CHAPTER XVA Great Shock
There was a whirling confusion in the mind of Nealie as she crossed the threshold and stood in the little room which was her father's home.
What a poor little place it was! There were only two rooms, the one upon which the door opened, and which was evidently dining-room, kitchen, and surgery rolled into one, and beyond this there was a bedroom, very bare and poor, with an iron bedstead, on which was a mattress and some dark rugs, but no sheets.
Coming straight as she did from the almost palatial comfort of the great liner and the luxury of the Sydney hotel, this poor hut struck a real note of dismay in the heart of Nealie, for the place was as poor as the poorest cottage that she had ever seen at Beechleigh or Bodstead in England.
But it was her father's home, and perhaps he had lived in such poverty in order that he might have more money to send for the support of his big family in England, and at the thought of this her heart grewwondrously soft and pitiful, for she had no idea how very small was the amount that her father had ever contributed to the support of his family since disaster had fallen upon him.
While she stood looking round, her heart growing more and more pitiful for the father whom she had come so far to see, Sylvia came bustling into the house and took her by the arm, giving it a gentle shake.
"Dreaming, are you, dear? Come and help me lift Rupert out of the wagon, and let us get him to bed as quickly as we can, for I am afraid that he is dreadfully ill. Where are the bedrooms? Oh, what a dreadfully poky little house it is!" and Miss Sylvia turned up the tip of her nose in disdainful fashion.
"Sylvia, there is only one bedroom, with one small bed in it, without sheets. Where can we put poor Rupert?"
"On that bed, of course; and if there are no sheets, we have some among our luggage, for remember we brought the best of Aunt Judith's house linen with us, and I know where it was packed. Come along, Nealie, and let us hustle things a bit, and then we will have Rupert quite comfortable by the time Father comes home. That dirty woman who unlocked the door says she thinks he must have gone out Pig Hill way, wherever that may be."
There was no withstanding Sylvia when her mood was like this, and Nealie knew only too well that Rupert must be attended to without delay, so she followed her sister back to the wagon, where Rumple, Don, and Billykins were already hard at work unpacking the baggage which had been loaded on to the rack at the back of the wagon; and when this was all cleared away they let the backboard down. Then, while Nealie and Sylvia stood on the ground, Rumple and Don managed to lift Rupert into their arms, and with much difficulty they contrived to carry him through the garden patch into the house.
He had left off shouting and talking now, and seemed almost in a state of collapse, a condition that frightened Nealie far more than his delirium had done. There was no time just at first to look in the baggage for the sheets which had belonged to Aunt Judith, so they straightened the rugs on the hard mattress, and laid their brother down.
"It is a beautifully clean bed anyhow, and on the whole I think that clean rugs are better than fusty sheets; but of course a doctor would have his things clean," remarked Sylvia, as she patted the pillow into a more shapely lump and laid it under the head of poor Rupert.
"I am going to make a fire, and warm him a little milk; perhaps he will like it better if it is warm, andhe has only had cold things all day," said Nealie, and then resolutely turned her back on the four juniors, who were so hard at work unpacking the wagon and bringing the boxes, bundles, and cases into the house.
Rockefeller had been unharnessed and turned into the doctor's paddock, which stretched away from the back of the house up to a line of hills thickly wooded. The horse was rolling with all four legs in the air, uttering equine squeals of delight, as if rejoicing in the fact of the long journey being safely accomplished. Ducky, tired of helping to unload, had perched herself on the top bar of the gate, clapping her hands in delight at the performances of the horse, which she imagined were being enacted solely for her benefit, and she grumbled quite vigorously when Billykins ran out to tell her that supper was ready and she must come in.
"We have supper every night, but it isn't every night that Rocky will cut capers like that," she said, with a swing of her plump little arm in the direction of the horse, but upset her balance in the process, and tumbled into the arms of Billykins, who proved unequal to the strain of her sudden descent, and so they rolled over in the dust together.
"I think that you are most astonishingly clumsy," said the small maiden, scrambling up with an offendedair, and not even saying "Thank you" to Billykins for having been bottom dog for the moment.
"When you want to fall off gates on to people you should choose big, fat people, and then perhaps they wouldn't give way as I did; but you really are fearfully heavy," answered Billykins, who was shaking the dust from himself as a dog shakes off the water when he comes out of a pond.
Then they took hold of each other's hands and ran back to the house, where Rumple and Don had got supper ready in the outer room, while Nealie and Sylvia were busy with Rupert in the bedroom.
The luggage had all been stowed away in as shipshape a style as possible, the wagon had been drawn in at the paddock gate, and now the place was crammed full with the big family, who were all, with the exception of Rupert, strung up to the highest pitch of excitement, waiting for their father's return.
But, having had no proper meal since breakfast, they simply could not wait until he came before having their supper.
Yet, despite the fact that the long journey was safely over, and they had reached their father's house, it was not a cheerful meal. Rupert's condition forbade any laughter or joking; besides, Nealie and Rumple looked so fearfully nervous that it was quite impossible to be even as lively as usual.
Rumple's trouble was simply and solely because of that letter which he had forgotten to post, and that had led to there being no welcome for them when they arrived. Of course it was surprising that Mr. Runciman had not written again; but then everyone knew that Mr. Runciman never wrote a letter when he could possibly shirk the task, and that was why they had been so urgent in their entreaties that he should write the letter while they waited on that momentous occasion when they went to see him to ask him to send them out to the land of the Southern Cross.
"If Father is cross because he did not know that we were coming I shall just stand up and say that it was all my fault, and that the others were not to blame at all," said Rumple to himself, and then he mentally rehearsed the little scene and the speech he would make until he forgot all about his supper, and just sat by the table staring out through the door, which had been left wide open for the sake of coolness, and the strained look on his face made Nealie's heart ache.
On her own part she was a prey to acute anxiety, and she was dreading most of all the first look which would show on the face of her father when he knew that his family had come to him. If the look were pleasure, then everything would be possible, andnothing else would matter; but if there were dismay or regret in his expression, she felt that she would never be able to bear her life again. Sylvia had no such fears; her nature was so different from Nealie's, and she rarely troubled about things which were under the surface, and so was spared many worries and much heartache; while Don, Billykins, and Ducky were only tired of the long waiting until their father should come, and they were already beginning to yawn widely because they were so sleepy.
"Where shall we all sleep to-night, Sylvia?" demanded Ducky presently, breaking in upon quite a lengthy silence, and voicing the very question which was so sorely troubling Nealie at that moment, although she rose from the table and passed into the other room, where Rupert lay, and pretended that she had not heard the query.
"Oh, we shall manage somehow, and there is always the wagon, you know, if everything else fails!" said Sylvia vaguely; and then she sprang to her feet with a sudden eager movement, for to her strained listening there had come the sound of a horse's feet on the road, a smart trot which slackened down by the gate outside, not as if the animal had been pulled up, but had stopped of its own accord.
"It is Father!" she said in a whisper, just as if the power of audible speech had left her, and then shestarted for the door, followed by Ducky and the three boys; but Nealie, busy with Rupert, had heard no sound of arrival as yet.
They had lighted a lamp when the sun went down, and now Sylvia stood on the threshold, with the four younger ones crowding about her, and the strong light showing the group up in outline, although it left the faces indistinct.
The horseman had stopped and dismounted; then, leaving his horse standing where it was, he came striding along the path towards the group at the door.
Sylvia tried to speak, but the words would not come, as she stood with one hand tightly pressed against her wildly beating heart. And then, as the man halted in front of her, she saw that it was quite a young man, and not her father at all.
"It is only someone come for the doctor. How disappointing!" was her unspoken comment, and she was just going to tell him that the doctor had not come home yet, when to her amazement he asked a question in a surprised tone.
"May I ask why are you here?"
"We are waiting for Father, but he has not come yet. The woman in the next house told us that she thought he had gone out Pig Hill way, and that he would not be long before he was back. I hope thatyour business with him is not urgent?" Her voice quavered slightly in spite of her efforts to keep it steady, for surely it would be dreadful if her father were called away to another case when Rupert was so badly in need of care.
"Pardon me, but I do not seem to understand," said the man, with so much bewilderment in his manner that Sylvia longed to laugh, but managed to pull herself together and to maintain a decent gravity of expression.
"We are expecting Father, that is Dr. Plumstead, home every minute, and when he comes he will find a very great surprise in store for him," she said, flinging up her head with a happy gesture, and now her laugh would have its way and rang out on the hot air, being promptly echoed by the younger ones, who stood pressed close to her on both sides.
"But I am Dr. Plumstead, and I have just returned from a case at Pig Hill," said the man.
It was at this moment that Nealie came hurrying to the door, and, sweeping the others to the right and left to make way for her, stood in front of the man, her face white as the handkerchief she held in her hand, while her breath came in troubled gasps as if she had been running until she was spent.
"Whom did you say that you were?" she demanded, her voice having a sharp, dictatorial ring.
The stranger, who had merely lifted his hat when he spoke to Sylvia, swept it off his head and held it in his hand when Nealie thrust herself to the front.
"I am Dr. Plumstead, and this is my house," he answered. "But——"
Nealie, however, cut into the explanation he was trying to make, and now her bewilderment was as great as his had been at the first.
"But Dr. Plumstead is our father, and we have come from England to live with him," she cried, and then stood staring at the man with ever-growing dismay.
CHAPTER XVIThe Next Thing to be Done
The man stepped forward then and laid a kindly hand upon her arm.
"Shall we go into the house and see if we can get to the bottom of the mystery?" he asked in such a kind tone that poor, bewildered Nealie gave way before it and suffered him to lead her into the house with which they had made so free, believing it to be their father's home, while the others trooped after them and gathered round the chair in which the man who called himself Dr. Plumstead had seated her.
"Nealie, Nealie, come quick, my head is on fire!" called Rupert from the next room, his voice rising to a shriek.
"Who is that?" exclaimed the doctor, looking, if possible, more astonished than before.
"It is my eldest brother. He is very ill, and when we reached here he was so bad that we carried him in from the wagon and put him to bed; but we did notknow that we had no right here," said Nealie, her voice quavering a little, although she held her head at its proudest angle and tried to look as defiant as possible.
"I will see him," said the doctor quietly, as she jumped up to go to Rupert, and then he passed into the bedroom with her; but, finding it in darkness, came back for the lamp, and, with a word of excuse to Sylvia for leaving her without a light, picked it up and disappeared with it into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
"Sylvia, if that is my father I don't like him at all. Why, he never even looked at me; there might as well have been no Ducky!" cried the poor little maiden, who keenly resented being ignored in such a fashion.
"That is not our father at all. Why, it is only a young man; but why he is here posing as Dr. Plumstead is more than I can imagine, and, oh! where can our dear father be?" said Sylvia, who was on the verge of tears, for the day had been a trying one on account of Rupert's illness, and, as they all agreed, the home-coming was just horrid.
"Buck up, old girl, it is never so bad that it might not be worse!" exclaimed Rumple in a nervous tone, for well he knew that if Sylvia broke down in miserable tears Ducky would at once join in, followed byBillykins, who only rarely cried, but always did the thing thoroughly when he did begin.
"Shall we have to go somewhere else for to-night, I wonder, or what shall we do?" Sylvia went on, drawing herself up and setting her teeth together until she could conquer that weak desire for tears, which would be sure to lower her dreadfully in the eyes of the boys and would do no good at all. "The house seemed embarrassingly small at first, but now that it is a stranger who is master, and not Father at all, why, the whole thing is impossible."
"We can sleep in and under the wagon, as we have done before; but Rupert can't, so I guess that we had better wait and see what Nealie decides is best," replied Rumple. But this was met with a whimper of protest from Ducky, who demanded to be put to bed somewhere at once.
"Could we not put Ducky on a mattress in the wagon, with Don and Billykins?" suggested Sylvia. "They would be quite safe and comfortable there, because the wagon is in enclosed ground and so close to the house also. Then you and I can wait round here to help if we are wanted."
"Brave old Syllie, I thought that you would find a way out of the muddle!" cried Rumple, giving her an approving pat on the back, and then he called to Don to come and help him carry a mattress out to thewagon, a difficult feat in the dark, but one which was safely accomplished after some struggles, a few bruises, and one fall that was happily not a serious one.
Then Sylvia carried Ducky out to the wagon and handed her up to Rumple, who stowed her inside on the mattress, bidding the two small boys lie down one on each side of her, and the three were sound asleep before Sylvia and Rumple had gone back to the house.
They were standing on the threshold of the dark little room, and wondering what they had better do next, when the door of the sleeping chamber opened and Nealie came out.
"Sylvia, where are you?" she cried, with such misery in her voice that Sylvia gave a groan of real dismay.
"What is the matter?" asked Rumple sharply. Of course he was solely to blame for all this wretched business, he told himself, as none of these disasters could have happened if he had not forgotten to post that letter.
"Rupert is very, very ill, Dr. Plumstead says, and we must make a fire at once and boil water for some kind of fomentations. Could you and Rumple do that while I help the doctor in the bedroom?"
"Of course we can. I know where the firewood is," said Rumple hastily, heaving a sigh of satisfactionto think that there was something useful for him to do.
"If Rumple is going to make the water hot, can't I come into the bedroom to help you with Rupert?" asked Sylvia, for Nealie looked thoroughly worn out.
"I will call you if we want more help, meanwhile you might make the poor doctor some tea, for I do not believe he has had a real meal since breakfast, and it is very hard for him to find his home invaded in such a fashion. But where are the children?" asked Nealie, looking round in a bewildered fashion.
"We have put them to bed in the wagon; they were so very tired," answered Sylvia. "Now I will get the doctor man such a nice supper that he will feel he is to be congratulated on his household of visitors, even though one of them is in possession of the only bed in the house. Oh, Nealie, what an awful situation it is, and whatever shall we do if we can't find dear Father?"
"Don't, dear, I dare not think about that or anything else until Rupert is better, and then God will show us what to do," said Nealie, putting her hand out with such an imploring gesture that Sylvia was instantly ashamed of herself, and set about being as cheerful as possible in order to keep up the courage of her sister.
"Oh, we shall get through all right of course, andafter all it is just a part of our adventures; anything is better than stagnating I think, and we have not been in much danger of that lately!"
Nealie went back to the bedroom, while Sylvia and Rumple did their very best in the outer chamber, where the confusion almost defied description. But their days of living in the wagon had fitted them for managing comfortably where anyone else would have been bothered by the muddle all around.
As it was, Rumple's fire was burning in grand style, and the various pots and kettles on the stove were beginning to show signs of being nearly ready to boil, when the doctor came out of the inner room to get something from the medicine cupboard in the corner.
"Will you please sit down and take your supper, now that you are here?" asked Sylvia rather timidly, for to her way of thinking this doctor had a very disagreeable face; but that was, perhaps, because she was prejudiced against him through the dreadful disappointment which had met them at the end of their journey.
"I do not think that I can stay for food just now; your brother needs me," he began, in a tone which certainly was brusque, although perhaps he did not mean it to be so.
"Oh, please, do!" she pleaded. "Because then Ishall not feel so worried, and I am sure that Rupert will not take much harm for half an hour, while you will feel far more fit when you have had a meal."
"It is very kind of you to be so insistent, and I really am very hungry," he replied, smiling broadly now, for the supper which Sylvia had cooked for him from their own stores smelled exceedingly good, and she was already pouring a cup of tea out for him and doing her very best to make him feel how grateful they were to him for all his kindness to Rupert.
"But won't you sit down and have something to eat also?" he asked, as she hovered about ready to anticipate his wants.
"No, thank you, we had supper before you came, when we were waiting for Father," she said, with a choke in her voice, which made her turn hastily away and knock a tin pan over, so that in the sudden clatter he might not notice how near she was to booing like a baby.
He frowned heavily, as he wondered what the guardians of this family could have been thinking of not to write and make sure that the father was in a position to receive them, before sending seven irresponsible young people halfway round the world, on the off chance of finding their father when they reached the end of the journey.
"It has really been very hard for you, and we must do our best to help you out of the muddle," he said quite kindly, as he enjoyed the results of Sylvia's handiwork and began to feel all the better for his supper.
"Do you know where Father has gone?" she asked, putting the question which Nealie lacked the courage to ask.
"When Dr. Plumstead passed the practice over to me, eighteen months ago, he said that he was going to Mostyn, and that letters from England were to be forwarded to the Post Office there, but that nothing else was to be sent on," the doctor answered.
"If your name is the same as Father's, how would you know which were your letters and which were his?" Sylvia asked in a wondering tone, for to her it seemed of all things most strange that there should be two doctors of one name, and that not a common one, in a small town like Hammerville.
"Oh, that was easy enough! I am an Australian, educated in Germany, and I have not a single correspondent in England. But only one letter has come for your father, and that arrived about two weeks ago, so I forwarded it to Mostyn at once," said the doctor.
"Where is Mostyn?" asked Sylvia.
"It is away in the back country, about fifty milesfrom everywhere, I imagine. It is a boom town; that is to say, they have found gold there in paying quantities, and so it will grow like a mushroom until the gold gives out, and then, unless they come across anything else of value, it will fizzle out as rapidly as it sprang to life. It is a little way we have of doing things in this part of the world," said the doctor as he finished his supper, and then he asked, in a tone of grave concern: "Pray, where can you go to sleep? There is certainly no sense in your sitting up all night. Your sister will stay up to help me with the sick boy, and then in the morning she will want to rest, and you must be ready to take her place."
"Oh, I can sit round in a chair and doze a little when I am not wanted!" replied Sylvia in that happy-go-lucky way she had of saying things, and which as a rule no one heeded. But the doctor frowned heavily as he said: "That will not do at all; young people cannot get on without proper sleep, and you must be fresh and fit to take your sister's place in the morning, for your brother is going to want a lot of nursing to pull him through. What have you done with the younger children?"
"We put them to bed in the wagon. It is just outside, you know, and we thought that they would be out of the way," answered Sylvia.
"An excellent idea. Now suppose that you go andput yourself to bed with them, and they will be sure to wake you bright and early in the morning," he said, smiling now, because there really seemed a way out of the difficulty.
"But you will want someone to keep the fire in for you to-night," protested Sylvia, who did not like the idea of being sent off to bed with the children, even though she was so sleepy that she could scarcely keep her eyes open.
"That other brother of yours will do that for me. What is his name, by the way?" asked the doctor, as Rumple disappeared from the room in search of more firewood.
"He is Dalrymple, only we always call him Rumple, because it suits him so well and is affectionate too. But you will certainly never keep him awake. He will mean not to go to sleep, for he is really a very good sort, and crammed full of the best intentions, but he simply can't keep his eyes open when he is very tired; so presently, when you least expect it, he will just double up and fall asleep, and you will not be able to wake him up however much you try. We Plumsteads are all like that, and sometimes it is very awkward," said Sylvia earnestly.
"I will risk it; only you must go to bed now," said the doctor, laughing broadly at her description of the Plumstead weakness in the matter of popping off tosleep at inconvenient times; and then he called to Rumple and asked him to see his sister safely into the wagon, and to keep an eye on it during the remainder of the night.
Poor Rumple! He honestly meant to do just what the doctor asked of him, for he was just as grateful as a boy could be for what was being done for Rupert and also for the way in which the doctor was treating the girls, so he trotted backwards and forwards for another hour, bringing in wood, stoking the stove, making kettles boil, fetching water from a crazy old pump in the next garden, falling over the tangled vegetationen route, and getting hopelessly muddled in the darkness. Then he suddenly became so sleepy that it seemed to him he would snore as he walked about; his feet became heavier and heavier, until the effort to lift them grew beyond his power. He could not see out of his eyes, and, collapsing on to the floor between the door and the stove, he lay there, happily unconscious of everything.
The doctor found him on one of his journeys out to the stove for fresh boiling water, and would certainly have thought him to be in a fit but for Sylvia's explanation of the family peculiarity. So he only smiled to himself, and, lifting Rumple, laid him more at ease in the farther corner of the room, coveringhim over with a rug; and then he went back to the bedroom, where Nealie was busy helping him with Rupert, and said, in a laughing tone: "I have just picked that brother of yours up from the floor, where he lay as fast asleep as if he were on the softest bed that had ever been made."
"Poor Rumple! His intentions about keeping awake are always so good that it is very hard on him to be bowled over in such a fashion," said Nealie, with a wan little smile, and then for a few minutes she was very busy helping the doctor put fresh fomentations on Rupert. But when this was finished, and the sufferer lay quiet from the comfort of it all, and there was leisure to think of other things, Nealie spoke again: "How soon will it be safe for me to leave Rupert?"
The doctor looked at her in surprise; but thinking she was tired out, and longing for sleep, he said kindly:
"You can go off to the wagon now for a sleep if you like. I should not have suggested your staying all night, only that I thought it would be good for your brother to have one of his own about him; but as he seems inclined to sleep now, it will not really matter."
"Oh, I did not mean that I wanted to go to bed!" said Nealie quickly. "This is not the first time Ihave stayed up all night. Whenever the children have been ill I have stayed with them. Indeed I am quite used to watching and being on guard. But I want to know how soon you think that it will be fit for me to leave Rupert to the care of Sylvia, so that I may go to find Father."
"You could not go to a place like Mostyn alone, and the best way will be for you to send and ask your father to come here for you," replied the doctor gravely.
But to this suggestion Nealie shook her head. "I heard what you said to Sylvia about Father, and I have the feeling that he needs us very badly indeed. Why did he give up the practice here?"
Dr. Plumstead hedged this question as best he could, for he simply could not tell this girl with the pathetic eyes that an old rumour had risen, which made it necessary for the doctor to go farther afield, and so the practice had been disposed of to the first person who was willing to give a little money for it.
But Nealie was shrewd enough to understand without telling, and, looking the doctor straight in the face, she asked: "Was it that affair of Father taking off the man's arm which was brought up against him?"
"Something of the kind, I think," said the doctorreluctantly. He was saying to himself how hard it was that this young girl should have so many hard things to bear when she seemed just made for joy and happiness, when, to his amazement, she broke into a low ripple of happy laughter, and softly clapped her hands.
"I thought it was that," she cried. "Strangely enough, since we landed in New South Wales I have stumbled upon the very man whose arm it was that Father took off, and someone told me that this man says it was the greatest blessing of his life that he was thrust out into the world maimed, to make his own way, and sink or swim as best he could. Now, when I have found my father I am going to ask him to communicate with this man, and to make the man set him right before the world; for why should my dear father have to suffer so heavily for having merely done his duty, and saved the man's life in spite of everything? It is a doctor's duty to save life at all costs, and no consideration of any other kind should make him do otherwise. Father was quite sure that the man would die if his arm were not taken off, and that was why he performed the operation in spite of the disapproval of the man's friends."
"It was, as you say, his duty to do his best for his patient, and it is hard lines that he should have to suffer for just having done his duty," said the doctor."But why can you not put this in a letter, and let me send it to Mostyn for you the first thing in the morning?"
"Because I am afraid that Father would not read it," admitted Nealie, first flushing and then paling, as she looked up at the doctor with her fearless gaze. "I think that Father is so beaten by everything that he has had to bear that he just feels as if he will give up and not trouble about anything more. So that to know all his big family have suddenly been dumped upon him will be a sort of a shock; but if I am there to assure him that we shall be more help than hindrance he may feel better about it all. Of course there are a lot of us, and we have fearfully big appetites too, except Rupert, but there are so many ways of earning one's living here that I think we shall soon be able to support ourselves, that is, Sylvia, Rupert, and I, for of course the others will have to go to school."
"You are very courageous, and I think perhaps you are right in wanting to go to your father, and if you will leave it to me I will see what arrangements I can make for your journey," said the doctor, and Nealie thanked him, feeling that bad as things were they might easily have been worse if they had not found a friend like her father's successor, who by such a strange coincidence bore the same name.
Rupert had experienced such relief from the fomentations that he lay in a quiet sleep, and Nealie, with her head on the pillow at his side, slumbered also; but the doctor had gone to the outer room, and was very busy looking up his case book and trying to make up his mind whether he dared leave his patients long enough to go with Nealie to find her father.
His private fear was that when she reached Mostyn she would find that her father had gone somewhere else. Doctors in mining camps were apt to be nomadic creatures, that is, they had to go to their patients, and it was no use to stay where the people were all well, when perhaps at some place fifty or a hundred miles distant men and women might be dying like flies from some contagious disease with never a doctor to help them. It was life at its roughest and wildest in that back country, and he could not let Nealie venture alone in her youth and ignorance where so many perils might beset her path.
Day was beginning to dawn when he heard Rupert speaking, and then with a tap at the door he entered to see how it fared with his patient.
"I am better, thank you, and I am very much obliged to you for all that you have done for me," said Rupert weakly.
"Ah, I think that you will do now, by the lookof you," said the doctor in a cheerful tone. "And now, with your consent, I am going to take your sister to hunt up your father, for I don't feel equal to all seven of you singlehanded," and he burst into a hearty laugh at his own small joke.
CHAPTER XVIIIn the Thick of It
A hundred miles or more from Mostyn, right out on the sandy plains, beyond the gap in the mountains which they called the Devil's Bridge, there had been a gold find. A gold prospector had been found lying in the mulga scrub with a big nugget in his hand, while his swag, when unrolled, had shown a whole handful of lesser nuggets.
The poor wretch had found gold, but had died of thirst, and those who found him came perilously near to sharing the same fate, so keenly anxious were they to make the dead yield up the knowledge of his find, by tracing his poor wandering footprints round and round and in and out among the hillocks of sand, the clumps of spinifex, and the mulga scrub.
But one man, more human than the rest, elected to dig a grave where the dead might rest secure from the ravages of the wandering dingo, and although the others laughed at him, calling him names, and going away leaving him to do his work of mercy alone, hestuck grimly at his task, probing down between the roots of the mulga bushes to make a hollow deep enough to form a decent resting place for the nameless dead.
He was quite alone now, save for the quiet figure on the ground and a hoodie crow which was perched on a swaying branch at a little distance, watching the living and the dead with anxious beady eyes.
Down under the top layer of sand the ground was stony, and the man who dug was weak from long tramping in search of the gold he could not find. Of choice he would have gone away and left the still figure where he had found it, but it might be that some day he too would lie like this, with staring eyes that could not see the sun, and then, surely, it would be good if some kind hand would make a hole in the hot, dry ground, where his body might lie at rest until the day of days, when the dead shall rise and the earth and the ocean give back that which they have taken.
What was that?
The prospector's shovel struck something hard, something which was so much heavier than ordinary stone, and that had a peculiar ring when struck by the shovel.
He leaned forward then, and picked it up, castinga scared look round, fearful lest any of his chums had repented and come back to help him. But no, he was alone, save for the dead; even the hoodie crow had flown away because it did not seem of any use waiting any longer, and instinct had told the creature that a horse was dying by a dried-out water-hole some two miles away.
The man dug another hole after that, at some little distance, and, dragging the body there, gave it decent burial, even kneeling with clasped hands and closed eyes for a few minutes when his task was done, trying to remember "Our Father", which was the prayer he had learned at his mother's knee many years before. It was the only prayer that occurred to him then, and it was not so inappropriate as it seemed. Then he went back to the first hole that he had dug, and, carefully filling it in, made a little cross of plaited sticks, which he planted at the head of the grave that held no dead.
"I guess that will about do," he muttered to himself, and then, with a final look round, he picked up his swag, and, hoisting it to his back, set his face towards the hills and civilization once more. Tucked away in his belt he carried fragments of the stone he had taken from that first grave he had started to dig, and he meant to raise money on his expectations, then come back with horses and tools to dig up thefortune upon which he had stumbled when performing that act of mercy to the nameless dead.
He was worn out and half-starved; he had been so near to despair, too, that this tremendous find proved too much for him, and when three days later he staggered into the main street of Latimer, which was a township some fifty miles from Mostyn, he was too ill to tell anyone of what he had found, or even to get the help for himself that he so sorely needed.
Most likely he would have lain on a dirty bed at the one hotel until he died, and so the secret of that empty grave on the sandy plain would have never been revealed; but it so fell out that two other men in the township were ill with a mysterious disease which looked so much like smallpox that a doctor was sent for in all haste because of the danger to other people.
The nearest medical man lived at Mostyn, and he had not been there long, and was indeed on the point of going somewhere else, because the people of Mostyn seemed to have no use for doctors, and only died of drinking bad whisky.
With so little chance of work the doctor was in a fair way of being starved out; so when the call came for him to go to Latimer, eager though he was for work, he had to admit that he had no horse to ride and no money with which to hire one.
But when men are desperate enough to ride fifty miles on the off chance of finding a doctor it is not likely that a trifle of this kind will turn them from their purpose. A horse for the doctor was quickly forthcoming, and he rode out of Mostyn in the company of his escort, just as the cart which was bringing the weekly mail entered the town.
"Would you like to wait and claim your mail, doctor?" asked the man who rode on his right hand.
"No, thanks; I do not expect any letters," replied the man of medicine, and a pang stole into his heart as he thought of the big family of seven motherless children in far-away England, whom he had virtually cast off, just because he was writing himself down a failure, and would not be an object of pity to his friends and relations.
If only he had known it, there was a letter for him by that mail, a letter which had come from England, written by Mr. Runciman, and posted on the very day the children sailed for Sydney. The writer confessed that he ought to have followed his first letter with a second long before this; perhaps he ought to have waited until a letter came from Dr. Plumstead before letting the children start, but there had been so many difficulties in the way of taking care of them in England, and so on, and so on, which in plain English meant that as Mrs. Runciman was not willing to havethem under her roof, the harassed guardian had not known what to do with them.
But it was a long time before that letter really reached the hands for which it was intended, and then it was Nealie who handed it to her father, and at his request read it to him.
It was a horrible journey for the doctor and his escort. The demon drought was stalking through the land, there were wicked little whirlwinds to raise the sand and fling it in blinding showers on to the unlucky travellers, water-holes had dried to mud puddles, and the broad lagoons, beloved of waterfowl, were thickets of wilted reeds, with never a trace of moisture to be found anywhere.
The travellers pressed on as fast as they could go, for who could tell what grim tragedies were taking place in Latimer since the two had ridden forth to find a doctor? There were stories of whole townships having been wiped out in ten days or a fortnight by smallpox, when no doctor had been forthcoming to tend the patients and insist on isolation and sanitation, with all the other precautions that belong to law and order.
"There are only eight hundred people all told in Latimer, and we may easily find half of them dead," said one man, with a pant of hurry in his voice, as the tired horses toiled up the last long hill into Latimer.
"But how many sick did you say there were when you left the town on the day before yesterday?" asked the doctor, who privately believed the men to be panic-stricken.
"There were two that had spots, and then there was that prospector who came in from the track across the sandy plain. He dropped like a felled ox in front of Jowett's saloon, and so they took him in there, because Jowett had a bed to spare and there was not another in the township," said the other man, who was tall and gaunt, and only about half as frightened as his companion, who was a small fat man with a tendency to profuse perspiration.
"Had he—this prospector, I mean—any spots on him also?" asked the doctor, frowning heavily. He had had more than one fight with smallpox in mining camps, and he knew by sad experience that the terror was worse to combat than the disease.
"I don't know. Folks were too scared to look, I fancy; but old Mother Twiney, who doesn't seem to be afraid of anything, said that she would see that he had food and drink until we got back, and Jowett will let the man have houseroom, for the simple reason that he is afraid to turn him out," returned the tall man.
Fully half the population of Latimer gathered to welcome the doctor when at last he rode up to theopen space in front of Jowett's saloon, and half of these demanded that their tongues should be looked at and their pulses felt without delay.
But the doctor had always been impatient of shams; indeed more than one candid friend had told him that in this matter he had done himself much harm from a professional point of view, as a doctor who wants to get on can do it most quickly by trading upon the fears of the foolish.
Pushing the candidates for examination to right and left as he went, he sternly demanded to be taken at once to the sick—those who had the dreaded spots most fully developed—and, as he was not a man to be gainsaid or put aside, old Mother Twiney was at once pushed forward to take him to the patients.
Snuffy and dirty though the old crone was, there was a gleam of true kindliness in her eyes hidden away behind bushy grey eyelashes, and she hobbled off in a great hurry to a wooden building standing remote from the houses, and which had formerly been used as a store for mining plant.
"Are all the patients here?" asked the doctor, as he followed her across the parched and dusty grass.
"All but the man who was taken into Jowett's, your honour," she answered; then, sidling a little closer to him, she said in an undertone: "It is not smallpox at all; I am quite sure of it. Why, thetwo men are not even ill, only nearly scared to death."
"Then why was I sent for such a long way, and for nothing too?" he asked angrily, knowing well that his fee would be according to the need there was for his services.
"Hush!" breathed the old woman, and now there was keen anxiety in her manner. "Whatever you do, don't let anyone know for a few days that it is not smallpox. These men are not ill, and the spots are only a sort of heat rash, I think, but the poor fellow at Jowett's is real bad, and he would have died if he could not have had a doctor. He may even die now, in spite of all you can do. I knew that no one in the town would send for a doctor to come so far on account of a man who was ill from a complaint that was not infectious, so when I saw the other two with the spots, I just made the most of it, and because all the well people were afraid that they would catch the disease, there was no time lost in sending for you. Now you must just put them into strict quarantine, and make as much fuss as possible; then they will let you stay here long enough to pull the poor fellow round who is lying at Jowett's, and they will pay you according to the trouble you put them to," said the old woman, with a sagacious nod of her head.
The doctor frowned, but there was sound reason inher arguments, and he decided to see all the patients before committing himself to any course of action concerning them.
The two men with spots were in a state of terror that was pitiable to see, and from outward appearances might be said to be suffering from a very bad form of the dreaded scourge. True to the lines he had laid down for himself, however, he said nothing to allay their fears, only looked very grave, issued a hundred commands for safeguarding the rest of the community, and then demanded to be taken to the other sick man, who was lodged at Jowett's.
The prospector's quarters were not sumptuous. He was merely laid in a shed recently tenanted by calves, and which had been hastily cleared for his use. The man was very ill, and Mother Twiney had not exaggerated about the gravity of his condition.
Here indeed was scope for the doctor, and instead of wearing a face of gloom, as when he examined the men with spots, his face was bright, and his tone so brisk and cheerful that it looked as if he were going to enjoy the tussle that was in front of him.
"Can you pull me through, Doctor?" asked the sufferer, looking at the doctor with lack-lustre eyes.
"I am going to try, but I don't mind admitting that I shall have my hands full," replied the doctor,who had never been in the habit of hiding from his patients the gravity of their condition.
"Well, if you do get me on my feet, I promise you a 10-per-cent commission on all I can make during the next year," said the sick man, with a sudden burst of energy, and then he called on the old woman to witness to what he had said, after which he sank into a condition of apathy, looking as if he might die at any moment.
Never since he was a young man and just starting in his profession had the doctor worked harder than for the next few days. He was happier, too, than he had been for years, and in the hush of the quiet nights, when he watched alone by the man who was really ill, he thought of his children and resolved that no longer would he shut them out of his heart and out of his life just because he had been a victim to circumstances.
He was thinking of them one night, as he strode across to the shed where the two victims from spots were beginning to recover, when suddenly he noticed another odour on the hot air; usually it was the pungent smell of eucalyptus leaves, but now it was the reek of burning timber that smote upon his senses, and turning sharply in the track he saw to his horror that there was a red glow in the sky over Jowett's. The place was on fire.
"It will blaze like matches," he groaned, and then turned to run, thinking of his patient.
But, despite his haste, the flames were shooting out through the holes in the roof of the shed where the sick man lay, by the time the doctor turned the corner by the store.
He tried to shout a warning, and to call for help, but it was as if his voice had dried up in his throat.
No one else appeared aware of the danger. The place seemed solitary and silent, save for the hiss and crackle of the fire.
Then he heard a cry for help. It came from the inside of the shed, and dashing forward, regardless of his own danger, he groped his way in through smoke and flame, then, seizing the sick man, turned to carry him out to safety, but even in that moment was stricken to the ground with the burden he bore, and pinned there by a fall of roofing.