk when we get home?" asked Rumple, who had noticed the noise Rupert was making, and was anxious to distract the attention of Ducky if he could.
"Why, the temperature, of course. Didn't Sylvia say that it was running now?" enquired Ducky innocently, and then was highly indignant with Sylvia and Rumple because they burst into a peal of laughter.
"What is the joke?" demanded Don, arriving alongside in a rather breathless condition, for he had beeninvestigating a cross track, and then had to hurry to catch up the wagon.
But by this time they were grave again, and, truth to tell, a little ashamed of having laughed so much when Rupert was so ill. Then Ducky had to be pacified, for, frightened by the nonsense her eldest brother was talking, she had begun to cry, until Sylvia hit on the grand idea of making her the postilion, and, helping her to scramble on to the back of Rockefeller, let her sit there in state, pretending to drive, while the last weary miles of the long journey slid by.
They reached the outskirts of Hammerville in the late afternoon, and stopped at the very first house to enquire where Dr. Plumstead lived.
The woman who opened the door to them declared that she did not know.
"I don't hold with doctors, and physic, and that sort of stuff, so I don't know nothing about them," she said ungraciously, and then shut the door in their faces.
"Disagreeable old thing; I hope that she will be ill and want the doctor very soon," said Billykins, shaking an indignant fist in the direction of the closed door.
"That is very uncharitable of you," said Sylvia, "and besides, she does not look as if she would beat all a good paying patient, and so it would only be a bit more drudgery for dear Father, for, of course, a doctor must go to everyone who has need of him, whether the patient can pay or not."
"Then I shall not be a doctor, for I don't want to do things for people who can't pay me," said Don; and then he ran up to a pleasant-faced girl, who was weeding the garden of the next house, and asked her if she could tell him where Dr. Plumstead lived.
"Why, yes, he has got a house on the Icksted Road, that is on the Pig Hill side of the town," she said, standing up to survey the wagon and as many of its occupants as chanced to be visible.
"Is it far?" demanded Don anxiously.
"Oh, somewhere about a mile! You must turn to the left when you have passed Dan Potter's saloon; that is right in the middle of the town, so you can't miss it. What do you want the doctor for? Is anyone bad?"
"We have come to live with him; we are his children, you know," explained Don, with the engaging frankness which he could display sometimes, although as a rule he was more reserved with strangers than Rumple or Billykins.
"His children? I didn't know that he had got any!" exclaimed the girl, staring harder than ever at the wagon, although at present there was not muchto see, except Ducky perched astride on the big horse that Rumple was leading, for Sylvia had retired under shelter of the tilt to make some sort of a toilet in honour of reaching the end of the journey, and Nealie was still ministering to the wants of Rupert to the best of her ability.
"That is not wonderful, because, you see, we have been living in England. But I must hurry on, and I will come to see you another day. There are seven of us, and we are just on the tiptoe of expectation about what Father will say when he sees the lot of us," said Don, with a friendly nod, and then trotted away in pursuit of the wagon, which had passed on while the girl leaned against the fence and feebly gasped, as if her astonishment were too much for her.
Dan Potter's saloon was quite an imposing place, and very tawdry with gilt adornments and coloured glass. They turned into a road at the left, according to the direction given by the girl, and then followed a road which was scarcely more than a track, and that abounded in mud puddles of a deep and dangerous sort, where the going was so bad that Nealie was forced to leave Rupert in the care of Sylvia, and come herself to guide Rocky from the pitfalls of that evil place.
There were newly finished buildings that looked asif they had been run up in the night; there were buildings in course of erection that looked as if they would tumble down before they were finished; and there were other buildings in process of being planned, but of which not much was to be seen saving a forest of scaffold poles.
"What a big place it looks," said Nealie, as with an abrupt jerk she pulled Rocky's head round in time to save him from pitching into an unexpected hole that yawned in the path. "I had somehow got the idea that it was only a little town, not much bigger than a village."
"It is awfully ugly though," replied Rumple, wrinkling his nose with an air of extreme dissatisfaction. "The man that built those houses at the end of the street ought to be condemned to live opposite to them."
"That might not be a hard sort of punishment at all," laughed Nealie; "because, you see, if he had no eye for beauty or artistic fitness the ugliness would not trouble him, he might even take a great deal of satisfaction in thinking how nicely he had done them."
"There is no accounting for tastes," grumbled Rumple, who was really more an admirer of what was beautiful than even Sylvia, who had the reputation of being artistic.
Then he dashed off to ask a man if they were going right for Dr. Plumstead's house, and, being told that it was the next small house that stood alone, he rushed back to the wagon with his information.
"I wonder if Father will be at home," cried Billykins, with an eager look on his face. "May we run forward and knock at the door, Nealie?"
"No, no; we will all go together," answered Nealie hurriedly, while a flush rose in her cheeks, and there was a nervous look in her eyes, for suddenly she was dreading the reception they might receive.
How forlorn they really were, those seven whom no one seemed to really want! And yet how kind people had been to them in all that long, long journey from Beechleigh in England. Of course, but for that bit of absent-mindedness on the part of Rumple, Dr. Plumstead would have known that his children were coming, and then he could have had a welcome of a sort ready for them. As it was, it would be the naked truth which they would have to face, and it was the fear that perhaps he would wish they had not come that made Nealie feel so nervous, as she led Rocky along the few remaining yards of that very bad stretch of road leading to the doctor's house.
Sylvia had left Rupert for a few minutes and was hanging out of the front of the wagon. Ducky still perched astride Rockefeller's broad back, while thethree younger boys were grouped close to Nealie, who led the horse.
There was a bit of rising ground before the house, and so of necessity the pace was slow; but at last they halted, and then stood for a moment as if uncertain what to do next.
"Rumple, you had better knock," said Nealie in a choked tone, and then was instantly sorry for what she had said, remembering that but for Rumple's forgetfulness there might have been no need to knock at all.
"Let me knock," pleaded Don, wondering why Nealie looked so pale, and Rumple seemed so scared.
"Yes, dear, you can knock, and Billykins will go with you," she said, with a little gasp of relief.
The two small boys dashed through the gate and up the path to the door. There had once been a garden in front of the house, but it was wilderness pure and simple now, a choked jumble of weeds, and flowers struggling for existence in the garden beds, and a wattle bush filled the air with a sweet perfume which always afterwards reminded Nealie of that moment of waiting before the house.
"There is no one at home, and the door is locked," cried Don, and then he tried to peep in the window, but was not high enough to reach the lowest pane.
"I expect he has been called out to a case," saidSylvia from her perch in front of the wagon. "Nealie, can't you send the boys to find out where Father keeps the key? I am sure that we ought to get Rupert out of the wagon as soon as possible, for he seems to get more ill every minute, poor dear!"
Ah, there was Rupert to be considered! Of choice Nealie would have remained standing out in front of the house until her father's return, however long she might have to wait, but Rupert must be cared for, and because she feared that his life might hang on his having prompt attention just now, she gave way to Sylvia's suggestion, and told Don to run to the next house to ask where Dr. Plumstead kept his key when he had to go away.
Away sped Don, nothing loath, and, entering the gate of the next garden, rushed up to the house door and knocked loudly.
The houses in this part of Hammerville were older than those of the more crowded streets, indeed it looked as if the place had started as a village at the first and then on second thoughts had grown out at one side into a busy town, while the other side remained sleepy and village-like, each abode having its own garden and orchard in the rear.
There was a minute of waiting, and then the door was opened to Don by a sleepy-looking Irishwoman, garbed in a very dirty pinafore.
"I don't want any firewood to-day at all, at all, thank you," she said pleasantly, her kindly face expanding into a genial smile.
"I have not brought you firewood, but I want to know where Dr. Plumstead keeps his key when he is called away to a patient?" asked Don, lifting his hat with so much courtesy that the good woman was tremendously impressed.
"He has only got one key, sir, and he always takes that with him, except when he leaves it at home," she said, with a sudden change of manner, because she decided that this was one of the quality, and no errand boy, as she at first imagined.
"Can you tell us how to get in?" asked Don rather desperately. "We are Dr. Plumstead's children, all seven of us, and I am afraid that he was not expecting us at this minute, so he is not at home, you see."
"Dr. Plumstead with sivin children! The saints preserve us! What next!" cried the woman, flinging up her hands in such profound amazement that Don could not help laughing, she looked so funny.
"The what next is that we want to get into the house as quickly as possible, because Rupert, that is my eldest brother, is not well," he explained, wondering why everyone should be so amazed because Dr. Plumstead had children.
"I will let you in with my key. It fits the doctor'sdoor, which is very convenient, because you see I do for him, and real hard work it is, for he is a dreadful particular gentleman. But sivin children, and you not the eldest! My word, what is the world coming to?"
As Don could not answer this question it had to go unanswered, and instead he waited in silence while the Irishwoman took her key from a nail in the wall, and set off across her garden, which was only one degree less untidy than the doctor's, to open the door for the children.
"Why, the others are bigger than you, most of them!" she exclaimed in still growing amazement, as she surveyed the group standing by the head of the horse. "The saints preserve us! What is the world coming to?"
Again Don had to let the question go unanswered, although it seemed to him rather rude. The woman unlocked the door of the little wooden house, which was plain and ugly, and did not even boast a veranda, then, dropping a curtsy to Nealie, she stood back for them to enter.