“But the Consul’s brow was sad.And the Consul’s speech was low,And darkly looked he at the wall,And darkly at the foe.“ ‘Their van will be upon usBefore the bridge goes down;And if they once may win the bridgeWhat hope to save the town?’ ”
“But the Consul’s brow was sad.And the Consul’s speech was low,And darkly looked he at the wall,And darkly at the foe.“ ‘Their van will be upon usBefore the bridge goes down;And if they once may win the bridgeWhat hope to save the town?’ ”
“But the Consul’s brow was sad.And the Consul’s speech was low,And darkly looked he at the wall,And darkly at the foe.
“But the Consul’s brow was sad.
And the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.
“ ‘Their van will be upon usBefore the bridge goes down;And if they once may win the bridgeWhat hope to save the town?’ ”
“ ‘Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge
What hope to save the town?’ ”
He said it in a queer, lifeless, sing-song voice, with not the smallest shade of expression. The end of each line was a recognized stopping-place, where he halted heavily. It was evident that the brave old lines conveyed nothing to him. Jo shuddered.
“Hold on!” she said. “Why did you begin there, Rex?”
“That’s where it began in my book.”
“And don’t you know anything of the part that goes before?”
“No. Is there any?”
“But there’s lots, and it’s the jolliest lines!” cried Billy excitedly. “All about the Etruscan Army marching, and coming down on Rome, and all that. Didn’t you never have it?”
“No,” said Rex. “Thank goodness, I didn’t. I reckon I had quite enough.”
“Well—!” said the twins explosively. They looked at each other in bewilderment. “Horatius” had been part of their lives since they were very small people.
“Jo,” said Jean, “let’s have the ‘Horatius’ play.”
“And no lessons?”
Jean nodded.
“It isn’t wasting time, if we can make him see it.” She turned to the bewildered small boy. “Rex, you like stories?”
“Rather!”
“Well, that’s a simply ripping story, if you get it the right way. Will you try and forget that you know a bit of it, and that you don’t like it? and we’ll make a game of it for school this morning.”
“But youcan’tmake that stuff into a game!”
“Can’t we!” laughed Jean. “Billy, you’ve got all your soldiers, haven’t you?”
“Rather!” gasped Billy. “D’you really mean to get them? And no lessons?”
“Really and truly!” laughed Jean. “And bring any blocks you’ve got. Clear the table, and we’ll go back to Ancient Rome!”
She darted to the store-room, returning presently with half-a-dozen packets of matches.
“Must be careful of these, because they’ve got to go back,” she said, stripping off the paper wrappings. “I know Billy hasn’t enough blocks left, now. Come along, Rex, and we’ll build Rome.”
They built it at one end of the table, a wobbly oblong, enclosed by strong matchbox walls. There were turrets and towers here and there, made of cotton-reels. Without, ran the Tiber, a noble river of yellow ribbon, wide, and doubtless deep. A bridge spanned it—a high-walled bridge, long and narrow. From the bridge you came out upon a wide plain, the rest of the table: it was easy to see it was a plain, because it was flat, and there were trees on it, and cattle, contributed by an ancient Noah’s Ark. It was all workmanlike and comprehensible, and something like interest kindled in Rex’s eye.
“Atlas, please, Billy,” Jean said. “You know, the Ancient History Atlas.”
She showed them the scene of the story.
“Now you’ve got to get that in your head, Rex, and remember it’s all real.” Rapidly she sketched the story of the downfall of the Tarquins.
“They’d been kings of Rome, but they were absolute wasters, and at last the Romans were just fed up with them, and they kicked them out. Served them jolly well right, too; the Romans were terribly proud, and the Tarquins weren’t fit to have in a decent city. And they cleared out to a place called Clusium—here it is—and asked Lars Porsena, the Etruscan king, for help.”
“Was he a swine, too?” asked Rex.
“No, I don’t think so. But he was fierce and warlike, and all those old States were jealous of Rome, because she was so powerful. They were all anxious for a chance to take her down.”
“Who’s ‘her’?” queried Rex.
“Oh, they spoke of Rome as ‘she.’ Well, you can just imagine this mouldy Tarquin crowd coming to Lars Porsena and telling him all sorts of yarns about the way the Romans had treated them, and saying what a great man he was, and that they were jolly well sure he’d never see them in a hole. I don’t suppose Lars Porsena believed half they said, but he was quite willing to have a war. All those chiefs were. They reckoned fighting was the only game fit for a man.”
“So it is,” quoth Billy, in martial tones.
“And Lars Porsena was awfully keen on his army. He was the biggest man of that part of the country, and he could command all the fighting men from ever so many cities. And he sent his messengers everywhere to muster them all at Clusium. And they came, as hard as they could pelt—armies and armies of them, until he had ten thousand cavalry and eighty thousand infantry. Just you picture that, young Rex—all in glittering armour, and with splendid flags, and simply gorgeous horses.”
“Whew-w!” whistled Rex. “But this isn’t really ‘Horatius,’ is it?”
“Yes, of course it is. It’s the only ‘Horatius.’ Just you forget that you ever learned it as a lesson—it’s a fighting yarn, and old Macaulay told it in a top-hole way. You’ve got to listen to it all presently; Jo must read it, ’cause she reads better than I do, and it’s just all music.”
“It’s not music when I say it,” Rex said, with a grin.
“No, ’cause you say it as if you were a lump of dough, and you come down with a ‘wop’ at the end of each line. You don’t make any sense of it. You listen to Jo—and when she comes to the name of any place, I’ll show it to you on the atlas. Well, Lars Porsena mustered all his crowd—ninety thousand—and then he consulted his tame prophets, and asked them what he’d better do. There were thirty of them, and they were very tame—they always said what they were wanted to say. They knew the king wanted horribly to go to fight Rome, so they told him it was all right, and he must go ahead and bring all the spoils of Rome back with him. So off they went, and as soon as they got to the Roman country they began to burn villages and kill the people. Now you read, Jo.”
Jo read well, and her clear young voice made the most of the singing words. The other three heads bent over the atlas, following up the story of the great muster and then of the fierce swoop on Rome. Rex was politely interested, at first. Then the story caught him, and his eyes kindled; he sat up, staring at Jo.
“And nearer fast and nearerDoth the red whirlwind come:And louder still, and still more loud.From underneath that rolling cloud,Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.The trampling and the hum.And plainly and more plainlyNow through the gloom appears.Far to left and far to right.In broken gleams of dark-blue light,The long array of helmets bright.The long array of spears!”
“And nearer fast and nearerDoth the red whirlwind come:And louder still, and still more loud.From underneath that rolling cloud,Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.The trampling and the hum.And plainly and more plainlyNow through the gloom appears.Far to left and far to right.In broken gleams of dark-blue light,The long array of helmets bright.The long array of spears!”
“And nearer fast and nearerDoth the red whirlwind come:And louder still, and still more loud.From underneath that rolling cloud,Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.The trampling and the hum.And plainly and more plainlyNow through the gloom appears.Far to left and far to right.In broken gleams of dark-blue light,The long array of helmets bright.The long array of spears!”
“And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come:
And louder still, and still more loud.
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.
The trampling and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears.
Far to left and far to right.
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright.
The long array of spears!”
“My word!” gasped Rex. “Wouldn’t you have given something to see it!”
“We’ll make it,” said Jean, delightedly. “Have a rest, Jo, and we’ll get the soldiers.”
Billy had played with soldiers since he was a very small boy, and it had been a hobby of his family’s to keep him supplied with fresh regiments. Out they came from their boxes: horse, foot, and artillery; ambulance-waggons, ammunition carts, and all the paraphernalia of battle.
“We can’t make it correctly, of course,” Jo said. “They didn’t have our weapons, and we don’t have their armour. But we can make a gorgeous and glittersome march; and you can just imagine that it’s all ancient Etruscan, just as you’ve got to imagine that that yellow ribbon is the Tiber, all muddy and foaming with flood-water, and that the match-boxes are really the great stone walls of Rome.”
Beyond doubt, it was a noble march. They headed across the plain towards Rome: Cavalry in the lead. Horse Guards and Life Guards, Lancers and Dragoons. They were brave with bright paint and glittering cuirasses, and with waving scarlet pennons. Then came guns, with teams of six horses, their officers galloping alongside; and there were machine-guns and other artillery, cunningly drawn by means of attaching a cavalryman to each with a scrap of flower-wire. It was hugely realistic. Then the “four-score thousand” came marching in solid formation: Highlanders and Fusiliers, men in khaki and men in scarlet coats, with banners here and there. There were officers standing in the empty ambulance-waggons, directing the march. Aeroplanes taxied on either side, loaded with men; the carts were full of bundles that were certainly ammunition and food. One mounted officer carried a splendid silken Union Jack, and near it a tiny model of a motor bore a seated soldier—once the driver of an ambulance-waggon. On one side of the car rode a Lifeguardsman; on the other, a rather undersized Cavalryman, one from a boxful which Billy, in his secret heart, despised, since neither in general splendour nor in correctness of detail did they come up to most of his army.
“Who are those fellows?” Rex asked; and Billy answered him, from the poem.
“ ‘Fast by the royal standard,O’erlooking all the war,Lars Porsena of ClusiumSat in his ivory car——’
“ ‘Fast by the royal standard,O’erlooking all the war,Lars Porsena of ClusiumSat in his ivory car——’
“ ‘Fast by the royal standard,O’erlooking all the war,Lars Porsena of ClusiumSat in his ivory car——’
“ ‘Fast by the royal standard,
O’erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium
Sat in his ivory car——’
an’ that’s Mamilius an’ False Sextus on his right an’ left. Doesn’t False Sextus look a mean little toad? I wish Lars Porsena looked prouder—but that driver is the only one I’ve got that’s made to sit down.”
“We’ll gild his helmet,” said Jo. “That will make him look awfully proud.” She produced gold paint from a cupboard, and endowed the Etruscan leader with a helmet of pure gold, to the immense delight of the small boys.
“They laid waste all the country as they came,” Jean said. “You can see the cattle clearing out.” She withdrew the Noah’s Ark cows to the friendly shelter of the trees. “But it will avail them nothing—see, there are a couple of cavalrymen galloping out on the wing to head them off. They’ll be steak before night!” she added, gloomily. “Now we’ll fix Rome—you can just imagine how anxious the people are there.”
She manned the walls of Rome with soldiers—a detachment of Seaforth Highlanders, made in a lying-down position, firing rifles towards the advancing Etruscans. Within the city walls were massed the casualties of five years—all the damaged and legless warriors resulting from natural accidents since Billy had first taken to military operations. Billy never had the heart to throw away what he termed a “wounded”; and when they were packed together, supporting each other’s tottering forms, they made an imposing enough crowd in the streets of Rome. Jo read on as they placed the men in position; and the little boy who had known in “Horatius” only the dullest of dull lessons felt something of the tense anxiety of the doomed city at the steady march of the Etruscan hordes.
“Get Horatius and his mates—quick, Jean!” cried Billy.
Jean brought three tall Guardsmen from a box and placed them on the bridge. They were officers, each with his sword at the “carry”: stiffly standing at attention they stared before them, looking loftily at the advancing hosts.
“Aren’t they dauntless!” breathed Billy. “Come on, Jean—here’s the Fathers and the Commons!”
These were kneeling riflemen—Jean placed them at the foot of the slope leading up to the main bridge, where they might easily be supposed to be working for their lives. Jo read:
“And Fathers mixed with CommonsSeized hatchet, bar, and crow,And smote upon the planks aboveAnd loosed the props below.”
“And Fathers mixed with CommonsSeized hatchet, bar, and crow,And smote upon the planks aboveAnd loosed the props below.”
“And Fathers mixed with CommonsSeized hatchet, bar, and crow,And smote upon the planks aboveAnd loosed the props below.”
“And Fathers mixed with Commons
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above
And loosed the props below.”
“Now the chiefs spurring, Jean!”
Jean took out the last three soldiers. They were Scots Greys, survivors of a well-loved set. Two of the chargers had wooden legs, deftly placed in position by Mr. Weston; but, though mended, they were still gallant and debonair, and they pranced out in front of the advancing army gaily, even as Aunus, Seius and Picus had pranced in the brave days of old.
“Now you’ve got them all, Rex,” Jean said. “Is it still dull?”
“Dull!” uttered Rex. “Why, you’d never think they were only toys—just wee little bits of lead and paint! They look so awful real. My word, I wouldn’t ’ve like to ’ve been in Rome!”
Jo read slowly:
“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,Right glorious to behold,Came, flashing back the noonday light,Rank behind rank, like surges brightOf a broad sea of gold.Four hundred trumpets soundedA peal of warlike glee,As that great host, with measured tread,And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,Where stood the dauntless three.”
“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,Right glorious to behold,Came, flashing back the noonday light,Rank behind rank, like surges brightOf a broad sea of gold.Four hundred trumpets soundedA peal of warlike glee,As that great host, with measured tread,And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,Where stood the dauntless three.”
“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,Right glorious to behold,Came, flashing back the noonday light,Rank behind rank, like surges brightOf a broad sea of gold.Four hundred trumpets soundedA peal of warlike glee,As that great host, with measured tread,And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,Where stood the dauntless three.”
“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold,
Came, flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,
Where stood the dauntless three.”
She stopped. Rex looked up at her with shining eyes.
“Oh, go on!” he begged—“go on! That’s never the stuff I used to say!”
Jo read on, putting all her heart into her task. It had somehow become the most important thing in the world, for the moment, that this little lad, who seemed to have missed so much, should get the same joy from the poem that they had had. She wanted intensely that he should see it as clearly as did Billy, who knelt on his chair beside the table, staring at the soldiers. Billy knew every word of the story, but it was always new to him.
And there was soon no doubt that Rex was ensnared. There came to Jo the feeling dear above all others to the preacher and the actor—the knowledge that the audience is caught and held. She felt him thrill to the words: she knew, when she reached some verse more than usually musical, that every line went home to him. He ceased to look at the glittering array on the table; it had served its purpose in fixing the scene for ever in his brain, but she felt his great eyes upon her all the time. It was as though she were reading to Rex, and to Rex alone, knowing that in reading she was giving him a precious possession that could never be taken away from him.
They followed the fighting for the bridge, Billy’s eyes ecstatic over the downfall of Astur; they heard the destroyed bridge crash into the flooded Tiber and sweep away with the torrent, leaving Horatius alone to face the taunts of his enemies. Jo heard Rex draw his breath sharply as the Roman turned his back upon the invitation to surrender, looking across the swollen river to the dear glimpse of his home. Her voice grew low.
“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!To whom the Romans pray,A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,Take thou in charge this day!”
“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!To whom the Romans pray,A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,Take thou in charge this day!”
“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!To whom the Romans pray,A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,Take thou in charge this day!”
“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,
Take thou in charge this day!”
She felt her lips unsteady. Even to her it was more real than ever before. She had a sudden vision of the wife who waited in that white porch for her fighting man, holding his baby to her heart. There was tense silence in the room. Then she steadied herself, and the story drew to its triumphant close.
Billy straightened himself with a jerk that shook the table and sent the Etruscan army into a heap. But the matchbox walls of Rome, although they quivered, stood firm and steadfast.
“Well!” said Rex, with a great sigh. “If that’s poetry, I want it every day!” He raised pleading eyes to Jo. “If you aren’t tired, would it bother you awfully to read it all over again?”
CHAPTER XITHE PATH OF KNOWLEDGE
AFTER that, lessons went more easily, because both teachers and pupil understood each other better. Rex had a good deal of the quick intuition and clear brain that had made his sister a successful Captain of Merriwa. He realized that it was only a different method of teaching that had transformed “Horatius” from a dull lesson into something startlingly alive. The words had been the same all the time, only he had not had the wit to read them until his eyes were opened. Possibly, he reasoned, other branches of learning might have possibilities; they might not all be mere devices for embittering one’s young life.
His books, too, were different. To tell the truth, Mrs. Forester had been rather horrified when she had realized the weary path her young son had trod—a discovery not made until Helen, fresh from school, had helped her to arrange Rex’s outfit for Emu Plains. Helen had gasped in amazement over Rex’s books.
“But these aren’t all he has, surely, Mother? Wherever did you get them?”
“I didn’t get them,” Mrs. Forester had answered. “Miss Green had them. She brought them with her. I believe I bought them from her: she told me most of them were difficult to obtain now.”
“I should think they would be. Poor little kid—just fancy having to wade through these! Why, they’re fit for boys of fifteen, if they’re fit for anything at all—only they’re not! Every one ought to be scrapped. Look at the tiny print, and the weary, long paragraphs. And to drag a little nine-year-old through them!”
“I do feel rather ashamed,” Mrs. Forester had admitted, after an examination of Miss Green’s ancient literature. “They are really dreadful, aren’t they? She came with high recommendations, and I thought it wouldn’t matter if she were a bit old-fashioned—I was so much away from home that it seemed better not to have a very young governess to leave in charge of Rex.”
“And didn’t he tell you he hated his lessons?”
“Well, he did. But then so had you and Wilfred and Arthur before him,” Mrs. Forester had said, twinkling. Helen had laughed.
“I suppose poor old Rex has paid the penalty of our grumbles—although I know the other boys and I never had books like that. Well, you’ll let me send up all the things he ought to have, won’t you, Mother?”—and Mrs. Forester had thankfully consented.
So Rex found his new lessons taken from books that were easy to read and pleasant to look at and to handle—books that made history a succession of fascinating stories, and Geography something more than a weary catalogue of place-names and products; and there was something new called Literature, so like story-telling that it seemed impossible that it should be really a lesson. He found new peep-holes into learning that were extraordinarily interesting. Punctuation, under Miss Green, had meant a collection of horrible things called “stops,” traps to catch the unwary, for which there was neither rhyme nor reason. With the twins, they became kind little bridges over which you stepped into understanding just how a sentence should go: some places required big bridges, like a full-stop, or lesser bridges, like a semi-colon, and others only tiny foot-bridges, which were commas: but always when you crossed them, the sense of what you read was waiting meekly for you, instead of being a will-o’-the-wisp thing that dodged away from you and hid itself in the mazes of a paragraph. Once you had mastered them it was impossible to read poetry badly, and the lines sang to you as they were meant to sing. Maps, with Miss Green, had been the dreariest species of jigsaw puzzles; now they became pictures that helped you to make stories wonderfully alive. When you had a twin reading you the story of how Hawke chased the French fleet into Quiberon Bay, the full thrill of the story came home if you followed his course on the map, tracing his rush through the quicksands and shallows and roaring breakers, his only pilot-light the flash of the enemy guns. “It would seem just any old bay, if you didn’t see it,” Rex said. “But when the map makes you understand what an awful passage it was—and he did it at night, and in a howling gale!—well, it just makes you squiggle down the back!”
And that is an amount of success which does not fall to all teachers—perhaps not to many.
Lessons ended at twelve, and there was an interval to recruit exhausted nature before the dinner-gong sounded at half-past twelve. At half-past two came bathing-parade, an institution for which the boys were never late. They mustered in the verandah, with light coats flung on over infinitesimal swimming-suits; and being joined by the twins, went, helter-skelter, down the hill to the river. The stream was lower than the twins ever remembered to have seen it, and in most places very little current ran; but the bathing-pool was still good. It was formed by a wide bend in the river; on the far side the bank rose high and steep, but the bank near the house shelved gently down to the water’s edge, in a little beach of fine sand. Mr. Weston had the pool always kept clear of snags, and it was fenced in, so that the cattle could not drink there. Trees overhung part of it: there were always shade and coolness there, even in the hottest days. A hut, built in bush-fashion of interlaced tea-tree poles, and overgrown with clematis and sarsaparilla, formed a dressing-room, if needed.
The Weston children had learned to swim almost as babies. They could scarcely remember a time when they had not rolled in and out of the water as they chose. But Rex could not swim, and, to handicap him further, he had an instinctive dread of the water. When a tiny boy he had fallen into a creek, and had been nearly drowned; and now, even to enter running water meant a rather painful effort for him. The twins had been warned of this, and they took him very gently.
“You’re not going to learn to swim at all just yet,” they told him, on his first day, as the small boy stood on the sand, looking as if he would have shivered but for the heat of the day.
“But I want to learn to swim,” Rex protested. “I’ve got to. I can’t go to school with other fellows if I can’t swim.”
“No, of course you can’t,” Jean said. “Don’t you worry, old chap; we’ll make a regular Annette Kellermann of you before we’ve done with you. But we won’t be in a hurry. You’ve got to learn this old pool first. Rule I is that you don’t go beyond that rope.”
She pointed to a cord stretched across the water.
“Now, just you remember that the water is never more than three feet deep on this side of that cord; and the bottom is all good, firm sand, with no holes or snags. That’s quite deep enough for you to practise strokes in when you feel like it. Plenty of time. We’ll sail Billy’s yacht first.”
Billy’s yacht was a noble craft built by Mr. Weston, and home-rigged. In a favourable wind she sailed well, but had a disconcerting habit of suddenly turning turtle with no apparent reason. Her builder stated that it must be due to some mysterious flaw in her original plan, but, as no one knew what the original plan was, this theory was scarcely helpful. Jo’s explanation was that she had really meant to be a submarine, and had occasional uncontrollable impulses towards this ambition. Whatever the reason might be, this curious habit of the yacht’s lent considerable excitement to sailing her.
The boys played with the boat in the shallow water during the first bathing days, Billy heroically stifling his longing for deep water so that Rex might not feel himself an outsider; and gradually the boy lost his first nervous terror of the cool touch of the river. Then, as the twins saw that he was gaining confidence, they proposed a new game. They brought to the river one afternoon a huge rubber ball, at the sight of which Billy yelled with joy.
“Water-polo!” he shouted. “Wherever did you get it!”
He gave the ball a mighty kick, and it rose high in the air, to fall in the deepest part of the pool. Billy was after it like a flash. He darted across the pool with swift strokes, and then, turning on his back, kicked the ball before him as he swam out again. Rex watched him enviously.
“Wish I could do that,” he muttered.
“So you will, soon,” Jo said. “Come along, and we’ll have water-tennis; you and Billy can keep the ball on the shallow side, and Jean and I will go out in the deep part. It’s no end of fun.”
It was indeed a glorious game for a blazing January day. At first Rex kept prudently near the bank; but as the excitement of keeping the ball going backwards and forwards grew upon him, he forgot himself more and more, and a few splashing tumbles gave him increased confidence, since he found that he always emerged safely. Soon he was as keen as Billy, laughing, shouting, and racing hither and thither after the elusive ball. Backwards and forwards across the rope it flew, a wet and slippery thing that never took the direction it might reasonably be expected to take; and after it plunged and splashed and scrambled and flopped the small boys, yelling with glee. The twins bobbed about in the deep water, like cheery young seals, returning the boys’ erratic services, and keeping a keen eye on the movements of their pupil.
“Working like a charm,” Jo said, nodding sagely.
“Yes, isn’t it?” responded her fellow-plotter. “Look at him!—he went right under then, and never minded a bit. He’ll be like a dabchick soon.”
And indeed, after three days of water-tennis, Rex revolted against the limitations of the non-swimmer. The ball had bobbed away from him at an unexpected angle into deep water; he flopped after it, missed his footing, and went under. Scarcely had his head disappeared when a twin was by his side, her hand on his arm. Rex came up, shaking the water from his eyes, and bursting into a flood of incoherent speech.
“Why, you’re not frightened, Rex?” demanded Jo, the twin in question. “You weren’t really in deep water, you know.”
“Frightened? No, of course I’m not frightened,” said Rex crossly. “I’m wild, that’s all! It’s just too silly, not being able to swim—I’d have had that ball as easy as wink if I could have swum two strokes. Do teach me, Jo!”
“My, rather!” said Jo delightedly. “Here you go—I’ll hold you.” She swung him off his feet, her hands under his chest. “Now kick away: hands too. I won’t let you down.”
Rex kicked manfully, thrashing the water until the splashing almost hid his teacher and himself. Gradually Jo induced him to calm his movements, and they progressed up and down beside the rope.
“Don’t try to go too quickly—you aren’t trying to increase your number of strokes per minute, you’re learning to swim. Bring your hands well back—remember you’re using them and the soles of your feet to push you through the water—that’s right, now you’re doing better. Slowly does it—now, don’t you begin to feel you’re shoving yourself along?”
“I’m not really, am I?” Rex panted.
“Yes, of course you are; do you think I’d walk about in the water carrying a great lump like you?” demanded his instructor, pithily. “Not much; and soon you’ll be doing all the work for yourself, and I’ll only be keeping one finger under your chin; and then I’ll forget you, when I want to scratch my nose, and take it away; and you’ll never notice, ’cause you’ll be swimming along merrily by yourself. All that keeps most people from swimming is the idea that it’s dreadful to go under the water; now you’ve found out that it’s really quite pleasant and homely under there, and you won’t mind a bit. And I’ll write to your mother and tell her you’ve developed into a young human porpoise, and she’ll be ever so proud! And now I think we’ll have a rest,” Jo finished, panting herself. “Stick your feet down: you’re only within your depth.”
“Like it. Rex?” demanded Billy, swimming happily on the other side of the rope.
“Rather. Only I don’t know that I’ll ever go by myself.”
“You’ll swim by yourself just as soon as you believe that you can,” stated Jo. “You know all the movements now—that comes of practising them on land. It’s only a question of believing you can swim—and there you’ll be!”
“I’m an awful hen in the water, you know, Jo.”
“Now, that’s the very thing you’renotto believe,” Jo said, positively. “The fellow who thinks he’s a hen in anything will act like a hen—and I simply decline to teach hens! But we aren’t going to hurry you, old chap: we’ll have a few days of practising like this before we let you go alone, and then it will only be inside the rope, and facing towards the bank, so that you’ll know you’ve only to put your feet down and bob your head up, if you go under. So don’t worry.”
“You’re an awful brick, Jo!” said the small boy gratefully.
“I’m not—I’m a high-class instructor!” said Jo, laughing. “Come on, and we’ll have some more tennis.”
They practised tennis and swimming alternately during that day and the next, Jo and Jean taking turns in supporting their kicking pupil. On the way up to the house, and at intervals throughout the day, he was to be seen vigorously employing the breast-stroke; he was even discovered face downwards across a log in the paddock, practising with his feet as well as his arms, and gasping heavily.
“There’s nothing in it, you know,” he said in his old-fashioned manner to Billy. “Any ass could do the movements. Then why can’t I swim?”
“But p’rhaps you can,” said Billy, grinning. “Jo says you can do anything if you only believe you can. You’d better practise believing, instead of breast-stroke!”
“I believe I’d better,” said Rex solemnly.
Billy awoke next morning earlier than usual. He fancied he had heard a step: and yet there was no sound in the house. He leaned on his elbow, and looking across towards Rex’s bed, saw that it was empty.
This was unusual, for Rex loved his bed, and, as a rule, it was hard to withdraw him from it. Billy was mildly surprised. There was another sound, inside their room, and he went to the window and peeped in. Rex, in his little coat and sandals, a towel over his arm, was just going out into the passage.
“Great Scott!” said Billy. “He’s off to bathe by himself!”
A moment’s reflection showed him that this was a proceeding that should not be allowed. He hesitated a moment over the point of calling Jean and Jo: then he decided that he could deal with it himself. He slipped on his bathing-knickers and coat, and trotted down the hill after Rex, just as the twin’s alarum-clock brought them painfully from their beds.
Ambition had been striving within Rex for four-and-twenty hours. He wanted to swim alone: he felt within himself that hecouldswim, if only he might try without anyone there to witness his preliminary struggles. Overnight he had made up his mind to go down alone to the river, if only he could awake early enough. He had gone to sleep urgently repeating, “I’m going to wake up at four”; he had given himself four hard knocks on the head, a plan which—so he had heard—never failed to rouse you at the time indicated by the number of knocks. And whether the fact was due to one of these charms, or to his own determination, he had certainly waked up in the early dawn.
Bathing did not seem half so tempting then as in the heat of the day, although it had been a hot night, and he had lain with only a sheet as covering. Still, his mind was made up, and it was an obstinate enough little mind; so, after a few moments’ hesitation, he got up noiselessly, and slipped away.
He ran down the hill as hard as he could, trying to get hot enough to be anxious for the cool touch of the water. But he was not very thoroughly warmed when he reached the river; and it looked lonely and dark under its overhanging trees. He flung off his sandals and coat without giving himself time to think, and ran in.
Whew-w! it was cold. At the first touch of the still water his courage almost melted. This would not do, he knew. Stooping, he splashed water over his head and face, as the twins had taught him, and then flung himself full-length in the shallows, knowing that once he was wet all over, one terror would have passed. That was better. He stood up and waded sturdily out towards the rope—just as Billy gained the bank and dived into the dressing-hut for purposes of observation.
Rex turned when he reached the rope and faced the bank from which he had come, telling himself, over and over, that if he did go under he was only within his depth. It was a comforting thought, but it needed constant repetition, or it seemed to slip away from him—so dark and unpleasant seemed the water. It was not at all like the warm, cheery pool in which they frolicked daily after dinner. There was no small effort of heroism, at length, in his sudden, clumsy dive forward.
He went under, lost his head for a moment, and came up, gasping and spluttering, all his courage gone, for a moment. Then he realized that he had not tried to swim at all—that from the first his feet had been seeking for the bottom. “Silly ass I am!” he remarked—and dived forward again, kicking vigorously.
Hurrah! he was swimming. One, two, three—yes, that was certainly three strokes, and he was almost in the shallows. Another, and his knees touched the bottom. He turned on his back, digging his hands into the oozy sand, and kicked in an ecstasy of triumph. The rope was really quite a decent distance away, and he had swum from it—he, Rex Forester, who had always been scared of water! It was almost beyond belief.
“Won’t Jo yell!” he said aloud. “I—I think I’ll swim out to the rope again.”
He rose and waded a few steps, and cast himself forward again. It was quite easy this time: he made a huge splashing, but certainly the rope was getting nearer. Then almost within reach of it, he missed his stroke and tried to clutch the rope, losing his head for a moment. The impetus of his kick carried him forward, under the rope. There was nothing but deep water before him, and he did not know how to turn. Terror seized him, and he went under.
He rose, choking, clawing at the air. Then a leg, lean and brown and scarred, came beside him, and, as he clutched it, a cool voice spoke cheerily.
“My word, that was bonza!” said Billy. “Told you you’d swim. Hang on to my leg and turn now, and I’ll give you a start and race you in.”
Rex grasped him, panting. Billy, on his back, was holding the taut rope with both hands and stiffening his young body in the water, kicking gently towards him. He drew him quietly back until the rope was within his reach. A faint sigh of relief escaped the rescuer as Rex caught the cord and pulled himself in until his feet were on the bottom once more.
“You’re a nice sort of chap, scooting off to go swimming all alone,” said Billy, bobbing up and down cheerily beside him. “Anyhow, now you know that you can swim all right, and we’ll have no end of larks.”
“I can’t,” Rex shivered, his teeth chattering. “I’d have drowned if you hadn’t come.”
“Not you!” Billy’s voice was reassuring. “You only thought you couldn’t swim for a moment. Come along and we’ll swim in.”
“I don’t think I will,” Rex quivered. “I’ll just wade in.”
“Ah, don’t,” Billy begged. “You can’t say that, after the way you were swimming about before I came in. Have a go, now—I’ll be just behind you.”
Thus adjured, Rex gripped his waning courage in both hands and plunged in again. This time it was quite easy: in a moment he was near the bank and Billy was crowing gently beside him, triumphant.
“That’s top-hole. Cold?”
“Rather!” chattered Rex.
“I’ll tell you what, then—come and have a race on the bank to get warm, and we’ll have another practice afterwards.”
They splashed out and tore round the dry slopes like a couple of young puppies. The sun was well up now: already it was warm with the promise of a blazing day. In a few minutes they were glowing with heat. Down the bank again and into the water, tumbling over each other in the shallows; then they swam out to the rope, and back again, and round and round in a circle, Rex’s confidence developing at every stroke. He tingled with the joy that comes with the first knowledge that deep water has lost its mystery and terror and has become merely a playfellow.
“I believe I could swim right across, now!” he said, looking longingly at the deep side.
“Yes, but you better hadn’t—it must be nearly cow-time,” said Billy prudently. “Come along home, or the girls will be hunting for us.”
They trotted home gently, hugging the prospect of surprising the twins. A knowledge of the early-morning habits of those energetic damsels enabled them to slip into their room unperceived, and when they appeared presently in the kitchen, ready for milking, their hats concealing their damp heads, no one suspected them of anything more than being rather later than usual. Faint surprise was excited by their appetites, which seemed remarkable for the early morning, even for small boys.
“Them’s the two to eat,” remarked Sarah, looking after them as they ran off to milk, their hands full of food. “Here was me thinkin’ I’d enough scones to do breakfast—but they’ve made ’em look silly. Well, you’d sooner see ’em eatin’ than not eatin’.”
“Yes, and Rex is looking ever so much better already,” said Jo, with satisfaction.
“H’m,” sniffed Sarah, who adored Billy and viewed with distrust and suspicion any small boy so completely unlike him. “I dunno that you’ll ever make a man of him. He’s built wrong. Think he’ll ever swim?”
“Oh, yes—after a bit,” Jo said. “One can’t expect too much all at once.”
They had agreed between themselves that it would be extremely unwise to try to hurry Rex’s development in the water; and as they followed the boys down to the river that afternoon they reminded each other of his disadvantages, deciding that for a week or two they would not think of allowing him to try to swim alone.
“I’d rather wait a month than risk him losing his nerve,” Jo remarked, as they neared the river-bank. “It’s one thing to paddle round with someone holding you, and quite another to find yourself with nothing but cold water as a support. And he’s such a scared little kid. We’d never forgive ourselves if——”
She broke off, gaping. They had come within sight of the pool; and there, beside the rope, the “scared little kid” was swimming solemnly, his earnest face, with very tightly-shut lips, held stiffly away from the water, his eyes anxiously watching for them, to make sure they missed no detail of his prowess. At the sight of their amazed faces he uttered a kind of triumphant snort, and promptly sank—emerging a second later, grinning broadly. Beside him, Billy swung upon the rope, chanting a gleeful song.
“Well—I—never!” gasped the twins, in unison.
“We couldn’t wait for you,” called Billy patronizingly. “You’re so jolly slow at teaching a chap to swim!”
CHAPTER XIIRESPONSIBILITIES
MOTHER had gone to Melbourne, much against her will, to see the dentist—that useful person who secures for many Bush mothers their only chance of a holiday to the city. But on this occasion Mrs. Weston was not in the least grateful for the trip. In better times, when a visit to Town meant pretty clothes, theatres and smart restaurants, the necessity for a few painful hours in the dentist’s chair never seemed a high price to pay. But now, with so little money to spare that her beloved twins had to work at home, the journey was merely a nuisance, and she resented having to spend so much upon herself—after the fashion of mothers. Melbourne was hot, dusty, and empty of all the people she knew: they were all at the seaside or in the cool shelter of the hills. Mrs. Weston harried the dentist until he consented to hurry through her treatment, and thankfully sent a telegram to Emu Plains to announce her speedy return.
Tom Holmes brought the telegram out, driving his father’s car. A long trail of dust marked his dash up the track through the grassless paddock. The twins, just returned from bathing, met him on the verandah.
“Lucky people—you look disgustingly cool,” said the stout youth, pushing his broad Panama back from his hot forehead. “How do you manage it?”
“Swimming,” said Jean, shaking her damp curls. “There’s still water in the bathing-pool, though very little in the other part of the river.”
“Well, it’ll soon be the only place in this district that isn’t solid dust, if we don’t get rain before long,” declared Tom. “Our billabong and creek are bone-dry, and the river’s only a trickle. Father says he’ll have to send every hoof off the place—not that he’s got many left.”
“The whole country looks awful,” Jo said. “It doesn’t seem possible that there was ever thick green grass on those bare paddocks—or that there ever would be any again. How are your horses, Tom?”
“Poor as crows, except two or three that we keep in the stable. Of course, there are hardly any here now; they’ve all gone away for change of air,” said Tom, laughing rather bitterly. “Well, I’m generally keen enough on being at home, but I’m beginning to feel I can stand a change of scene myself; it gives a fellow the blues to see nothing but dust and half-starved stock. For once in my life I’d rather drive the car than ride; one gets about the country more quickly. That reminds me. I thought I’d bring out your mail. There’s a wire for you.”
“Father’s out, so we’d better open it—I expect it’s from Mother,” Jo said. “Yes; and she’ll be home to-morrow, Jean—hooray! It seems an age since she went away, and it’s only four days. Thanks, ever so, Tom. Do you feel like tea? Or a lemon squash?”
“If I’m to be strictly truthful,” said Tom, “I feel like both. A squash would make me less like a sandy desert, and then I’d enjoy some tea. At present, tea would be wasted on me: it would merely hiss when it struck me, and immediately vanish in steam!”
“Poor boy!” laughed Jo. “Come along, and we’ll brew the squash before tea comes in. Thank goodness Father planted lemon-trees near the spring; they haven’t the least idea there’s a drought on. Would you like a wash first, Tom?”
“I was afraid I looked like that,” said Tom unhappily. “Yes, please. Bathroom on the verandah?”
“Yes. And you really didn’t look like it, only I thought it might make you feel a bit happier. Is it necessary to say, ‘Don’t waste the water,’ or would you be insulted?”
“I should think I would,” declared Tom; “we’ve got a drought of our own, haven’t we?” He strode off, returning presently to find a brimming tumbler awaiting him in the cool dimness of the shaded dining-room.
“That’s gorgeous!” he declared, putting down the empty glass. “I had a drink from the tap in the bathroom first, because, of course, no drink is really long enough in weather like this, and——”
“You shouldn’t have drunk that water,” stated Jean anxiously. “It isn’t drinking-water. Now we ought to sterilize you.”
“Any water’s drinking-water in weather like this,” said Tom, unmoved. “Besides, it will get thoroughly boiled when I go out into the heat again, so why worry? Water is always purified if you submit it to a high enough temperature—and goodness knows the thermometer is doing its best to break records to-day. How’s your pupil-teaching going, Jean?”
“Oh, well enough,” Jean answered. “We’re beginning to feel we’re making some progress. At first we were very scared of our job, but we are plucking up courage now. Rex is getting much more like an ordinary boy, and that’s a comfort. We were afraid he’d never be ordinary, but it’s surprising to see how soon polish like his disappears among plain and honest folk!”
“Is that what you are?” Tom demanded, round-eyed.
“Yes—very plain and honest. Don’t you dare to say we’re not, Tom Holmes!”
“All right,” said Tom, meekly; “I won’t; only just you remember it wasn’t me that said you were plain. And what about the riding-lessons? Is the kid shaping well at that?”
“Oh, rather. Father says he took to it from the start like a duck to water. He goes cantering round the home-paddock now on old Merrilegs, with Billy on one of our ponies. Sits well too, and he has good hands. He tried to jump a log the other day, and came to grief, but he didn’t mind.”
“He wasn’t hurt?”
“Oh, no. You see, Merrilegs has ideas of his own about jumping, now: he thinks he’s too old, and it takes Billy all he knows to get him over a log. So, when Rex rode him at this one—it was only a wee little log—he just propped. And Rex shot over the log all right, except that the pony didn’t go with him. Rex was awfully disgusted, but he wasn’t hurt.”
“And, of course, Billy yelled with laughter?”
“Well, that’s what Billywoulddo,” said Jo. “All the same, I think it’s very likely that Master Rex will go off by himself some fine morning and get Merrilegs over that log—just as he did with swimming.” She told the story of the boys’ early-morning bathe, and Tom nodded approvingly.
“Shows he’s got something in him. Well, I went to school with the other Forester boys, and they certainly weren’t the kind of chaps to be beaten by anything.”
“And, of course, his sister Helen is the same. Why, she was Captain of Merriwa!” said Jo, as though that assertion implied every possible virtue. “Only, Rex hasn’t had a fair chance, between illnesses and being handed over to a prim old governess who did her best to make an Early Victorian young lady of him. He was like nothing earthly when he came, but there’s a good deal of commonplace small boy cropping out now, thank goodness!”
“And how about you two?” demanded Tom, with a grin. “How’s work suiting you?”
“Oh, work’s all right,” said Jo shortly.
Not even Jean knew how her twin longed in secret for the school-life they had lost. School had always been a glad prospect ahead of them, for Mrs. Weston had loved her years at Merriwa and she had brought up the twins in happy anticipation of just as good a time when their own turn should come. And it had been all, and more, that they had hoped. Lessons, thanks to their mother’s good grounding, had been not too difficult: out of school hours the time had been all too brief for the packed interests, the jolly friendships, the long, intimate talks. Their first year had gone in a happy whirl: they had looked forward to others as good. And now it was all over.
Not that Jo was discontented with home-life. It was not in her nature to be discontented with anything for more than five minutes at a time. She loved her home, and there was plenty of interest in each day’s work and play, besides the solid satisfaction of knowing that she and her twin were doing something really worth while—something that helped to lift the burden from her father’s shoulders. But they were not yet sixteen: and sometimes there came over her a wave of longing for the care-free days when there had been no worries, no responsibilities. “We were just kids, last year,” she thought, sometimes. “It’s a bit sudden to be grown-up.”
Then she would wonder if Jean thought the same. But, whatever Jean thought, she made no sign.
Something of this longing for the life of last year came over Jo at Tom’s careless question. She looked at him half-resentfully: he was so unconscious of any real worries, although he grumbled cheerfully at the heat and the drought. They really touched him very little: he would go back to school, bored at going, feeling certain that before he returned the drought would be broken and the country smiling again. He was a year and a half older than they, and yet he was only a child, playing: and they were workers——
She gave herself a mental shake.
“Well, you are a pig, Jo Weston!” she addressed herself silently. “Jealous and bad-tempered, and altogether piggish! Be ashamed of yourself!”—and forthwith smiled cheerfully at the unconscious Tom.
“Work’s really rather a lark when you get going,” she stated unconcernedly. “We get a lot of fun out of it.”
“Well, you both look as if you were always on the grin,” said Tom. “Goodness knows, there’s not much laughing going on at our place. Father’s always growling at the drought, and Mother says she’s tired of looking at bare paddocks and she means to have a flat in Town. And Father says he’d rather be shot than live in a flat. So there it is, and I’m beginning to think it won’t be so bad to go back to school, though the bare idea of swotting over Latin gives me the creeps. Hullo, Sarah! how are you?”
“I’ve been better, and I’ve been worse,” said Sarah, non-committally, putting down a loaded tea-tray. “And how’s yourself, Master Tom?”
“Oh, first-rate,” Tom said. “Is it hot enough for you, Sarah?”
“That’s one of them questions as ought to be put down by an Ack of Parlyment,” said Sarah testily. “I druv into the township with Miss Jean yesterday, an’ it was just as ’ot as ’ot: an’ every one arsked the same thing, no matter what shop I went into. A body knows she ain’t lookin’ ’er best with ’er face the colour of a tomato an’ perspiration droppin’ off ’er forehead, an’ it sort of rubs it in to be arsked all the time, ‘Is it ’ot enough for you?’ Anyone lookin’ at me with ’alf an eye could see it was a good deal more’n ’ot enough for me. But they kep’ on arskin’, all the same.”
“Sorry,” said Tom, laughing. “Stupid of me, Sarah—but when it’s as hot as this all one’s brain turns to dough.”
“Oh, ’ot!” said Sarah, with scorn. “It makes me tired to hear every one growlin’ about the ’eat, and sayin’ there was never such a drought.”
“But you said yourself it was hot yesterday,” protested the bewildered Tom.
“Well, I did; an’ itwas’ot. But I don’t go growlin’ all the time. Summers ain’t nothing to what they was: I tell you, in my young days ’eat was ’eat, an’ drought was drought, an’ no mistake. Just you think what summers was twenty years ago—oh, well, of course you can’t”—as her hearers shouted with laughter—“but any’ow, you can take my word for it we knew what temp’rashur was! Soarin’ well above the ’undred for a fortnight on end. An’ droughts lasted years. Nowadays, every one thinks they’re killed if they get a few days’ ’eat, an’ a bit of a drought like this makes ’em think the world’s comin’ to an end.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Sarah. But it’s bad enough.”
“Aw, bad!” sniffed Sarah. “Them old droughts was bad, if you like, when the ground was as bare as Collins Street, an’ all the sheep got boiled down for tallow. An’ there wasn’t the grumblin’ then that there is now.”
“Gammon!” said Tom unexpectedly. “Don’t tell me people didn’t growl, Sarah. Why, anyone on the land will growl even in a good season, let alone a bad one. Did you ever know a man on the land who was satisfied with the weather?”
“Well, no, I don’t suppose I did,” admitted Sarah, gazing with some amazement at her opponent. “Farmers an’ sich especially: you can’t please ’em with weather, not if you made it to order. But what I do say is, that it’s no good grumblin’ an’ grousin’, even if there is a bit of a drought. Keep smilin’, an’ it’ll rain some day.” With which philosophy Sarah collected her temporarily scattered forces and withdrew.
“She didn’t say that, at all, of course,” remarked Tom. “At least, I don’t think she did, but Sarah’s so eloquent, when she gets going, that I’m really not sure. I’d love to take her last bit of advice home to Father and give it to him when he was being really excited about the drought. ‘Keep smilin’, an’ it’ll rain some day!’ But I’d wish to be well out of his reach when I delivered it.”
“You’d think Sarah was such a Tartar, just to listen to her, wouldn’t you?” laughed Jean, pouring out tea. “And she’s really so mild she’d eat out of your hand. She’s been teaching us the proper way to turn out rooms, and polish floors, and to keep the silver, in the hope of making us what she calls ‘house-proud.’ She says no woman is any good unless she’s house-proud.”
“Whatever’s that?” asked the bewildered masculine hearer.
“Oh, being mad keen on one’s house, and having everything ‘just-so.’ It’s really rather fun, too, only poor old Sarah’s so quaint over it; she shows us how to do a thing with heaps of ‘elbow-grease,’ and then she sighs over our doing it at all, and begs us to go and rub cold cream on our hands or they’ll never be as nice as Mother’s! Which they certainly never will,” added Jean, placing a brown paw on the table near her twin’s. “And then she goes and hurriedly cooks something we like for tea. But if we thank her she only looks down her nose and mutters something, and, if you didn’t know her well, you’d think she was offended at being thanked at all. But she’s a darling when you do happen to know her.”
There was a pounding of horses’ feet in the paddock, and Jo ran to the window. .
“Father and the boys are coming!” she cried. “They’ve been out to one of the back paddocks. Look at Rex, Tom—doesn’t he ride decently, for a new-chum?”
There was a cloud of dust, out of which the forms of the riders were looming indistinctly. Old grey Merrilegs came along at a smooth, easy canter, his rider bumping a little, but clearly happy. Mr. Weston rode a little to the right, on a big, good-looking bay, and Billy scampered in front on Punch, Jean’s pony. He rode as if he were part of the little black he was on: his hands down, his head up, all his merry face flushed with excitement.
“Rex’ll never ride like Billy,” said Tom, watching him.
“Oh, but Billy has been on a horse ever since he was six months old and Father used to take him out in front of him,” Jo said. “Billy can’t help riding. But Rex is not bad, now, is he?”
“No, indeed, he’s not. And with goggles, too—I always think glasses must be terribly hampering to a kid,” remarked Tom. “Oh, he’ll do, if only you people can keep him for a bit. It would be no end of a pity if he wasn’t able to follow up his big brothers at Grammar: they’ve been such good all-round men.”
“He’s going to be just as good as they are,” declared Jo hotly. “When he gets stronger he’ll probably be able to leave off the glasses altogether—the oculist said so. And his muscles are developing already.”
“Yes, and he can box, too,” chimed in Jean. “Father gives them lessons every night, and he says Rex will have a punch like the kick of a mule!”
“And you’re just like a pair of old hens with a turkey-chick,” grinned Tom. “You know what delicate little squeakers they are at first—have to be fed every hour, and all that sort of thing. And then, suddenly, they get big and strong and turn into proud gobblers! Take care, or that’s what young Rex will be doing—and proud gobblers have no sort of a time when they go to school.”
The twins laughed, but they accepted the big fellow’s warning meekly enough.
“We’re going to be awfully careful, really. He’s such a nice kid—when he isn’t polished—that it would be easy to spoil him; and then, it does feel as if he really were our own turkey-chick. And we keep remembering how small he is, and that his mother’s thousands of miles away. But we’re trying hard to keep our feelings to ourselves, when he’s about: and Father has promised to come down on us heavily if he sees any signs of molly-coddling. So perhaps there’s hope.” The twins, who had rendered these remarks in a composite fashion peculiarly their own, paused, and looked anxiously at Tom, who suddenly loomed before them as a possible Grammar School senior what time Rex might be joining as a palpitating junior.
Tom nodded, aware of his masculine superiority.
“Oh, if Mr. Weston’s keeping an eye on him he won’t go far wrong,” he said—and then Sarah stalked in, tall and grim, with a loaded tray.
“I made the biggest pot of tea,” she explained, “seein’ as ’ow they’ll all be dusty and thirsty. They’ll be in in a minute; they’re washin’ themselves up now.”
“Thanks, Sarah dear,” said Jean. “Oh, and, Sarah—Mother’s coming home to-morrow.”
Sarah’s dour face suddenly softened.
“That’s good news!” she said. “Some’ow the place is just an ’owlin’ desert when she’s away. Did she say if the dentist ’ad ’urt her much?”
“She didn’t say—there’s only a telegram,” Jean answered.
“I wish she ’ad,” said Sarah anxiously. She left the room, evidently dissatisfied with the deficiencies of telegrams. They heard her joyfully informing Mr. Weston, in the hall, of the news.
“Mother coming home!—that’s great!” he said, coming in. “You’re the mail-man, I suppose, Tom—many thanks. We didn’t expect her so soon. Yes, I’ll be glad of tea, twinses: it’s awfully hot and dusty in the paddocks, and my two boundary-riders must be as thirsty as I am. Here they come”—as the boys clattered up the hall. “Any news, Tom?”
“Nothing that I know of—barring drought,” Tom answered.
“That’s not news now, worse luck!” Mr. Weston said. “It’s what you might call ancient history turned into an established fact. Well, I heard some news, and it isn’t good news, either: a man who was mending a fence next ours told me there are big fires at Gulgong Flat, fifteen miles away. Several poor souls have been burned out, and a lot of damage done. Of course, with such a season, it’s a wonder that we have not had fires in the district before this: had there been more grass to carry them they would certainly have come, for the whole country is as dry as a stick.”
“Father was saying a good many fires have started, but they have been quickly got under,” Tom remarked.
“Yes—that’s one advantage of a drought. Fires won’t run over bare ground, and most of the paddocks are bare enough. Even the roadsides have been eaten right out by travelling stock. But there is plenty of lightly timbered country about Gulgong Flat, and of course fire will travel very fast in that. We can only hope they will get it under before it comes our way.”
“Well, Emu Plains is safe enough, Mr. Weston,” said Tom.
“The house is, of course. There’s scarcely any chance of danger here, for there’s no grass to carry a fire up to us, and no timber to speak of. But I don’t want my back paddocks burned out—that’s about all the grass I’ve got left; and I can’t afford to lose fencing. We may have to move the cattle in a hurry, if the fire spreads; the boys and I rode round them to-day, and drove them out of the timber, to accustom them to the move, in case it has to be made.”
“It was grand fun,” said Rex. “And, Jean—I jumped a log, and I didn’t fall off!”
“Didn’t I tell you you would?” said Jean, smiling at him. “How are the cattle, Father?”
“Well, they’re holding their own, and that’s about all one can say,” her father answered. “The water is good, of course: that helps a lot. Goodness knows, there can’t be much nourishment in the sort of grass that’s left, but, somehow, they are managing to pick up a living. I suppose, some day, if rain doesn’t come, they’ll decide that it really isn’t worth while, and they’ll lie down and die. But there’s always hope that rain will come.”
“Then we’ll all go and sit and watch the grass grow and the cattle get fat,” said Jo. “Won’t it be fun, Rex?”
“Will they really get fat while you look at them?” asked the small boy, round-eyed behind his spectacles.
“Rather,” said Tom. “Of course, there are a few shy ones, which don’t like getting fat in front of people, and they make for the scrub!”
“I don’t think that’s true!” said Rex solemnly. At which everybody laughed, and Jean offered him a cake, which he ate in puzzled silence, pondering on the queer ways of country folk. They were very jolly, Rex thought, and he had quite made up his mind that when he was grown-up he would own a station and manage it himself. But there was no doubt that they were sometimes difficult to understand, and occasionally they talked a language all their own, full of words that were quite unfamiliar to him. He had mental notes of several queer expressions he would ask the twins to explain: Why bullocks were “poor as crows,” and why a crow was poor, anyhow; and what it was that cattle held when they were said “to hold their own,” and how did they hold anything? Rex had ridden that afternoon round more cattle than he had ever been near before, but none of them were attempting to hold things, their own or anyone else’s. He longed to catch a twin by herself, that he might ask her. Other people might—and did—laugh at him; but never the twins.
Tom said good-bye presently, and they all went out to the gate with him, after the friendly Bush fashion, and watched him disappear in a cloud of dust. The twins hurried back to take out the tea-tray.
In the kitchen they came suddenly upon Sarah, who straightened up guiltily at their approach. But the twins had seen, for a moment, a bowed head, her face hidden in her hands; and as she turned from them to stir a saucepan which obviously contained only hot water they saw that she was pale, with heavy rings under her eyes. Jean looked a minute, and then put down her tray.
“What’s the matter, Sarah?”
“There ain’t nothing the matter,” Sarah said. “What would there be?”
“I don’t know,” said Jean. “But there’s something, all the same. Tell us, Sarah dear—let’s help.”
“Well, I’ve just a little ’eadache,” admitted the gaunt handmaiden.
“It must be a pretty big headache, to make you look like that,” Jo said. “You might as well tell us, Sarah, old thing.”
“It’s me rubbishy old neuralgy,” Sarah said, capitulating. “I do get it ’ot an’ strong, an’ that’s a fack. Comes all over me ’ead. I been tryin’ to beat it all day, but it’s near got me down. It’s like a red-’ot knife goin’ in an’ out of me left eye.”
“Why, you poor old dear!” cried the twins. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Oh, I ’ates makin’ a fuss,” said the sufferer. “I did ’ave thoughts of goin’ to tell you, when I seen you come back from bathin’: an’ then Mr. Tom came, an’ on top of ’im the news of the Missus comin’ ’ome. An’ I can’t go an’ get sick just as she comes. So I determined not to be. But the pain seems a bit ahead of the determination: I expect it got a start.”
“Well, you’re just going to lie down now,” Jean said firmly. “Real lie-down—dress and shoes off: and you’re not to come out again to-night, or to-morrow, or until you’re better. I’ll come in ten minutes with a cup of tea and some aspirin.”
“But the tea!” groaned Sarah. “I got a potato pie made, but, of course, it ain’t time to put it in. Lemme stay till I’ve washed up after tea——”
The twins each took an arm, and propelled her, gently but firmly, towards the door.
“I guess we’ll manage the pie,” Jo said, with the firmness possible to a cookery prize-winner. “Now, we’re coming in ten minutes, Sarah, and just you be lying down, or there’ll be awful trouble.”
They found her, pale, but protesting, when they visited her room, and having administered tea and aspirin, bathed her throbbing brows with eau-de-Cologne.
“That’s lovely,” she admitted. “My word, it’s great to be lyin’ down—but I do ’ate leavin’ everything to you. It don’t seem fair, when you’ve all the work you ’ave.”
“Now, will you just be a sensible old thing and not talk rubbish!” Jean said, giving a final dab with her little sponge. “What do you think Mother would say to us if she came home and found you doing the work and looking like a demented ghost?”
“Demented I was beginnin’ to feel, an’ no mistake,” said poor Sarah wearily. “You really won’t do any more than you ’ave to, will you, me dears?”
“We won’t start cleaning the kitchen, if that’s what you mean,” said Jo, laughing. “Go to sleep, if you can, and forget about everything until you wake up better.” They tiptoed out, closing the door gently, and softly danced down the passage to the kitchen.