'Possum

Produced by Al Haines.

[Illustration: Cover art]

[Illustration: "Then he shot down, head foremost, and again found himself in the grass." (Page 96.)]

*'Possum*

By

Mary Grant Bruce

Author of "Glen Eyre," "Mates at Billabong," "Norah of Billabong," "Jim and Wally," etc., etc.

Ward, Lock & Co., Limited London, Melbourne And Toronto

To My Mother

*Contents*

I The "House Beautiful" II Breaking Bad News III Gordon's Farm IV Into the Unknown V The Home-Coming VI A Day in the Country VII The Riding of Jane VIII Rain--And a Friend IX "Maggie or Something" X 'Possum Takes Hold XI Farmers in Earnest XII Sailing XIII Amateur Surgery XIV A Boating Holiday XV Santa Claus and Clothes XVI A Little Boy XVII 'Possum Becomes a Pupil XVIII The Regatta XIX The Order of Release

*'Possum*

*Chapter I*

*The "House Beautiful"*

The trim suburban garden blazed with flowers. Over the porch at the gate mandevillea hung in a curtain of fragrant white, and an archway over the path that wound through the close-shaven lawn was a miracle of Fortune's yellow roses--gold and rose and copper blended gloriously. There were beds aflame with "bonfire" salvia, and others gay with many-hued annuals. Gaudy tulips reared splendid heads near a great clump of arum lilies that fringed a tiny pool where little Garth Macleod's solitary goldfish swam in lonely state. Everywhere there were roses; in standards in the smooth, well-kept beds, or trained along the wide verandas, forming a screen of exquisite blossom. Their sweetness lay like a charm over the garden.

It was a hot spring afternoon. Tom Macleod, digging busily in a corner, pushed his Panama back from his flushed face, and stood erect for a moment to ease his aching back. As he did so a motor whirred to the gate, stopped, and a stout little man hurried up the path, waving a capable hand towards the shirt-sleeved worker across the lawn.

"Hullo, Doctor!" Macleod called.

"See you presently, Tom," was all the doctor vouchsafed him. He disappeared behind the roses on the veranda, and Macleod returned to his work with a furrow between his eyes that had not been there before. From time to time he cast half-impatient glances towards the house, whence no sound issued. Finally, with a hasty movement, he plunged his spade into the soil, and went with long strides across the grass--meeting, at the step, the doctor, who plunged out of the house like a plump Jack-in-the-box.

"Oh!" said Macleod vaguely. "How's the kid?"

"The kid? why, going on first-rate," said the doctor, laughing. "Can't a man stay five minutes talking to his patient's mother without your making up your mind that the kid must be dying?"

Tom Macleod grinned a little shamefacedly.

"The last three weeks have rather unsettled my nervous system, I believe," he said. "I didn't know I had one until Garth took to trying to die. You needn't be so superior, old man. I believe the little beggar shook up yours, too!"

"Well--it hasn't been too jolly a time," admitted the doctor. "One doesn't like to see a nice kid suffering: and Garth and I are old chums. Anyhow, he's better. Come and sit down; it's an extraordinary thing, but I have time for a cigarette."

He went with quick, short steps towards a bench under a drooping pepper tree, Macleod following with his long, easy stride. No two men could have been a greater contrast: the short, plump doctor, with his humorous, ugly face, which every child loved at the first glance, and the tall, lean Australian, clean-limbed and handsome--almost boyish, but for a certain worn expression, and for the lines of anxiety which his boy's illness had graven round his eyes and mouth. They lit their cigarettes and stared at each other.

"On the rare occasions when you announce that you've time to smoke, I have noticed that you generally have something to communicate--probably unpleasant," said Macleod. "What is it, old man?"

"I wish you weren't so observant," said the doctor; "it's disconcerting. Well, I _have_ something. It isn't exactly new: I hinted at it to you six months ago. Now I've got to speak plainly."

"You mean----?"

"I mean that if I had a boy like Garth I wouldn't run the risk of trying to bring him up in a city," the doctor answered. "I haven't been satisfied with the little chap for a long time. His constitution's all right--there's nothing radically the matter. But he doesn't thrive. You've seen that for yourself, Tom."

"Yes--I've seen it," said the father heavily. "Of course, we've kept hoping he would grow stronger. As you say, there seemed nothing really wrong, and he's pretty wiry----"

"If he hadn't been wiry I could not have pulled him through the last three weeks," Dr. Metcalf said. "You may thank your stars he's wiry."

"If he hadn't picked up this unlucky illness----"

"Well--I don't know," said the doctor. "I'm inclined to think you may yet consider it a blessing in disguise. You might have gone on pouring tonics and patent messes into him, and hoping he'd improve. You can't do it now. It's up to you and Aileen to give him every chance, if you want a strong son instead of a weakling."

"That's final?" Macleod asked.

"That's my considered opinion. I know your difficulties, old man. But I know you don't value anything in the world beyond Garth. Take him to the country; let him live out of doors, and run as wild as a rabbit; give him unlimited fresh milk--not the stuff you buy out of a can--country food, and pure air: let him wear old clothes all the time and sleep out of doors--and in a year I'd stake my professional reputation you won't know him. Keep him in a Melbourne suburb, and I won't be answerable for the consequences."

"That's pretty straight, anyhow," said Macleod.

"I mean it to be straight. I haven't known you since you were at school to mince matters with you now. And I'm fond of the kid: I want to see him grow into a decent man, with all the best that is in him given a fair chance."

"We've tried to do that," Macleod said. He looked round the glowing garden. "It's such a jolly home, and he does love it."

"It's one of the jolliest little homes I've ever seen, and it's going to hurt both of you badly to leave it," the doctor rejoined. "The trouble is, it is too jolly. You have made yourself a little Paradise inside the tallest paling fence you could build, and you've shut out all that lies outside that fence--miles on miles of teeming streets, packed and jammed with people. You're in the midst of grass and roses and things, with a sprinkler going on your tulips, or whatever those rainbow affairs are--and you don't think about the street outside, dry and baking, with a hot wind swirling the germ-laden dust about--blowing it probably upon the meat and fruit and milk you'll buy to-morrow. The air comes to you over thousands of houses, clean and dirty, and thousands of people breathe it. You've got to get where there's no second-hand air."

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Macleod. "Will you tell me how any children manage to live at all?"

"It's a special dispensation of Providence that most youngsters don't die from germs," said the doctor, laughing. "I'm aware that the infantile population of Melbourne is pretty healthy, but it's always a mystery to me how children in any big city survive their surroundings. After all, Melbourne's cleaner than most places. However, there is only one among its hordes of kids that is interesting you and me at the moment, and that's Garth. You've got to get him out of it, Tom."

"When?"

"As soon as you can make your arrangements. I know you can't do that in a moment, but, of course, he could not be moved just yet. When he is strong enough Aileen could take him somewhere until you were ready. But get him to the country. His poor little head is full of stories and make-believes: let him forget what a book looks like, and introduce him to a pony. By the way, it's going to be enormously good for you and Aileen, too."

"Is it?" Macleod asked, smiling grimly. "I'll worry along somehow, though I know mighty little of anything outside a city. But it's rough on her, poor girl. She just loathes the country--hasn't any use for scrub and bad roads, and discomfort generally. I'll never be able to get her a servant--there aren't any, I believe, once you get more than a mile from a picture theatre. And she has never had to work."

"Don't you worry your head about Aileen," said the little doctor, rising. "She has her head screwed on the right way--and women have a way of doing what they've got to do. She can imagine herself her own grandmother, fresh out from England, and tackling the Bush as all our plucky little grandmothers did. Pity there are not more like them now: we live too softly nowadays, and our backbones don't stiffen. But you'll find Aileen will come out all right. In a year you'll all be blessing me. When you come to think of it, I'm the only one to be pitied. I'm going to miss you badly." There was a twisted smile on his lips as he wrung his friend's hand. "Good-bye: my patients will be calling down maledictions on my head if I don't hurry."

Macleod saw him into his dusty motor and watched it glide down the hot street. Then he turned and went back through the scent of the garden, instinctively making his footsteps noiseless as he crossed the veranda and entered the house.

It was a trim house of one story, with a square hall where tall palms gave an effect of green coolness. An embroidered curtain screened a turn into a passage where, through an open door, could be heard the sound of a low voice reading. A childish call cut across the soft tones.

"Is that you, Daddy?"

"That's me," said Macleod cheerfully, if ungrammatically. "Are you sure you ought not to be asleep?" He entered the room and smiled down at his little son.

"A fellow can't sleep all day," Garth said. "'Sides, I needn't sleep so much now. Doctor says I'm nearly well, Daddy."

"That's good news," said his father heartily. "We'll have you out in the garden soon, and getting fat. The tulips are blossoming, Garth, and your poor old goldfish is awfully lonesome. He says even Bran doesn't go near him now."

"Bran is too busy nursing his master," said Garth's mother, looking at the rough head of the Irish terrier curled up on a chair beside the boy's bed. "We'll all get out together in a few days, and find out all the beautiful things that have happened in the garden since we were there. Won't it be lovely, Tom?"

She leaned back until her head touched her husband--a tall, pale girl, with lovely features and a mass of fair hair that glinted like Garth's when the sunlight fell on it, and eyes as blue as violets. Her long hands, blue-veined and delicate, lay idly in her lap, one finger keeping open the book from which she had been reading. She was like an exquisite piece of china--fragile, to all outward appearance, and dainty; graceful in every line. Tom Macleod looking down at her, felt as he had felt ten year' ago, before they married, that he must let no wind blow upon her roughly.

Now he had to tell her that they must go away, away from the ordered comfort of city life, which was all that she had ever known, to whatever the country had in store for them. Even for himself, always a townsman, the prospect carried something of dread, as do all unfamiliar prospects. But he knew that, whatever hardships the Bush holds for a man, it is hardest on a woman.

Garth was chattering away, oblivious of his father's grave face.

"Doctor says I can talk as much as I like," he proclaimed happily. "And he says I'll be perflickly well in a little bit, and then Mother can take me down to the sea. And she says she will, didn't you, Mother? And then you can come down for week-ends, Daddy. Or do you think the Office would give you a holiday, like it did the time we went to Black Rock?"

"It might," said his father.

"Do make it," Garth begged. "It would be so lovely, Daddy--and you could teach me to swim." His little thin face, for which the brown eyes were so much too large, was alight with eagerness. "Bran'll come too--he loves going away, doesn't he? D'you know, Daddy, I think Bran was just cut out for a country dog! He's so awful interested when he gets away from the streets."

"I'm not sure that that's not very good taste on Bran's part," said Macleod: and at something in his tone his wife looked up sharply. "What do you think about it yourself, Garth?"

"Oh, I just love the country," Garth answered. "You get so tired with streets--they all look alike, nothing but motors and dust. The Gardens are jolly, of course, and so's Fawkner Park; but they're not the same as the real country. D'you remember the time we went to Gippsland for the holidays? Wasn't it lovely? I always felt when we went out walking that we might meet anything whatever--fairies, or Bunyips, or--or all sorts of things!"

"But you never did, I suppose?"

"N-no," Garth admitted. "But I used to pretend I did, and that was fun. And I truly did see some rabbits and a wallaby, only the people at the farm weren't a bit pleased when I told them about the rabbits. Mr. Brown said he'd rather see a gorilla on any of _his_ land. Isn't it a pity rabbits are such damageous things, Daddy? Anyhow, I used to pretend that all the really bad fairies had got locked up inside rabbits, to do as much mischief as ever they could, until they got good again. But Mr. Brown said that if ever he heard of a rabbit getting good he'd eat his hat."

"Seeing that Brown told me he'd just spent two hundred pounds netting his land against rabbits, you couldn't expect him to love them," Macleod said.

"Two hundred pounds is an awful lot of money, isn't it?" Garth asked innocently. "But you've got heaps more than that, haven't you, Daddy?"

"Not as big a heap as I would like," his father answered. He walked across the room and stood looking out of the window, his eye wandering over the well-kept garden. A lucky legacy had enabled him to buy his home just before his marriage: now he wished with all his heart that he had not spent so much, in the years that followed, in making it nearer and nearer to their hearts' desire. They had built a room here, a veranda there: had installed electric light and cooking power, electric fans and electric irons--had filled the house with every modern device for ease and comfort. His salary was good: there was no need for economy. He had lavished it on the garden they loved, until its high walls enclosed, in truth, a little paradise. Their personal tastes had been expensive: stalls at the theatres, little dinners at the Savoy, races, dances, bridge parties, had all been commonplaces in their happy, careless life. Best of all had he loved to dress Aileen beautifully. "When a fellow has the loveliest wife in Australia, it's up to him to see that she's decently rigged out," he would say, bringing home a fur coat, a costly sunshade, a piece of exquisite lace. He hardly knew how much his own clothes, quietly good, had cost him: Garth had been the best turned out boy in the neighbourhood. Their servants, well-paid and lightly-worked, had kept the household machinery moving silently on oiled wheels. There had seemed not one crumpled petal in the rose-leaves that strewed their path.

The trained nurse entered softly, bearing on a little brass tray Garth's tea-service--dainty china, painted with queer, long-necked cats.

"This is the first day I've felt really int'rested in tea," Garth proclaimed cheerfully, wriggling up on his pillows. His mother moved quickly to help him, slipping a wrap round the thin little shoulders. Then a gong chimed softly from the hall, and she turned to her husband. Her fingers lay on his shoulder for a moment.

"Tea, Tom."

"Oh, all right," he said, and turned from the window. "So long, old son--eat a big tea."

"I'll eat a 'normous one, if Nurse will only give it to me," Garth said, eyeing his tray hungrily. "Mind you do, too, Daddy. And come back soon."

"I will," Macleod said. He smiled at the eager face as he followed his wife from the room.

*Chapter II*

*Breaking Bad News*

It was one of Aileen Macleod's whims that she liked to brew her own tea. A copper kettle bubbled busily over a spirit lamp on the tray as they entered the drawing-room, and her husband flung himself into an arm-chair and watched the slim, beautiful hands busy with the silver tea-caddy and the quaint, squat teapot. Neither spoke until she came to his side with his cup.

"I beg your pardon, dear," he said, trying to rise. She kept him back, a hand on his shoulder.

"You've been working: why shouldn't I bring you your tea?" she said, smiling at him.

"Because I ought to be looking after you," he rejoined. He was on his feet with a quick movement, took her by the shoulders laughingly, and put her into a big chair, bringing tea and hot cakes to a tiny table beside her.

"There!" he said. "No: you want another cushion. Now lie back, sweetheart, and rest; you're ever so much more tired than you'll admit, even to yourself."

"Being tired doesn't matter, now," she said. "Nothing matters, now that Garth is safe. But it's nice to be bullied." She smiled at him, with a little restful movement, then took up her cup. Over it she looked at him questioningly.

"Dr. Metcalfe _is_ quite satisfied, Tom? What were you and he talking about for so long?"

"Oh, he's quite satisfied with the boy's progress," Macleod answered. "He says you and he can go away quite soon. We--we were just yarning." Something tied his tongue; she looked so tired, and yet so peaceful. He would not tell her just yet.

Aileen opened her lips to speak and then closed them again. They talked idly of the garden, the tulips that were just blossoming, and the new roses, until tea was over and a silent-footed maid had removed the tray. Macleod lit a cigarette, and lay back in his chair.

"Tell me, Tom," she said quietly. "I know there is something more."

He was silent for a moment, looking at her. She was very pale, her breath coming quickly.

"Don't bother about anything now," he said. "We've got the little chap back; and you're dog-tired. You mustn't worry about anything."

"Don't you see--when I don't know, I think it's Garth!" Her voice broke, almost in a cry. "Tell me--quick!"

He was on his knees beside her in a flash.

"What a fool I am!--it's all right, my girl. Garth's quite safe. Only we've got to go away--to leave all this and take him to the Bush. He'll grow strong if we do. But I didn't know how to tell you."

His wife gave a long sigh, and put her face down on his shoulder.

"Oh-h!" she said. "I thought it was something that really mattered!"

"My girl!" said Macleod huskily. For a while they did not move. Then she put him away from her gently, and looked at him with steady eyes.

"I suppose I shall wake up some morning--perhaps to-morrow morning--to realize that it's quite large and important," she said. "But at present it seems the smallest thing, because all that really counts is that Garth is safe. Tell me all about it, Tom."

"Metcalfe won't answer for him if we keep him in town," he said. "If we take him right into the country for a few years he will grow into a strong boy. Therefore, as the Americans say, it's country for ours."

"Of course. What will happen?"

"We'll sell or let this place," he said, watching her face keenly for some sign that the blow was telling. But there was no change in its eager interest, and he went on.

"I must send in my resignation at the office. They'll be nice about it, of course: probably they'd always try to find a berth for me, though it would not be as good as this one. That will leave us with the little bit of private income we have and whatever we get out of the house. We might live on that, after a fashion. But if we've got to go into the country, I'd rather see if we can't make something out of the land."

"But we don't know anything about it."

"Not a thing," Macleod agreed. "But I don't believe it's so awfully complicated: surely a man of reasonable common sense can learn. And look at the alternative--living in some beastly cottage in a township, with not a thing to do. I don't think I could stand it."

"I'm sure I couldn't," said his wife. "Of course you'll learn--look at all the stupid people who do well out of land. Quite stupid people: and your worst enemy can't say you haven't got brains, Tom!"

"I make you my best bow," said her husband solemnly. "You're very encouraging, ma'am! I'll try to live up to your high estimate of me. But what seems to matter more is that I think I've got enough muscle."

For the first time a shadow of doubt came into her eyes.

"I don't want you to be worked to death," she said. "Will it be very hard for you, Tom?"

He broke into a short laugh.

"Hard for _me_! Do you think it matters the least little bit about me? But it maddens me to think what it's going to mean for you. Do you realize that it means no more fun, as we've always counted fun? no more outings or gaiety, no pretty clothes? any sort of a home, and mighty little comfort? We--we won't have much money, Aileen."

"We'll have enough to--to _live_, won't we?" she asked. "To buy food, I mean?"

"Oh, there'll be enough for that. But we'll have to scrimp in a hundred ways. I don't know that we can even keep a servant for you, though I don't suppose, for that matter, that there are any to be had in the Bush. I wouldn't mind that so much if I could help you: but I'll have my own work outside, and it will keep me going. I've never let you work, Aileen," he ended wistfully.

"No, you haven't," she said; looking at him gently. "If ever a woman was thoroughly spoilt it's your wife!"

"I couldn't have had the face to marry you, if it had meant that you would have to work," he answered. "How could I, when you'd never done any work in your life?"

"I don't know that that is a very creditable record for a woman," she said reflectively. "I've often thought my life was too soft a one; only you have made it so easy to be lazy, Tom."

"You're not lazy," he defended her hotly. "Look at all you have on hand--your music, the garden, the home--do you think it's only servants that have made us our 'House Beautiful?' You've charities, and Women's Leagues--and Garth. It seems to me you're always busy."

"They're all very pretty things to play at," she said, laughing. "All except Garth: he is a solid reality. Now I'm going to discover ever so many other realities. Don't worry about me, Tom, dear. It's going to be an Awfully Big Adventure, but we'll get through somehow."

She smiled up at him. Something like a great weight lifted from Macleod's heart.

"You aren't afraid?" he asked.

Her face grew grave, and for a moment she did not answer.

"I never knew what fear really meant until Garth was ill," she said, at length. "One says one is afraid of lots of things; but you get right to the terrible depths of fear when you think your child is dying. And it teaches you that nothing else matters. Now that Garth has come back, and I can hold him again, nothing else even seems serious. I suppose a month ago I might have felt scared at the idea of cooking and scrubbing, but now I feel as if I could do it, and sing. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, I understand," he answered. "It's hard to imagine anything else troubling us, if the kid's safe. But will we feel like that in a year's time? in six months? The sharp edge of thankfulness will have worn off then, but the cooking and scrubbing will remain."

She nodded.

"It isn't easy to say. I suppose I shouldn't make any predictions, since I don't in the least understand all I'll have to tackle. But plenty of other women have done it, and much more--women with half a dozen little children. I'm not going to be afraid." She lifted her chin with a defiant little toss. "I suppose it will be hard, and I'll make ever so many mistakes--so will you, and we'll laugh at each other! Oh, Tom, nothing can be very bad if we keep laughing, and we have Garth!"

"You dear!" he said. "I might have known you'd take it that way. Of course"--he hesitated--"there are other alternatives. You wouldn't care to send Garth to live on a farm for a few years, if we could get hold of the right people? Like the Agnews did with that delicate boy of theirs, you know?"

"The Agnews couldn't help themselves," said Aileen. "_There's_ a woman to be pitied, if you like. Mrs. Agnew aged ten years in the first year after she had to part with Harry. We don't do that sort of thing in this family. Next?"

He laughed.

"With my first suggestion badly squashed----"

"You would have squashed it yourself if I hadn't, Tom!"

"Yes, but I knew you would," he said comfortably. "Well, the next is really more feasible." He watched her narrowly. "Suppose I stayed on at the office, and we let this house, and I lived in rooms; there would be money enough to establish you and Garth in some little country place where you wouldn't have to work, and it would be all right for the boy. It would mean separation, of course, but I might be able to run down to see you every few months. It would be far easier for you, dear."

"And for you?"

"Whatever is best for you will be best for me," he said. "You know that, Aileen, don't you? I will be quite satisfied with your choice."

"I wish I knew what you want," she said, watching his face.

"And I won't tell you." He laughed at her.

"Very well," she said, "then I will choose, and it's your own fault if you don't like it. I think that as a planner you begin well, and then slump dreadfully--at any rate, your last two efforts are simply horrid. Do you think I can take the responsibility of bringing up Garth alone, just when he needs a man's hand? He'd break his heart. I wouldn't dare to tell him we meant to leave you. And if you imagine that a little freedom from work would make up to me for being without you---- Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Tom Macleod?"

He sat down on the arm of her chair and lifted her hand against his face.

"I had to give you your choice," he said. "But you don't know what a blue funk I was in!"

"Then you ought to be more ashamed of yourself than ever!" she retorted. "We're mates, you and Garth and I: nothing matters, so long as we are together."

"Not even scrubbing?"

"No," she said. "Nor ploughing, Tom?"

"Certainly not. Nor cooking?"

"Cooking might be fun. What about milking?"

"I learned to milk in my extreme youth," said he proudly. "That's a detail. But--washing?"

"It's done in the best families," she said. "Counted out. How about clearing land?"

"I will do it with my little hatchet," said her husband. "Washing-up, Aileen?"

"Ugh!" she said. "Even in this uplifted moment I can't pretend I'm going to enjoy greasy dishes. Never mind--they'll get done. We won't think about them. Anything else?"

"Lots, I'm certain. What if the sheep get foot-rot, and the hens develop pip? Or is it the other way round? Could you manage a hen with foot-rot?"

"Just as well as you would handle a sheep with pip. What are they, anyhow?"

"Diseases which have always been happily obscure to me," he said, "Now we'll have to study them."

"We'll study them together, then," said his wife; "then, if they appear we can turn on them our united batteries of knowledge. There must be lots of other diseases, Tom. Is it hens that get glanders?"

"Very probably: it always seemed to me that hens have nasty habits," said he. "Of course, I've only looked at them with a kind of semi-detached eye, but then, I never felt any inclination for close acquaintance with a live fowl. My soul was as a star, and dwelt apart!"

"I think one of the first things you had better do would be to uproot any graceful notions about your soul," said his wife. "We shan't need encumbrances like that for some time. Stout bodies and strong muscles are likely to be more in our line; don't be surprised or shocked if you find me writhing in odd corners, because it will be only Swedish drill, to develop me--also in odd corners!"

"It will be awfully interesting," he said, laughing. "Couldn't you start it now? I believe there's one lovely exercise that you do at meal-times. Strangers are apt to run to your assistance, thinking you're strangling, but it's only neck-drill, to give you a long, slender throat!"

"I've always faintly hoped mine pleased you," rejoined his wife. "However, it's too late now--it won't matter in the Bush if one has a throat or not. My energies are going to enable me to develop strength enough to throw a bag of wheat over my shoulder, and go whistling down the lea!"

"Why not bring it home? I don't see why you want to throw good wheat about, after I shall probably have had grave trouble in growing it. And what is a lea, anyhow?"

"It's something the lowing herd winds slowly o'er," she said. "You ought to know that."

"I did, but I don't know what it looks like. And I suppose I'll have to know." The laughter died out of his eyes, and he looked at her in silence for a moment. "Aileen--it's all very well to play the fool, but we're two horribly ignorant people. I wonder if we'll do any good at all?"

"Yes--we will," she said stubbornly. "And I don't mean to stop playing the fool: at least I hope I won't have to. Think of poor old Garth, if we grew old and solemn! We'll just back each other up and worry through. We're in a pretty tight place, but we're not going to pull long faces over it. I suppose sometimes things will get bothersome, and we'll be tired, and possibly our tempers may become a bit ragged at the edges. But we'll understand, and not remember it against each other next day."

"Nor next minute, I hope," he said. "Well, a man would be a cur if he were afraid to face things with any one like you."

"Don't you expect too much of me," said his wife. "I'm an ignorant old thing, as you've justly pointed out, and when you have indigestion through my bad cooking you'll dislike me extremely. But I'll improve. Now come and we'll tell Garth all about it."

*Chapter III*

*Gordon'S Farm*

It was Dr. Metcalfe who found the new home for them.

He came in on Garth's first afternoon in the garden. They were gathered under the pepper tree, and Garth gave a glad little shout at sight of him.

"Oh, there's my doctor! Come along, Doctor, and have tea!"

"This seems a party," said the new-comer, regarding the table beside the boy's couch. "Cakes, as I live! and with pink and white icing! Who said you could have exciting things like that, young man?"

"Mother did--and I b'lieve you told her," said Garth cheerfully. "I'm ever so nearly well. You know you don't have to come and stick that old fernometer in my mouth any more."

"It's evident that it will be needed again to-morrow," said the doctor, regarding the cakes with a lowering brow.

"Never mind--it'll be worth it," Garth rejoined. "Anyhow, I know you're only pulling my leg!"

"The attitude of disrespect shown by one's patients is very distressing," said the doctor, subsiding into a low chair and accepting tea. "Go on, young man: don't blame me when you find the castor-oil bottle looming by your bed of pain! Then you'll wish that you had stuck to good old bread-and-butter, and you'll send for me."

"Well, you'd come," said Garth comfortably.

"I would not. I would send back a stern message--'Double dose of oil.'"

"Then I'd better have a double go of cake," said Garth. "Bettern't I, Dad?"

"Most certainly, I should say," his father answered. "It's a sound rule not to mind paying for your fun." He held the plate for Garth's inspection. "There's one in the corner, with an enormous blob of icing: it looks pretty good."

"It is," said Garth, digging his sharp little teeth into it, with a rapt expression.

"A nice pair, you are!" quoth the doctor, regarding them with a twinkle in his eye. "Not that I can blame the son, seeing what his father is. I pity you, Aileen: you'll have a hard time with them when you get to the Back of Beyond."

"Oh, did you know we were going there?" Garth queried eagerly. "Isn't it lovely, Doctor! I'm going to have a pony, Dad b'lieves. Will you come and see it?"

"It will be my one ambition," the doctor told him gravely. "Have you made any arrangements yet, Tom?"

"I'm trying to find a place," Macleod answered. "The office has been awfully decent: they say I'm to come to them if ever we return to Melbourne, and they'll do their best to take me back. Likewise, they've given me a bonus, which is handy."

"And said the nicest things about him," interpolated his wife. "_He_ won't tell you that, so I must--you can blush unseen, Tom. And the staff, to his great horror, mean to give him a silver salver."

"Very handy in the Bush, I'm sure," said the doctor.

"It's jolly good of them," Tom said; "but I wish they wouldn't. Poor beggars, they have enough to do with their money. The awful part is that I believe they're going to make speeches!"

"And you'll have to make one," said Aileen. "Do you think they would let us come and hear?"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated her husband. "I haven't made a speech since the burst of eloquence I uttered, at our wedding breakfast."

"I remember well," said the doctor. "It lasted fully ten seconds, and then you collapsed. We all blushed for you. I think I'd like to hear you make another."

"Well, you won't,'" said the victim, with finality. "I wish you'd change the subject: it hurts."

"Certainly," said the doctor. "I've found you a farm."

"You have! Where?"

"Down in the Gippsland Lakes country," said his friend.

"Is it any good?"

"I wouldn't have found it if it were not," said the doctor severely. "As a matter of fact, I believe it is rather a lucky find. It belongs to Jim Gordon, an Englishman who has been out there about fifteen years. He knocked about all over the country for a good while, and then bought this place. Now he has had money left to him, and he's going back to England. But he likes Australia, and he does not mean to stay away for ever, so he won't sell: he's fond of this little place, and he'll take a low rent if he can get a tenant who will look after it. He showed it to one man, who looked at his plunge-bath and remarked, that it would be a good thing to set tomato plants in! It seems to have given Gordon rather a shock."

"It would," said Aileen feelingly. "Did you tell him we were nice people, Doctor?"

"I went as far as I could," said the doctor guardedly.

"I wonder he hasn't already come to call, in that case," said she, laughing.

"Apart from your quite unjustifiable reasoning, he isn't exactly a calling man," the doctor remarked. "I gather that he has lived very much to himself on this place, doing most of his own work, and that he is not at all popular among the settlers near, who, probably regard him as full of unpleasant English pride--which he is. He's one of those stiff-necked people who think their own ways are always best, and so will never learn any new ones. Therefore, he has never made much money. From what he says, there is plenty of work to be done on this place. It's about the acreage you want, and there's a decent little house on it; and he does seem to have taken some pains with his orchard and garden. But for the most part he appears to have gone fishing, and let the place take care of itself."

"Would there be room on it for a pony?" Garth asked wistfully.

"Yes--and what's more, there's a pony there already!"

"Glory!" said Garth faintly.

"Have we got to take his live stock, too?" asked Macleod.

"It isn't necessary, but I should think it would suit you. There is not much--a pony or two, and a few cows and sheep. You will need all he has had, and, I should think, more: and he'll sell them at a fair valuation. He has two boats, which are let with the house, if the tenant undertakes to keep them in order--he really seems keener about the boats than about anything else. He has a horror of agents and lawyers, and wants to arrange the whole thing privately. If you will consider the place he would like you to go down with him to see it."

"I suppose he would not object to my taking a man down with me? Dawson, who values for our office, knows all about these things: and you know how much I do. The office has offered to lend me Dawson to look at any place."

"Oh, Gordon won't mind--he's really a very fair-minded old chap, and you won't find him hard to deal with. He's not the sort of person to take advantage of the young and innocent: in fact, he'll probably respect you more for taking a tame expert with you."

"It's a long way from town," Macleod said, regarding Aileen with troubled eyes.

"What of that? It's glorious country, and the very place for a small boy," said the doctor, smiling at Garth, who had forgotten cake, and was listening, his eyes shining. "You don't want to be running to town always--that's expensive and unsettling. Cuninghame is quite close, where you can get all your stores: and if you want a bigger town, Sale and Bairnsdale are within easy reach. I've never found out which of them is the capital of Gippsland, but perhaps you'll make the discovery. Did I mention that one of the boats is a motor-launch. You lucky people will be able to explore all the corners of the lakes that mere tourists never see."

"Dad!" came from Garth, in a burst of ecstasy--which somehow checked his father in a remark that busy farmers would not have much time to play about on the lakes. Looking at the delighted face, with the unnaturally large eyes, it seemed better to put that remark away among unborn speeches. He said instead--

"It sounds very jolly. I'll have to teach you to run the motor, old son. By the way, Metcalfe, do you happen to have gathered whether we are likely to make a living out of this highly desirable place?"

"Why, yes, I think you are," the doctor answered. "Gordon has not done so badly, and he's not a hard worker. Given decent seasons and fair luck you ought to get on, though it's not a place to make any fortunes out of. But go down and look at it for yourself."

Which Macleod did, returning a few days later with a cheered expression.

"It's not so bad, Dawson says," he told Aileen, gratefully sipping a cup of coffee, after his long journey. "No fortune in it, as Metcalfe said; but a living, unless we have bad luck. And it's certainly cheap. The house might be much worse--though I'm afraid you will find it bad enough, after this one, my girl."

"Bless you, I'm not expecting a palace," said Aileen cheerily. "I hope it's small: a palace would be somewhat burdensome when one came to scrub it."

"Oh, it's small enough," he said. "We'll fit in, with an extra room or two. There are some things that you don't rind in many bush homes, Dawson says--a decent bathroom, wire window-screens and doors, and a thoroughly good water-supply. They seem awfully ordinary, but I can assure you they're not! And the country is lovely: the view from the front windows will make you forget your old scrubbing-brush!"

"It will be a bad look-out for you if I do!" murmured his wife.

"That's beneath you," he said, laughing. "I don't think a respectable farmeress ought to make bad jokes. There's a good garden, and a fair orchard, and Garth will fall in love with the pony."

"Is the pony safe?" she asked.

"Very unsafe, I think--it's always in danger of going to sleep. I wouldn't like to say how old it is, and I'd hate to ride five miles on it. But Garth will think it a lovely steed. It may make you realize how much past its prime it is when I tell you Gordon wouldn't sell it. He hadn't the face to put a price on it--threw it in with the farm, on condition that it was treated kindly. Well, you couldn't treat anything like that unkindly--not if you had been brought up to reverence age!"

"It sounds a soothing beast," said Aileen--"not likely to harrow my mind by bucking Garth off."

"I'll guarantee it won't. There's another pony, too. I've bought that. Also three cows, twenty-four sheep, some assorted calves, and a lot of fowls. Dawson says they're cheap: I don't know. And I've inherited an orphan boy!"

"Tom! What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Gordon has a boy on a three-years' lease from an orphanage in Melbourne, and only six months of it have run, so I've taken him over. He's about fourteen, and quite full of wickedness. But one may train him into something."

"Did he--did he look at all clean?"

"He did not. I rather think the training will begin with soap; and it will be a terrible shock to him, because you'd say from his appearance that he'd never met it. His name is Horace, I suppose, but old Gordon always called him Horrors, and I think we'll stick to it; it's extraordinarily suitable."

"I don't think he sounds nice," said Aileen, wrinkling her pretty nose.

"To tell you the truth," said her husband confidentially, "he isn't. But he'll do a lot of odd jobs. I made inquiries about a servant, but it's as we thought--not a soul to be had. Did you sound Julia about coming?"

"I did," said Aileen. "'Is it me?' said Julia, 'that 'ud be leavin' Melbourne to go to wan of them places I've heard tell of--nowhere to go on your night out, and never a man to see, not if it was even a butcher-boy! I lived in a bog in Ireland all me days till I come to Australia; and 'tis no longer the counthry that I'd work in, but a good town with moving pictures and the grocer callin' every day for orders!' Then she wept at leaving me, and said she loved me as if I was her mother. Annie weeps too, at intervals, but of course she won't leave the young man in the baker's shop. But we couldn't afford them, anyway, Tom, so what's the good of worrying? Stop worrying at once, and tell me more about the farm."

"There's a gorgeous cloth-of-gold rose tumbling all over the veranda," he said obediently, "and lots of nice common flowers in the garden--stocks, and wallflowers, and snapdragons, and honesty, and pinks, and things like that. It's very untidy, but quite pretty. The house is in a sheltered place where anything will grow: he has orange and lemon trees, covered with fruit, and he says the lemons bear all the year round. There are guavas, too: I didn't know they grew in Victoria."

"Glory!" said Aileen, quoting her son. "I'll make guava jelly!"

"Do you know how?"

"No, but I'll learn. What else?"

"Oh--apricots, and peaches, and cherries, and apples, and pears, to say nothing of gooseberries and currants. There's a good strawberry bed, too."

"It sounds lovely," said Aileen. "Think of pies! I've been learning to make pastry, Tom, and Julia says I have a lovely hand for it. She's going to teach me all sorts of things. Do you think we can afford to buy one of those nice American oil-stoves? The ovens have glass doors, and you sit in front in ecstasy, and watch your cakes rise."

"What if they don't rise?"

"Then you go and do something else, and hope for the best. Don't depress me, Tom. They truly are lovely stoves, and you and Horrors wouldn't have nearly as much wood to cut. And they're nice and cool to work at."

"Well, that's quite enough reason," Macleod said. "If any dodge is going to make work easier for you, we'll get it, if I have to pawn my watch. Let's go and buy these fascinating things to-morrow. I've got a list of everything in the house, and you'll have to go over it, and see what else you'll need." He rose and stretched himself with a great yawn. "Eh, but I'm sleepy! The boy is asleep, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, poor man: he tried to stay awake for you, but I told him you would be too tired to talk. He's desperately anxious to hear about the pony--you must go in to see him as soon as you get up, and tell him about it. He is so happy to be going to the country. It's going to be awfully worth while, Tom."

"Is it?" Then the doubt in his eyes died at the sight of her face. "Yes, I believe it is," he said. "But then you'd make anything worth while!"

*Chapter IV*

*Into The Unknown*

They said good-bye to the "House Beautiful" in the early morning, while the roses on the porch were still wet with dew. One fragrant bud brushed Aileen's shoulder as she went, and she picked it, and tucked it into her coat. If a little shiver ran through her as the door closed behind her, she gave no sign. Their cab rattled off down the familiar suburban street. Neither Tom nor Aileen looked back.

At the big station all was bustle and hurry: and soon they were in the train and slipping through the long miles of grey houses, until the just-awaking city was left far behind, and wide green paddocks and gum trees, tall and stately, surrounded them. Little townships, like beads upon a string, brought them to a halt every few miles: sometimes so close together that there seemed scarcely any break between the outlying homesteads.

"Plenty of settlement here now," Macleod said. "My mother used often to travel this road by coach, and it was a journey in the winter: the road was just a succession of bog-holes. There was one cheery spot known as the Glue-Pot. Passengers used to get out there, in a body; the women and children stood under the trees, often in pouring rain, while the men got their shoulders to the wheels and dragged and pushed the old coach through. It must have been hard on women with babies."

"Ugh!" said Aileen. "Do you know, I think our mothers were made of better stuff than we are."

"I don't," said her husband stoutly. "You aren't called upon to do what they did--you would do it if you were. But I don't think we men are anything like as good as our fathers: we're brought up softly, and we simply haven't got their muscle and endurance and pluck."

"It's just the same with you--you would do what you had to."

"I suppose we'd try. Honestly, though, we wouldn't get through as much. Every one thinks more nowadays of having a good time: the old people never took holidays, never had luxuries: worked year in and year out; had mighty few clothes, and patched them until they fell to pieces. I suppose that's partly how they made money. No, we're poor specimens compared to our fathers."

"Well, _I_ think you're just as good as Grandfather, and a jolly lot better!" said an indignant small voice; and Garth hurled himself tumultuously upon his father.

"It's something to have a champion, isn't it?" said Aileen, laughing. "Sonnie, this is where I tuck you up for a sleep," at which Garth protested that he had never been less tired in his life, but nevertheless submitted to being rolled up in a rug with his head on his mother's knee; where presently sleep came to him, and he lay peacefully while the train raced through the fertile paddocks that were once a desolate swamp, climbed the Haunted Hills laboriously, rattled down the other side, and so came upon wide plains where great bullocks ceased grazing to look lazily at the iron monster that came daily to disturb their solitude.

Half the afternoon had waned when the train came to the end of its long journey, and they emerged from the station into a sleepy street where two-horse cabs waited to rattle them across Bairnsdale to the river. A paddle-steamer, moored to the wharf, was hooting as they approached, and late-comers were hurrying down the hill, fearful of being left behind. Having thus shown her independence by hooting, and every one being safely on board, the steamer decided not to hurry; and it was some time before she woke up to fresh energy, mooring ropes were cast off, and she churned her way into mid-stream.

Garth was wildly excited. Already a big grey horse in a gig had supplied a private circus for his benefit, declining to cross the bridge over the river near the wharf, and showing its utter disapproval of all bridges by dancing wildly on its hind legs, while the girl who was driving beat it in vain. A parting hoot from the steamer's siren concluded the argument, so terrifying the horse that it dropped to all fours and, in desperation, bolted across the bridge, disappearing in mad career towards the town. Already, Garth decided; the country was showing extraordinary attractions: this sort of entertainment never happened in a Toorak street. And now they were slipping down the river, between high banks where pleasant houses perched, surrounded by beautiful gardens. Boat-houses were built at the edge of the water, whence flights of steps ran up the hill: and little boats, tied to stakes, rocked lazily as the steamer approached, and, as she passed them, executed a frenzied dance as the swish of the water from the paddle-wheels churned into the reeds along the bank. Sometimes a lone fisherman sat in a boat, patiently angling. These sportsmen regarded the steamer as a necessary evil, and dangled their baits in the air until the commotion of her passing should have subsided.

A road wound along the river-bank. It was partly screened from view by trees, but sometimes they caught glimpses of people riding and driving, and once they saw a flock of sheep, driven by two boys, the younger of whom looked about Garth's age. A little later came three or four merry boys and girls, on ponies, racing, with shouts of laughter, along the track. Garth drew a long breath.

"Isn't the country a lovely place for boys, Dad!" he said.

"It seems pretty jolly, old man," his father answered. "How soon do you think you'll be able to ride like that?"

"I expect I'll have to get bucked off a good few times first," said the small boy soberly. "But it doesn't hurt much if you choose a soft spot to fall, Doctor says. He told me no one could ride until he'd been slung off seven times!"

"Well, a good many people couldn't ride if they had been off seventy-seven times," his father answered. "Some people aren't born to be riders."

"Do you think I am?" queried Garth anxiously.

"Can't tell until I see you on a pony. You ought to be all right; there's a good deal in beginning young. You will be all right if you're not afraid," said his father.

Garth's small face set firmly, and instinctively he stiffened his back. In his heart he was not quite sure that he was not a little afraid. But he hoped no one was going to guess it.

Round a bend came a little sea-going steamer, trim and workmanlike. She passed them, so close that a biscuit could have been thrown from deck to deck. The two crews exchanged cheery greetings; the men on the incoming ship were busy getting everything in order as they neared the end of their long voyage from Melbourne.

"Some day, when we want an adventure, Garth, we'll go round to Melbourne in that boat," Macleod said, watching the steamer's stern as she ploughed her way up the river. "I believe she carries passengers."

"Well, you'll get the adventure if you chance it in rough weather," said a man near them. "I bin round in her an' the ol' _Despatch_ too: an' when it's fine it's a jolly good way of gettin' there. But when it's rough, it's a fair cow! One trip, we was four days instead of thirty-six hours, and every one ashore give us up for lost.

"Wrecked?" asked Garth, wide-eyed.

"'M. But we wasn't. We was sheltering in a little inlet, and lucky we was to get there. We put in at Waratah Bay an' tried to land, but all the ol' boat 'ud do was to try an' climb on the wharf, there was such a sea running: so we got out again. It wasn't no picnic. We hadn't any too much food--not that most of us had big appetites. She was standin' on her head all the time, when she wasn't doin' her best to lie down' on her side an' die, an' we were bruised black an' blue from bein' chucked about. I nearly had me arm broke, from bein' pitched out of me bunk, one night."

"You had a bad time," Tom said.

"It was a fair cow. I guess even one of them big ocean liners might have bin a bit uncomfortable in that storm--and she was about three hundred tons! Anyhow, whatever she was, she could weather a storm better than most of them--there was bigger ships than her went down in that gale. We got to Melbourne all right, if we were a few days late. I guess the owners were pretty relieved when we came up the bay: I know _we_ were!"

He laughed, and drew out his pipe. He was an immensely tall man, with broad, stooping shoulders. A straggling beard ornamented a face burnt to the colour of brick-dust, in which twinkled little china-blue eyes. There was something very simple and friendly about him.

"But you have not always had bad trips?" Aileen asked.

"Bless you, no, lady. When it's fine I wouldn't ask no better way of getting about; an' I bin round often when there wasn't hardly a ripple the whole way. There was two young ladies once, travelling round, an' they slept out on deck both nights. Not that I've any fancy that way, meself; gimme a good, air-tight cabin. Oh, you wouldn't ask a nicer boat than the _Wyrallah_--her we passed just now. I had a liking for the poor ol' _Despatch_; but she's gone now."

"Where did she go?" Garth asked.

"Down to the bottom, son. She was tryin' to get into the Lakes' entrance in a heavy gale, with a bad cross-sea running. It's not an easy entrance--very narrow, and a nasty bar. The current took her a bit out of her track, an' she got on to a rock, an' went down. It happened mighty quick. There was lots of people in Gippsland as was sorry for the ol' _Despatch_. She wasn't a beauty, but she'd tramped up and down from Melbourne many a year, and we'd got a liking for her."

He pointed ahead with his pipe-stem.

"We're getting into the lake."

The high banks had changed to flats, across which they could see a broad sheet of water. The land between narrowed to a point; and presently they came out upon the placid waters of a wide lake rippling gently in the evening sunlight. In the reeds near the point great black swans were swimming. They rose as the steamer churned past them and sailed away into the western sky, the clang of their leader's note coming more and more faintly as they became dots on the blue.

"Some people as calls themselves sportsmen shoot those birds," said their new acquaintance scornfully. "Sportsmen, indeed! I'd as soon go out and shoot canaries, they're that tame. And they're no sort of use when they are shot; you'd have to be mighty hungry before you'd eat one.

[Illustration: "'Some people as calls themselves sportsmen shoot those birds.'"]

"Are they tough?" Aileen inquired.

"Tough--and fishy. The blacks eat 'em, but they aren't white men's food. It's a shame to kill them. But lots of these bright young chaps that come from Melbourne on a holiday reckon that anything with fur or feathers on is made for them to blaze at. I'd teach 'em a thing or two, if I had me way." The china-blue eyes were suddenly fierce. "Y'see, there's lots of things in the Bush that we get fond of, and it makes us a bit savage to have chaps like them rampaging round! I found one of 'em once trying his hardest to shoot bell-birds!"

"Is that very wicked?" Garth asked innocently.

"Well, it's worse than shooting canaries. The bell-birds live in the fern gullies: they're shy little brown things, hard to see, but they've a note just like a little bell chiming away in the tree-tops. You'd think even a Melbourne fine gentleman couldn't help liking them. But there was me gent, with his little gun, looking for scalps; and even a bell-bird's was better to him than none."

"What did you say to him? Did you let him shoot them?" the lad asked.

"I misremember what I said, but he didn't like it, an' he got nasty, and wanted to fight. Lord, you couldn't fight anything like that! So to end it I just gave him a good spanking, and let him go. He went."

Tom burst out laughing.

"You didn't, really?"

"I did, though. What else could you do with him? He reckoned he was grown-up, but he hadn't as much sense as my kid of ten. Spanking's the only thing for that sort--an' I guess he remembers the one I gave him yet. You see, he was rude."

"Are all Melbourne people like that?" Aileen queried, with a twinkle in her eye.

"Bless you, no," said the giant, twinkling in return. "Most of 'em come to fish, and they don't do any harm: an' there's lots that like the Bush, an' wouldn't hurt anything in it. Some of 'em's that proud of it they even collect all their lunch-papers and burn 'em after a picnic; but you don't meet many as well brought up as that." He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "Well, I think it's a fair thing to go an' have some tea." He grinned at them, and strolled off along the deck.

"That's an idea," said Tom. "Come on, and we'll have some too."

The little saloon was crowded, so they brought their tea on deck, where nothing, Garth said, was ever so good as bread-and-butter, eaten in the sweet air that blew softly across the lake. Here and there brown-sailed fishing-boats could be seen, and sometimes the steamer slowed down while a boat ran alongside, and the crew pitched empty fish boxes down to the men in blue jerseys, in readiness for the night's haul.

"They'll give them back to us filled in the morning, if they have luck," said the Captain, a long and friendly man who had come down from the upper deck to make acquaintance with his passengers. "Then we ice them, and the fish will be in Melbourne to-morrow night. Not as good as fresh-caught, of course, but then you city people don't know the difference! Wait till you get fish at the hotel, I suppose you're going to Kalimna?"

"No--we're coming down here to live," Tom told him.

"You don't say!" ejaculated the Captain. Light broke upon him. "Is it you who've taken Gordon's place?"

"Yes."

"Wonder how you'll like it." His glance rested for a moment on Aileen, dainty in her well-cut travelling clothes, her delicate face a little pale and tired. "It's not a bad little place, but I'm afraid you'll find it a bit rough. Gordon's a queer stick: hardly ever spoke to a soul. He wasn't what you'd call popular in these parts."

"I hope that won't make people unfriendly towards us," said Aileen, smiling.

"Not much--once they know you're not like Gordon," the Captain answered. "Country people are friendly enough--when they've time--but they can't stand any one being stuck-up, and that was the name Gordon had. He liked the place, too, I believe, but he never would make any friends. He was a lonely old soul. Well, well! And so you're going farming!" Again his eye travelled over them curiously. "Been at it before, might I ask?"

"No--this is our first attempt," said Tom, flushing a little.

"Well, you've got pluck, haven't you? That's all it wants--pluck and hard work. One thing, you've a good neighbour; Nick O'Connor's a nice chap. Didn't you know him?"--as Tom's face showed no response. "That's him you were talking to awhile ago--that big chap."

"Is he our neighbour? Oh, I'm glad, aren't you, Dad?" Garth exclaimed.

"And are you going to be a farmer, too, young man?" queried the Captain.

"I'm going to try," Garth said manfully. "Dad says I can help him."

"I should say so--a big fellow like you. Would you like to come and see the engines?"

"Glory!" said Garth blissfully, and trotted off by his new friend. Half an hour later his father went in search of him, and found him on the upper deck, grasping the wheel with his thin little hands, and trembling with eager delight as the steamer answered his touch. The Captain stood by, laughing at his efforts.

"I'll make a sailor of him, if he finds he doesn't like farming," he said.

"I'll remember," Tom said, laughing. "Which is it going to be, Garth?"

"I like this--awfully!" Garth panted. "But I suppose one might get a bit sick of it. And you can't have a pony on a ship!"

"Not as a rule," said the Captain. "Well, let me know if you change your mind. I might have a vacancy for a first mate any time." He patted Garth on the head as the small boy went off with his father to the warmth of the lower deck and his big overcoat.

The day was dying, and Garth began to feel a little tired: ready to sit down between his father and mother, and watch the lake shores as they glided by. They were in another lake now, the first of the chain of three that stretches inland from the sea; and their course was close to shore, underneath wooded heights and past beautiful little bays. The lake grew darker and darker. It was all very beautiful and peaceful: but, to the three strangers, it was certainly a little lonely, perhaps a little unfriendly. Home--the dear "House Beautiful" seemed very far away.

There came a momentary stoppage at a little jetty under high cliffs, where three or four men with rod cases went ashore and disappeared on a steeply ascending path. Then the steamer ran on, almost under the cliffs, until the lake narrowed, and opened out again; and ahead they could see the lights of a township. On the right hand, dimly visible, a narrow pathway of water ran out, between long grey piers, to an illimitable grey waste of water beyond; and a dull sound that had for some time been audible swelled to a roar; the thunder of the surf pounding on the entrance bar and on the Ninety-Mile Beach. They steamed past the entrance and into what seemed a little land-locked lake: paused for a moment at another jetty, and then made across to the beckoning lights on the further shore. The long journey was at an end.

*Chapter V*

*The Home-Coming*

Weary, a little dazed, the three travellers stood up, collecting rugs and wraps, and moved to the rail, watching the bustle of disembarkation. Most of the township of Cuninghame seemed to have come to meet the boat; the wharf was crowded, fishermen and labourers mingling with gaily-dressed visitors--boys in flannels, and girls in pretty frocks. Across the street from the wharf, light streamed from the open doors of a brightly-lit store, throwing everything else into greater darkness.

Tom Macleod leaned forward, scanning the throng intently.

"I wish I could see my worthy friend, Mr. Smith," he muttered.

"Who's Mr. Smith, Daddy?"

"Mr. Smith is the proud owner of a two-hoss shay he calls an express-wagon: and I hired him to meet us and drive us home, my son," Tom answered. "Thank goodness, there he is!" as a short, thick-set man came into view in the shifting crowd. "Hi! Smith! Stay here, Aileen: I'll go and get the luggage ashore." He disappeared, and they heard his voice again urgently hailing Mr. Smith, who strolled to and fro on the wharf, apparently enjoying the evening, but making no effort to find his temporary employer. Finally, a more insistent call secured his attention, and they lost sight of him.

A long and dreary wait ensued. The decks had emptied; and the steamer lights were being turned out. A keen wind blew from the water: Aileen wrapped Garth in a rug, and they crouched together on a seat, too tired even to talk. The people on the wharf went home, or clustered in groups near the store, gossiping. From time to time they caught sight of Tom and Mr. Smith, crossing and re-crossing towards the street, laden with boxes and trunks. Garth was nearly asleep when at length his father appeared.

"You poor souls!" Tom uttered. "I'm awfully sorry to have kept you such a time, Aileen. But we couldn't get a soul to help us, and Mr. Smith isn't what you'd call a swift mover. Asleep, sonnie? Come on--we'll soon be home."

Garth got to his feet stiffly, and stood, shivering, while his father and mother gathered up the rugs. Then they crossed to the wharf over a narrow gangway. In the street waited Mr. Smith, in a curious vehicle like a single-seated buggy with a very long tail, which tail was piled high with their luggage. The seat was very high, and looked--and was--exceedingly uncomfortable. Two impatient horses were making attempts to start, and Mr. Smith was repressing their energy.

"G'd evenin'," he said. "Back there, Blossom. You're a long way off your paddock yet. Take care how you get up, Mrs. Macleod; the step's a bit high. Afraid the kid'll have to sit on your knee. Bit of a squash, ain't it?"

They settled themselves somehow; the high seat caused Aileen's feet to dangle uncomfortably until Mr. Smith obligingly produced a sack of potatoes which acted as a footstool and prevented her slipping down. Tom took Garth on his knee, and muffled him in a rug. His head went back thankfully upon his father's shoulder. Mr. Smith clicked encouragingly to the horses, and they trotted up the street, leaving the brightly-lit store behind them. On one side were dim houses, and on the other, behind a low stone wall, the lake glimmered, and the water splashed on the shingle.

They turned inland presently, along a track that was hardly visible to the untrained eyes of the city people, though Mr. Smith and the horses followed it unerringly. It wound like a snake among the dim shapes of gum trees. Soon they were beyond the outlying houses of the township, and only an occasional lit window showed the existence of any inhabitants of this lonely region. Even these disappeared at last, and they drove into what seemed utter blackness.

Afterwards, Aileen Macleod was amazed to find that her new home was only three miles from the township. On that first night, twisting and turning on the dark bush track, with her senses numbed by weariness and homesickness, it was an interminable drive. Garth fell asleep, but the bumping of the express wagon over unseen obstacles awoke him constantly, and he whimpered a little--too tired to be a man, in spite of his seven years.

"Buck up, ol' son," said Mr. Smith. "We're just about there."

They stopped at a white-painted gate, only half visible to the strangers. Tom got down and fumbled with unaccustomed fastenings, while the horses fidgeted at the delay, and Aileen tried hard not to be nervous. At length it was open, and then another pause ensued while it was shut--an operation even more difficult than the opening. Tom swung himself up into the wagon again, with a muttered apology for his slowness.

"There ain't a decent gate on ol' Gordon's place," Mr. Smith said. "You'll have to let your boy come back with me to open it--I'd never hold these brutes once they got their heads pointed for home."

They were trotting through a paddock, where, apparently, no track existed. Bump--bump--bump, they went, over hollow and rise, stick and tussock. The horses swerved and twisted among the grey tree-shapes. Once they shied so violently that Tom had to clutch Aileen to save himself from being thrown out. Something got up with a snort and lumbered off into the darkness.

"A bloomin' cow!" observed Mr. Smith.

"Do cows always lie down on the track at night?" Aileen asked.

"Cert'nly," said Mr. Smith, in some surprise. "The things what don't come here at night, gen'lly-as-a-rule, is horses and buggies!"

A new chill crept over her. The stupid incident seemed to sum up her position. The cow was at home, and she, most emphatically, was not. Would it ever be home to her?

A faint light showed through the trees ahead, and presently they were skirting a rough garden fence, as Mr. Smith announced his intention of taking them round to the back. He pulled up, with a great grinding of brakes, and shouted "Coo-ee!" loudly. Across the yard a door opened, and a boy's squat figure showed against the light.

"There's your man," said Mr. Smith, with something resembling a chuckle. "Come over 'ere, 'Orace, and lend a hand with these things."

The boy moved slowly, hesitatingly, forward. Tom got down, and held out his hands to Garth.

"Come on, sonnie. Be careful, Aileen: the step is high."

He lifted Garth down, and turned to help his wife. She was numbed from her cramped position, and stumbled against him, glad of his arm, for a moment.

"I'm all right, Tom," she said then. "Give me something to carry in."

"You can take the rugs," he said, "and Garth. Don't come out again, dear; just look round the rooms to get the hang of the place. I'll hurry the things in as quickly as I can, and come to help you."

Mother and little son stumbled across the uneven yard, guided by the light from the door. The squat boy brushed against them, evidently afraid. They reached a narrow veranda, across which the light streamed. It came from a kitchen: such a kitchen as Aileen had never seen. She looked into it half-timidly.

It was not a very large room, and it was indescribably filthy. A fire, which seemed the only clean thing, blazed in a rusty-looking stove, which had not known blacklead since its earliest infancy. On the hearth, logs, buckets and dirty boots mingled: a very black kettle and some evil-looking saucepans stood on the stove-top and the hobs. The floor was covered with tattered linoleum, with bare spaces here and there where the ancient covering had worn away, or still lingered in ragged strands. There was a sink in one corner; a large table, the surface of which shone with blackened grease, a dresser, covered with a queer assortment of cracked and stained crockery. The walls had once been whitewashed, but the white had long disappeared beneath a coating of smoke and grime. A black frying-pan hung by the fire-place, with a toasting-fork that had been twisted out of fencing wire. Over all was a reek of vile tobacco smoke, mingled with the smell of dirt and closeness. It was very evidently the sitting-room of Horrors. The mantelpiece held a framed text, its gaudy flowers almost invisible under the speckled and misty glass. It said, "God Bless Our Home."

"Mother!" said Garth, in a whisper. "Is this where we're going to _live_?"

She looked down at the child's white face, and woke from the disgust and horror that had swept over her.

"Well, it is, sonnie," she said. "But it won't look like this long. You wait until we all get busy at it, and you won't know it. Anyway, we'll forget about it to-night. Come on and explore the rest of the house."

There was only one lamp, and she did not like to take it, since its dim beam was the only guide for the men as they tramped backwards and forwards from the wagon to the veranda. She looked about on the dresser, and found an end of candle stuck into a broken porter bottle, the sides of which were thick with grease. No matches were visible, so she held it to a blazing stick until it was alight. Then they entered their home.

There were four main rooms, with a kind of lobby at the back, off which were bathroom and storeroom. It was a simple cottage, such as you will find in the Bush in hundreds: a big living-room, and three bedrooms of varying sizes, the largest of which would have made a servant's bedroom in the "House Beautiful"--which was, perhaps, a place that gave itself airs. Such rooms they were! The extreme filth of the kitchen had not penetrated indoors; but they were dirty enough, with dust thick in every corner, and an almost unbearable fustiness that cried eloquently for fresh air. After her first sniff of the evil atmosphere Aileen went hastily to each window, flinging them open: all save one, which, apparently, never had been opened, and declined to begin now. She struggled with it for a minute and then gave it up, glancing at her dirt-streaked hands with a little shudder of disgust.

They had sent ahead of them, by steamer, a few articles of furniture, arranging with Mr. Smith to bring them out and unpack the new beds; which stood, gaunt with their naked mattresses, looking painfully clean amid the surrounding squalor. Sheets and blankets were somewhere in the mass of luggage that even now was being flung down on the dark back veranda. The other furniture was rough and untidy, and chiefly home-made: the dressing-tables were old packing-cases draped with dingy cretonne, the washstands were shelves against the wall. Mr. Gordon had evidently been a gentleman with a turn for carpentry: there were chairs made from barrels, and bookshelves composed of old laths from fruit cases, and filled with tattered and dirty books. The walls were boarded and varnished, cobwebs forming their only decoration.

"It's a funny house," Garth said plaintively. "Mother, could I go to bed, do you think?"

"Mother hasn't got a proper bed ready for you," Aileen said. "Never mind, sonnie: I'll fix you up without proper things for a while."

She brought the bundle of rugs, and spread them on the smaller bed: Mr. Smith, with an admirable economy of space, had erected both in one room. Garth was fumbling wearily at his buttons, and she came to his aid quickly.

"We won't take all your clothes off, because your pyjamas, are hiding in one of the boxes," she told him. "But you won't mind that, to-night."

Garth was past minding anything. His heavy head nodded forward as she picked him up, kneeling on the dirty floor while she unlaced his boots; then she laid him gently back on the uncovered pillow. He was asleep almost as his head touched it. Very gently, she drew the rugs over him, and turned from him, shading the candle with her hand.

Tom Macleod, entering hurriedly, looked from the white face on the pillow to that of his wife, almost as white.

"My poor little girl!" he said.

A lump rose in Aileen's throat. She choked it back with decision.

"If you begin to pity me I might cry, and there doesn't seem time for any diversion like that," she said, smiling bravely. "We're all right. I've put Garth to bed---the poor man was so tired I wouldn't wait for sheets. But I would like some milk for him, Tom. Do you know if there is any?"

"There should be any amount--I think it's kept in the store-room," he said.

"And a saucepan?"

"Smith says he put the new pots and pans in the store-room, too--and the bread and meat and things we ordered."

"Then we'll all have hot milk and bread before we start unpacking," said his wife with decision. "Would you get the lamp, Tom? I'm so tired of this illumination!" She put down the greasy bottle and looked at the candle-end with disfavour. "I'll leave it, in case Garth wakes."

The store-room was more hopeful, since its window consisted of wire gauze, through which the air came freely. They found milk in what seemed to Aileen enormous quantities, most of it sour; but a bucket held the fresh supply of the evening, and a huge parcel from the store revealed butter as well as bread and groceries. They found another lamp, and while Tom heated milk in a hurriedly-rinsed saucepan, Aileen spread their first meal in the dining-room, using old newspapers for a tablecloth. She woke Garth, and made him drink a cupful of milk, but he was too sleepy to eat.

"Never mind--the milk will do him good," Tom said, watching them. "Now come and have some yourself."

They looked at each other over the paper-spread table, and to each of them came a vision of the "House Beautiful"--was it only last night that they had been in its dainty luxury! Neither spoke of it, however. Tom poured milk into a cracked cup and gave it to her.

"Don't be afraid. I washed the cups!" he said. "There was plenty of hot water, but nothing to dry them with--at least, nothing that you'd have cared about! So they're damp, if clean."

"Bless you!" said his wife. "Did you ever wash a cup before, Tom?"

"Not that I know of," he said, laughing. "But it isn't really difficult, if you have brains! Is the house very awful, dear?"

"Well--I'm inclined to think it's as well I had no stronger light than my candle-end to inspect it," she said, forcing a laugh. "It's--well, just a bit dirty. You ordered a charwoman, didn't you, Tom?"

"Of course I did. At least, one doesn't order them in this part of the world: one begs them humbly. I arranged with a plump lady named O'Brien, and Smith was to bring her out as often as was necessary. But she sent him a message that she had a lady friend from Bairnsdale staying with her, and she wasn't going. There doesn't seem to be any one else; so, since Gordon left, the house has been at the tender mercy of Horrors, not that I think he gets much beyond the kitchen. The kitchen is eloquent of him."

"It is, indeed," said Aileen, with a shudder. "Where is he now?"

"Gone to open the gate for Smith. I told him to come back quickly, but I don't fancy he's strong on being quick. I want him to help me carry things into the lobby--it's the best place to unpack. You know where to put your hands on the things we need to-night, don't you?"

"Oh, yes--bedclothes and sleeping things are all together in the black trunk, and so are our old clothes. They're all handy. But I can't remember where I packed soap and towels."

"They'll turn up," said Tom cheerfully, "especially if you don't worry about them. All you have to think of to-night is bed, even if you go there grubby! I'm afraid you'll have a very hard day to-morrow, my girl."

"It doesn't seem as if anything could be hard if I only had a sleep first," she said. "Have more hot milk, Tom."

Tom drained the saucepan.

"I never knew what a really good thing milk was," he said. "Let's live on it largely: it's cheap, and easy to cook! I feel pounds better."

"Kin I go ter bed?" said a voice at the door.

It was Horrors: a curious, squat boy of fifteen, with a very red face in which small eyes looked dully at the world; with a mop of extremely tight black curls, and an expression of stupidity that proved to be quite genuine. His clothes, tightly buttoned, were of blue dungaree, and had a well-filled look which, later, they found to be due to a habit of wearing other complete suits underneath the top layer, as though prepared at any minute to leave home suddenly. He stood at the door opening from the lobby and repeated his question heavily.

"Kin I go ter bed?"

"You can't, just yet," Tom said. "I want you to help me carry in those boxes."

"Awright," said Horrors sadly.

"Where do you sleep?" Aileen asked nim, studying her new henchman gravely.

"In me room."

"But where? Not in the house?" with a swift fear.

"Over there." He jerked his head towards the outer world. It was characteristic of Horrors that he never used two words where one would do.

"There's a buggy-shed, with a lean-to attached that forms Horrors' sleeping-bower," Tom told his wife. "I told him to clean it out before we came."

"Did," said Horrors.

"H'm," said Tom. "Pity you didn't clean the kitchen, too. Well, we'll get in these boxes."

They carried them in, placing them so that they could be conveniently unpacked. Aileen dragged out bedclothes and garments and made the bed by the light of the candle-end, now nearly exhausted. She was not used to the task: it would not have been considered a well-made bed. But it looked rather like heaven to her when it was finished.

Tom came in, to find her rooting wearily in a trunk.

"I wish I could have helped you," he said anxiously. "What are you looking for, now?"

"Soap," she said, her lip quivering in spite of herself. The hunt for soap had suddenly assumed enormous proportions--she had a vague idea that, if necessary, she must go on searching for it all night.

"Oh, you poor old tired thing!" her husband said. "There's an old bit of yellow in the bathroom, and here's a spare pillow-case--it will make a beautiful towel. I've got hot water in the basin--it was the dirtiest basin you ever saw, by the way. Come along." He lifted her to her feet.

They washed their hands and faces together in the basin, like children, and dried them on the pillow-case. The candle-end had guttered out when Aileen went back to her room, and she undressed by a faint gleam of moonlight that filtered in through the uncurtained window. The smell of the yellow soap was her last waking memory on her first night in the new home.

*Chapter VI*

*A Day In The Country*

The sun was streaming through a threadbare yellow blind when Aileen Macleod awoke next morning. For a moment, dazed with sleep, she wondered what had happened--surely Julia was very late in bringing tea! Then memory came to her, and, with it, the realization that, for the first time in her life, food depended upon her own exertions. Simultaneously came the conviction that never before had she wanted morning tea so much.

She slipped out of bed. Garth and her husband were still sound asleep, but from outside came a clatter of buckets that gave hope that Horrors was astir. The thought of the bath called her. But on examination, the plunge-bath proved to possess an encrusted layer of dirt that defied cold water, and effectually robbed her of any craving to use it. The basin provided minor ablutions--the pillow-case was still damp from its midnight use, but its cleanliness, even though moist, was pleasant. Everywhere that she looked the pitiless daylight revealed dirt which the kindly candle-end had hidden the night before. She drew the skirts of her pretty dressing-gown more closely about her as she went back along the narrow passage towards the locked front door. She threw it open and went out upon the veranda.

[Illustration: "She drew the skirts of her pretty dressing-gown more closely about her and went out upon the veranda."]

Before her was loveliness of which she had not dreamed.

The house stood on a little hill, which sloped gently away at the back, and, in front, shelved more steeply down to where a glimpse of blue water showed. Like a river, it wound away among the hills until it was lost to sight: now narrow, now widening almost to a baby lake. Beyond were hills clothed with gum trees and wattle, stretching to the far distance; but nearer, she looked down into an exquisite fern gully, where splendid tree-ferns flung their fronded crests high into the air, and smaller fern-growths nestled about their stems. The plash of a tiny waterfall told of a stream running through it, to empty itself in the lake. Nearer, the hills were low and rounded, their fresh greenness a delight to tired city eyes.

No other houses were visible. It was as though they owned all the sweet countryside that stretched about the little cottage. On a far rise she could see knots of sheep, like dots of white wool upon the green; but before her no living thing moved, and there was only the still peace of hill and valley and curving lake. There had been fear in her heart--the fear born of inexperience and ignorance, the dread that the task she had shouldered would prove too hard for her. But it died as she looked out across the paddocks. In fancy she saw Garth running on the hills: growing strong and rosy, losing the pinched, tired look, and the blue circles under his eyes. With that dear vision in her heart, nothing else could matter.

She went back to her room. Garth was sitting up in bed, frankly bewildered.

"Hallo, Mother!" he said. "Did I go to sleep in my clothes?"

"You did," said his mother, beginning to brush her hair with swift strokes. "You were quite too tired last night to worry about pyjamas and sheets, sonnie."

"I don't remember a thing about it," said Garth. "I say, isn't this a queer room?"

"Oh, rooms don't count," Aileen answered. "You won't think about them when you see what a country we have come to. It's just lovely, Garth. Green paddocks--and gullies--and blue water!"

"Glory!" said Garth, and tumbled out of bed: a quaint figure in crumpled shirt and trousers. He ran to the window. "Oh-h, Mother!"

"Are you two discovering Gippsland?" asked a sleepy voice.

"Yes. Get up, lazy one, and discover it too," said Aileen.

"You forget that I explored it before kindly bringing you here," answered her husband, turning more comfortably on his pillow. "Aren't you grateful to me?" He suddenly regarded her with amazement. "Why are you doing your hair in that small, hard bun?"

Aileen skewered the bun in question with a final careful hairpin.

"There is going to be an amount of dust raised in this house to-day that will make up for the years during which it has never seen a spring-cleaning," she answered. "And my hair is clean. So I screw it in a bun, and presently I shall also tie it in one of your largest handkerchiefs. Then I shall sally forth and attack our new home with a broom."

"To do which, you must be fed," said Tom, getting up with a quick movement and disappearing towards the bathroom.

"How he'll _hate_ that wet pillow-case!" Aileen murmured. Inspiration came to her, and she dived into a trunk, which, after a moment's rummaging, revealed a large brown towel. Thrust in at the bathroom door, this induced gasping sounds of gratitude.

The newspaper tablecloth of last night did duty for breakfast also; and breakfast was eggs, boiled over a spirit-lamp, and tea, which Tom brewed in the kitchen. Garth, delighted at what he regarded as a huge picnic, trotted here and there, helping and hindering with equal enthusiasm.

"I've made a tour of the house," Aileen said, manipulating an enormous brown tea-pot; "and I want to map out our plan of campaign. What are you going to do?"

"Help you, until the place is clean," said her husband, looking at her. She was an unfamiliar Aileen, in a blue overall, short and workmanlike, and with her tightly-screwed hair. Tom came to the conclusion that he liked it. "What do we do first?"

"Good housewives, I have always read, begin by setting their kitchen in order," she answered. "But I think I would rather have clean bedrooms first; and I propose to ignore the kitchen. It's dirtier than all the rest of the house put together, and I feel that it will keep. If we could set up the oil-stove in the lobby we could boil kettles and things there. I brought an enormous piece of cooked corned-beef, so we shan't need to cook."

"First-rate idea," said Tom approvingly. "What about the kid? Does he eat corned-beef?"

"There's a cold chicken for him," said his mother. "Also meat jelly, in a jar: I trust it's not broken by that unholy bumping last night of Mr. Smith's express wagon. What does Horrors do to earn his living, Tom?"

"He's supposed to do what he is told; but under Gordon he seems to have done very much what he liked," Tom answered. "He milks three cows, and feeds pigs and calves and fowls; and cuts wood, and draws water--no, he doesn't, there are taps, praise the pigs! He's just an odd-job boy--and quite at your disposal. His not to reason why!"

"He might do some of the rougher work, and the scrubbing," Aileen said. She knitted her brows. "I do feel so stupid--I don't know where to begin!"

"I don't blame you, with a house in what my old nurse used to call a dirty uproar," said her husband. "Let's hurl everything out of one front room on to the veranda and clean things there. Then we'll clean the room, and put the clean things back into it, and then we'll sit down in the clean midst of everything and smirk at the result. We shan't be clean, ourselves, by that time, but that's a detail. If we do that every day for a week you won't know our mansion!"

"It sounds a good plan," said Aileen enthusiastically. "Come on, and we'll begin." She reached the door, and then turned back, laughing.

"I quite forgot that if we didn't clear away the breakfast things, nobody would!" she said. "I must wash up."

"I'll help you, Mother," said Garth eagerly.

"Will you, sweetheart? Well, you can dry the things. And Tom, if you could get Horrors, you and he might begin the hurling-out of the furniture. Where is Horrors, by the way?"

"When I last saw him, he had eaten five eggs, and was beginning a sixth!" said her husband. "If he feels well enough, which seems doubtful, I'll get him at once. I'll fill the kettle for you. Don't go into the kitchen more than you can help, for it is in every sense a place of horrors. I saw fully five thousand cockroaches there last night."

"Ugh!" shuddered Aileen.

"Don't worry. I'm told that it's only at night that 'the rogues come out to play,'" said he. "We'll poison them when we come to attack the kitchen. They must have been great company for that boy in the long evenings--we mustn't grudge him lively society!"

"What's cockroaches?" asked Garth, greatly interested. "I never saw one."

"I trust not," said his mother hastily. "Never mind them--we must get to work, sonnie."

There were evil rags in the kitchen that had done duty as dish-towels, and which Aileen, having sniffed gingerly, lifted on the point of a stick and conveyed to the fire. There was also a dish-pan so encrusted with the remains of many washings that she decided to use a wash-hand basin. There were the shelly remnants of Horrors' breakfast--which it seemed best to leave for his own disposal. Finally, having discovered that when cockroaches are sufficiently tame and prosperous they do not always shun the daylight, she seized the kettle and, shuddering, fled, leaving both doors open, that fresh air might remove some of the more obtrusive odours of Horrors' sitting-room. Later, she found that this plan had led to the intrusion of a large family of fowls and several half-wild cats. In the hope that some of these visitors might care for eating cockroaches, she forebore to disturb them.

It was a strange day for a woman who had never before done an hour's hard work. Throughout her life she had known only ease and dainty comfort; now she found herself plunged into dirt and squalour, with no skilled aid, and handicapped by utter inexperience. It was the inexperience that almost angered her as the hours went on. By nature she was practical enough--it was hurting to her pride to make stupid mistakes that must be paid for by more hard work. She scrubbed a room without thinking of cleaning the walls and ceiling--which, when examined, yielded so much grime that her fastidiousness forthwith scrubbed the defiled floor again. Tom was greatly annoyed with her when he found her on her knees, wielding the scrubbing-brush anew. But at least there was comfort in having done the job thoroughly.

Horrors, as a scrubber, proved an utter failure. Tom said he "took the rough off"; but Aileen, looking at pools of filthy water which seemed to have flung up waves of dirt, decided that his methods were hopeless, and--when Tom was out of the way--went over the work again herself, and made the discovery that scrubbing is not so easy as it looks, and that it carries possibilities of backache undreamed of before. Indeed, as the day wore on, a thousand aches seemed situated in her back, and her shoulders grew so stiff that she could scarcely raise her arms. Like all enthusiastic beginners, she tried to do too much, and paid the penalty.

Yet throughout the hard day she was never unhappy. The work brought its own reward in the delight of feeling cleanliness about her again; and it was something to be working together, uniting their efforts in making the new home. Garth's happy face, as he appeared from time to time at a window, full of joyful tidings of new discoveries outside, was a never-failing tonic. And Tom was the best of mates; ignorant as herself, and much more unpractical, but full of energy, and with a joke always on his lips. Garth's voice singing, as he roamed in the garden, mingled with his father's, singing also, to the accompaniment of much rattling and banging, as he unpacked and erected the new oil-stove. It made her want to sing herself--only that her back ached too much.

They lunched in a scrappy fashion, very late which was foolish; and, having lunched late, let afternoon tea go altogether, which was more foolish still. They had yet to learn that hard work, without sufficient food, does not pay. Aileen was finishing bed-making, in a room that fairly smelt of cleanliness, when Tom appeared in the doorway.

"Six o'clock; and that's the last stroke of work you do this day," said he firmly. "Come and eat things: I've made an enormous pot of tea, and Garth has laid the table."

"How lovely! and what dears you both are!" she said, turning, and smiling at him. Then suddenly the room began to turn round, slowly at first, and then faster, and she was falling through space.

It seemed a very long while, though it was but a few moments, before she opened her eyes, to find herself on her bed, with Tom bending over her.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "I'm all right, Tom--let me get up." She struggled to rise.

"Lie still, dear," he said anxiously.

"Did I faint?--how silly of me!" she said disgustedly. "I'm so sorry; I must have frightened you."

"I'm glad I caught you," he said. "Isn't there some medicine I could give you? Sal volatile, or something? Tell me where to look."

Colour was coming back to her lips. She began to laugh.

"Oh, I don't want any medicine," she answered. "I haven't got any, either--you know I never faint, Tom. It's too stupid of me to do it now. I was only a little tired--and I think the idea of tea overcame me!"

"Keep quiet, then, and I'll bring you a cup," he said, disappearing. He was back in a moment, cup in hand, and made her lean against him as she drank it.

"That was lovely!" she said, lying back. "Oh, I've such a heavenly feeling of laziness, and of course, I must nip it in the bud! I'm all right now, Tom, and so hungry. Come along."

"Sure you are?" he said, regarding her doubtfully as she got up. "Well, don't go tumbling about like that any more: it scares one." He held her arm as they went along the narrow passage to the dining-room, and kept a wary eye upon her throughout the meal. Being well aware of this, she forced herself to be extremely merry, despite thee fact that red-hot knives seemed to be running in and out of her shoulders.

"It's just the beautifullest place that ever was!" Garth said, blissfully looking up from his bowl of bread and milk. "There's lovely sheds, and a big bench with tools--they's rustier than _your_ tools, Daddy!--and a stable, and such a jolly loft, with hay in it, and rats!"

"It sounds a jolly place," said his father. "Are there more rats than hay, or vice versa?"

"I didn't see any---any of those things you said," answered Garth, slightly puzzled. "Do they run about?"

"Not as a rule," said Tom gravely. "Never mind; I dare say there are none. But are there many rats?"

"I only saw three, but I heard lots." Garth's tone was hopeful. "And Bran was awful excited. He couldn't get up the ladder, but he raced about down below, and barked like fun. Do you think you could carry him up to-morrow, Daddy? I tried, but it's a very steep ladder, and he wriggled."

"And who said you could climb up steep ladders?" asked his mother.

"But I couldn't have got up into the loft if I hadn't," said her son.

"That seems to settle it," said Tom, beginning to laugh. "We'll have to get used to these things, I suppose."

"I suppose so," Aileen agreed. "We really don't want a prim suburban son now. Only make me one promise, Garth, to keep my old mind easy--don't go near the water until Daddy has time to teach you to swim."

"I did go, to-day," confessed her son, "but I won't again. You'll teach me pretty quick, won't you, Daddy? And can I go near the little creek in the gully? It's the littlest ever--I can jump across it anywhere."

"Oh, we can leave you the gully," Aileen answered. "And we'll make a swimmer of you just as soon as we can. Every one finished? Then we'll go and look at our work."

The house reeked pleasantly of soap and turpentine, and, so far as was possible, it shone. It had been fortunate for the workers that Mr. Gordon's furniture was both simple and scarce, and so had economized cleaning. They had arranged it to more advantage in the bare little rooms, and already they were homelike, though lacking as yet the smallest pretence at adornment. The cretonne petticoats had been ruthlessly torn from the packing-case dressing-tables, the shelves and tops of which were modestly covered, for the present, with newspapers. Gay Indian bedspreads lent a touch of colour to the prevailing dinginess of the brown walls and linoleum-covered floors of the two front rooms.

"Don't you feel a holy glow that we took up those linoleums?" Tom asked.

"When I think of what was under them, I do!" rejoined his wife grimly.

The lobby was still a scene of wild unpacking; but in the third bedroom, a tiny apartment off the dining-room, the American oil-stove stood in all its bravery of black paint and bright blue enamel, the glass door of the oven shining invitingly. A copper kettle simmered over the flame: on nails on the wall hung Aileen's aluminium pots and pans. A rough shelf held an imposing stack of cookery books, flanked by a big pile of dish towels.

"It does look jolly!" Garth said. "When are you going to begin to cook, Mother?"

"As soon as I have a clean house," Aileen answered. "To-morrow we'll have to attack that awful store-room: and I foresee heart-to-heart talks with Horrors on the subject of milk buckets. His look as if they were washed about once a month. Tom, how lovely you've made the bath!"

The tin sides of the bath fairly winked at them as they entered the little bathroom.

"Seeing that I used gallons of boiling water and about half a ton of soda to it, I should think it ought to look lovely," said Tom. "I doubled myself into the thing for so long that when I finally emerged, I thought I'd never straighten myself!" His eyes twinkled. "What a heap there is in housekeeping one never suspected! I've regarded Julia and Annie as quite ordinary people for years, but now they strike me as rather more than human!"

"But is you two people always going to work?" asked a small voice. "Nothin' else at all?"

Garth's father and mother exchanged glances over his head.

"Poor man! He has never seen us do anything but play!" Aileen murmured. She patted his head. "We'll have to work a good deal, sonnie, but there will be time for quite a lot of fun, too. That has simply _got_ to be arranged. And to begin with, I think it's high time you showed me things outside. It's disgraceful to have come to a new home and not to have put one's nose out all day. And outside is so much lovelier than inside!"

"It just is--ever so much," Garth cried. "Come along! I wonder will the pigs have gone to bed!"

"Sure you're not too tired?" Tom asked, a little anxiously.

"I will be less tired if I go," she said. "He hasn't had us for a moment all day."

They went out together, but at the door Tom turned back.

"Go on," he said, "I want my pipe: I'll catch you up."

He watched them stray off into the twilight. Then he went to the forgotten tea-table, cleared it, and washed the dishes. He did it very badly, and with a great deal of mess, never having washed dishes before; but no one who saw him as he worked would have judged the work hardly. Having finished, he wiped up the mess--of which there was a good deal--with a clean towel, surveyed the result with pride, and strode forth to find his family.

"You've been ever so long!" Garth complained. "Whatever have you been doing, Daddy?"

"Just playing round," said Tom. "What a mercy the pigs aren't in bed!"

*Chapter VII*

*The Riding Of Jane*

A week went by--so swiftly that each day slipped away on wings, and yet, when they looked back, it seemed that years had passed since the grey morning when they left the "House Beautiful." It was a week of ceaseless hard work. At the end of it they looked at each other, toil-worn, but cheerful: in their hearts a queer pride in the new home that the "House Beautiful," with all its charm, had never succeeded in waking. There, it had been so easy to take things for granted. But here, only their own hands and their own brains counted; and they had used each to the full.

It had not been an easy week. The only really easy thing, Torn said, was to make mistakes; and of those, they had made enough and to spare. But they very rarely made the same mistake twice.

Now, within and without, the little bush home was spick-and-span. Everything had been scrubbed and re-scrubbed. Light streamed into it from wide-open doors and through brightly-polished windows. The packing-case furniture swaggered in new petticoats of gay colours. From the barrel-chairs the dingy coverings had been ruthlessly stripped, and they, too, rejoiced in fresh clothing. Dainty belongings were scattered here and there: Aileen's piano, having survived the long journey by steamer and bullock-dray, stood in a corner of the sitting-room; and there were books and pictures and fresh flowers. They felt that they had reached a high level of success when Garth sniffed approvingly, and remarked, "This house is beginning to smell like you, Mother!"

The kitchen had suffered a transformation. With the pained assistance of Horrors, it had been emptied and scraped and cleansed. Unceasing warfare had fallen upon the horrified tribe of cockroaches, and now not one was to be seen, either by night or day. No scrubbing would remove the marks of ancient filth from the walls, and in desperation, Tom had at length given them two coats of whitewash, and had painted the tin sink with white enamel. At the conclusion of the job it was hard to say whether more whitewash had fallen on the walls or the artist; but the general effect was beautiful.

The colonial oven had been so long a stranger to blacklead that the first two coats had merely made it look as if suffering from an attack of black measles: at which a streak of obstinacy in Tom's soul developed strongly, and he brushed it daily, until, at length, it shone with an ebony lustre most uplifting to behold. They had routed from its interior a large collection of socks, in the last stage of decay--the property of Horrors, who had a pleasing habit of drying wet and dirty garments on the warm oven shelves. The gloom which had been settling more and more profoundly on Horrors since their arrival deepened perceptibly when he discovered that this artless practice must in future be denied him; and when, in addition, he was set to scrub the oven with washing-soda and boiling water, despair seized upon him.

"He's got to the depths," Tom said, laughing. "Nothing can make him feel worse now. When I told him that in future he'd have to wipe his boots before coming in, he only uttered a hollow grunt. I think speech was beyond him!"

"He told me everything was a fair cow!" remarked Garth.

"That's not an expression you need pick up," was his father's comment.

"I didn't pick it up--I was only telling you what Horrors said," Garth rejoined, somewhat aggrieved. "And I asked him what was, and he said, 'Soap, an' scrubbin', an' all that rot!' He says Mr. Gordon never bothered him about things like that and he wishes he was back."

"I don't doubt it," said Tom. "Under Gordon Horrors seems to have done little except wax fat!"

"He isn't nearly as fat as he looks," Garth said. "He wears all the clothes he's got at once. He's got three suits on now, and lots of other things as well."

"Good gracious!". said Aileen. "But why?"

"I asked him, and he said 'cause then he knew where they were."

"Which nobody can deny," said Tom. "Now we understand why Horrors isn't what you might term lissom. Do you think you could speak to him like a mother, Aileen?"

"It's almost the only thing I don't feel like when I look at Horrors," she said. "No--I think it would come better from you. Be brave."

"We pay for his clothes, so I suppose we have a right to expect that he doesn't wear them out in batches," remarked Tom. "Did you gather whether he ever takes any of them off, Garth?"

"Only the top layer, if he gets very wet," Garth said. "But he said he fell into the creek one day before we came, and got soaked right through."

"He must have hated that!"

"Yes, he did. He said, 'Why, me _skin_ was wet!'--just as if it hurt him. So he had to take them all off and put them in the oven, and he went to bed till they were dry."

"Well, you have got more interesting information out of Horrors than I should have believed possible," said Tom. "He never does more than grunt when _I_ speak to him."

"He only speaks in grunts, any time," said Garth. "Only sometimes, if you listen hard, his grunts seem to mean something."

"You fill me with hope--I'll listen harder in future," said Aileen, laughing. "Sonnie, are my scones done?"

They were sitting in what Garth insisted on calling "the new kitchen"; Aileen darning socks swiftly, while Garth and his father sat on the table--which, having refused to look clean under any scrubbing, was now covered with white oilcloth. Preparations for afternoon tea were upon it, and a pleasant smell of baking filled the air.

Garth hopped down eagerly, and peeped through the glass door of the oven.

"They've risen ever so, and they're turning a lovely brown," he announced. "I'm so hungry, Mother--don't you think they're done?"

"Very nearly, I think," said his mother, coming to join the inspection, while Tom lent an inquiring eye over their shoulders. "They do look pretty good, don't they? Cooking is so exciting; I don't feel as if I would ever learn to feel calm while I turned out a pudding!"

"If you go on as well as you have begun you'll soon cease to worry," said Tom, preparing to make tea.

"I don't know." She shook her head. "Think of the pie the other day!"

They all laughed. The pie had certainly been rather peculiar. No one knew quite what had happened to it, but after sampling it, the family had fallen back on bread and jam. The pie had gone to Horrors, who had eaten it all at a sitting, with the nearest approach to happiness they had yet seen in him; and had afterwards become, as might have been expected, extremely unwell, his complexion for the rest of the day being a delicate green.

"The pie was an accident, but there's nothing accidental about those scones," said Tom, as the scones, light and puffy, emerged from the oven. "Tea is ready, and I'm hungry enough to eat the lot. Sick boys, of course, aren't allowed more than one, are they?"

Garth uttered a howl of protest.

"I'm not sick!"

He did not look sick now. Even a week of Gippsland air had put colour into his cheeks and brushed away the tired lines from his eyes. He was no longer a city boy. No snow-white collar encircled his neck; his good suits were packed away, and he lived in blue jerseys and extremely brief knickerbockers, beneath which his brown knees were scratched and bruised. From daylight until dark he was in the open air, exploring the country that was so new and so delightful. There were still traces of delicacy from his illness; but already, watching the light in his eyes and the spring in his step, the father and mother knew that the great sacrifice had been worth while.

"He ate two of my tarts yesterday; and as no ill effects followed I'm beginning to think that nothing could hurt him," Aileen said. "It's difficult to think that only a fortnight ago we were tempting him with delicate strips of toast!"

"They wouldn't be much good to me now," Garth uttered, accepting a large buttered scone with thankfulness. "This is the hungriest place I ever was in: and your scones are scrummy, Mother!"

"Hear, hear!" said Tom, and took another.

"You're such satisfactory people to cook for," Aileen said, "you like everything that is at all possible, and when it isn't--like the pie--you make a beautiful joke of it."

"Well, it was a beautiful joke--you ask Horrors!" said Tom, chuckling.

"Poor Horrors! I ought to have given him extra wages, I think, and instead all I gave him was Epsom salts!"

"He needed them more than wages, I should say," Tom said. "No money would have paid for that pain of Horrors'. Well, you didn't ask him to eat the whole of that pie, so I don't think you need worry. More milk, Garth?"

"Please," said Garth, surrendering a large empty mug. "Daddy, I've got the old pony up!"

"Eh?" said his father, starting. "How did you catch her?"

"I've caught her lots of times," said his son, slightly embarrassed. "She isn't any trouble if you take her a milk-thistle. So to-day I took a halter with me, only I didn't know how to put it on, so I just tied it round her neck and led her up. It's funny how difficult a halter is when it's in your hand--it's all twists and knots."

"H'm," said Tom. "Well, you'd better go and get on her if you want to."

"Oh, Tom----!" began Aileen; and then stopped. This was Tom's business.

Garth had flushed, and his eyes were very bright.

"Truly?"

"Certainly--if you like."

"I--I thought you meant to teach me," the boy said.

"Oh, there's not much teaching in getting on a pony," said his father unconcernedly. "You must find out some things for yourself. Take her into the little calf paddock--she can't get away from you there. Of course, I'll come and lift you up, if you'd rather."

"No, thanks," said Garth, his head well up. "I've finished--can I go, Mother?" She nodded, and he clattered out of the kitchen. The gate of the yard slammed behind him.

"Tom, is it safe?"

"Was I a brute?" he asked, and smiled at her. "I do want the little beggar to be independent--and he can't hurt himself on that old mare, in a little paddock. He'll manage all right, and be twice the boy for it."

"Come into the store-room--we can see him from the window," said Garth's mother. She caught Tom's hand, and they hurried into the store-room.

The window looked out upon a tiny paddock where the grass was green and thick, since its calf inhabitants had long been turned out into a wider run. Garth was leading old Jane, the brown pony, through the gate. Jane, it was evident, had no wish to be led; she hung back obstinately, until the long grass caught her eye. Then she became docile, and went through meekly, beginning to eat at once. Garth shut the gate, and, returning to his steed, looked at her. He wished he could remember how it was that people got on a horse. Finally he made a little run and sprang awkwardly in the direction where he would be.

There was never any sudden movement about Jane. Whether she stepped or swerved aside would have been difficult to say, for it was done unobtrusively; but the fact remained that when Garth was at the top of his spring, she was no longer there, but a yard or two away, eating peacefully. Garth came down on all fours in the grass, and arose, brushing his knees, his colour somewhat heightened. No four-footed beast had ever looked more innocent than Jane.

He twisted the halter round his wrist for his next attempt and clawed wildly at her withers. Jane gave a slow wriggle, and Garth found himself kneeling beside her, caressing his nose, which had bumped rather heavily against her plump side.

"Old beast--you did it on purpose!" they heard him say. He looked around him for means of help.

An old bucket in the corner caught his eye, and he went for it, placing it beside the unruly Jane, who still ate with a peaceful determination not to be worried by small boys. The bucket was rusty and ancient, but Garth was not in the mood to be delayed by trifles. He up-ended it, and hopped up nimbly, catching at the pony's mane.

Jane walked on sleepily, as if looking for another bite of grass. For a moment Garth struggled to hold her back; then the bucket gave way under his boots and he fell through the bottom, standing imprisoned in the rusty tin. His grasp on the halter brought Jane's head round, and they stood looking at each other--the small boy red-faced and angry, the pony with an air of meek surprise.

Tom burst into a fit of silent laughter, and Aileen, after a struggle, joined him.

"Tom, do you think he can manage it?" she asked.

"If he does, he's going to beat that pony permanently," said his father. "Let's see what his next move will be."

Garth's next move was to extricate himself from the bucket. It smote Aileen's heart to see long, red scratches on his legs, as they emerged--she sought in her memory for the correct treatment of blood-poisoning. The matter did not worry Garth. He stared for a moment at Jane, who cropped the grass placidly. Then he hauled her to the fence, and tied her to a post, bringing her as close to the rails as she would permit. Jane stood meekly until the boy inserted his small person between her and the fence, and mounted the second rail.

"He'll do it now," Aileen breathed.

Jane knew better. Just as he leaned towards her she slued round gently, so that she faced him again. Her nose drooped towards the grass so far as the restraining halter would allow. Garth poised on one foot for a moment; then, losing his balance, dropped off into the grass, his face redder than ever. It is regrettable to record that at this point he administered a hearty kick to Jane, who looked piously surprised, but otherwise took no notice.

"Well!" said Garth. "Of all the old pigs!"

He made a sudden angry rush at the pony, and was on her back before she realized it. Unfortunately he went a little too far. For a moment he lay across her, kicking and clawing to get his balance; then he shot down, head foremost, and again found himself in the grass. Jane stepped carefully away from him, and continued to eat.

"Shocking bad luck!" was Tom's comment. "What next?"

Garth pondered. That he was angrier than they had ever seen him was clear; but there was a set look about his lips that told of determination not to give in. At this point Horrors sauntered up from the milking-yard and put down his bucket joyfully.

"'Llo!" he said. "Give yer a laig up?"

"Hang that boy!" muttered Tom.

"No thanks," they heard Garth's clear little voice. "I want to get up myself."

"Oh, good kid!" Tom's whisper was joyful.

Garth thought deeply, his eye wandering round the little paddock. Once more interrupting Jane's meal, he dragged her to a corner, and tied her so that the fence would prevent her sidling away. Then he stepped back, took a little run, and landed on her back. There was a moment's struggle, bare legs waving in the air, while Jane hugged the fence as closely as possible in the hope of preventing him from getting his foot down on the off side. Unluckily for Jane, her rotund sides were against this plan. Garth struggled to a sitting position triumphantly, and uttered a whoop. It was echoed--silently--by his parents.

"Bless him, the darling!" breathed Aileen, after the fashion of mothers. "Come on, Tom--let's go and encourage him!"

"Wait a minute," said her husband, restraining her. "I want to see what will happen when he realizes he's tied up."

Garth was just realizing it; and so was Jane. He leaned forward, and, seizing the rope, tried to haul himself and his steed towards the post, that he might untie her; and might as well have tried to haul a mountain down into a plain. Jane stood passively, with no faintest indication of having noticed that any one was on her back. Garth struggled until he was scarlet, and at length gave it up.

A bright thought struck him. It might be dangerous and rash to be on a pony's back without even a halter, but that was better than being ignominiously tied to a post. Even if she wanted to run away, she could not, in so small a paddock, run far; and then, Jane had not shown any inclination to run at all. So he leaned forward again, managed to reach the knot of the halter on her neck, and began to untie it.

Jane moved forward gently--which Garth welcomed, since it allowed the rope to fall slack, and eased the tension on the knot. It seemed that she knew when she was beaten. Her head drooped lower and lower: sleep apparently stole over her. Garth went further and further forward, as her neck declined, his fingers busy with the knot.

There was the slightest upward movement of Jane's hind-quarters. It could hardly have been said that she kicked up; but there certainly was an elevation, and, slight as it was, it was sufficient for Garth. He was already precariously balanced, and he slid over her head, and landed on his back turning a neat somersault. Jane looked at him sadly.

"You--you old _cow_!" they heard him splutter.

He gathered himself up, a vision of red fury. To kick Jane was his first task, to untie the halter from the fence his second. Then he flung himself at her, and for once Jane was not ready. She backed and sidled, but her activities came a thought too late. Garth was already astride of her, gripping her with his legs, more in blind anger than in intention. He brought the end of the halter down on her neck with a resounding thwack.

"Get on, you old pig!" he shouted

Jane moved on slowly. This small insistent person on her back was no longer to be denied. The anger lingered in Garth's face for a moment; then, as he found he was actually riding--_riding_--it died out, and a wide, happy smile took is place. It was a vision of ecstatic triumph that waved gaily to his father and mother as they appeared at the back gate.

"Daddy--I can ride!"

He drummed his heels against Jane's sides and the pony, surprised and indignant, broke into a jog. Garth bumped happily for a little, not knowing that his heels were still assaulting Jane. Then the jog merged to a shambling trot, and he slipped first to one side, then to the other, went further, clutched at her mane to regain his balance, and, missing it, descended abruptly to the grass. Jane instantly stopped, and began to eat.

Garth picked himself up with a wry face. His father and mother were by the fence.

"Isn't she an old pig!" he said, his eyes still dancing. "I don't care--I did ride her right round the paddock, anyhow, didn't I, Dad? Glory, my wrist hurts!"

"Let's see it," his father said quickly.

Garth held up a wrist for inspection, catching his breath as he did so, unable to restrain himself from wincing. It was queerly twisted. Tom gave a short whistle.

"Oh, you poor little kid!" he said. "You've put it out, I believe!"

Aileen, white-faced, was through the gate, her arm round Garth's shoulders.

"Tom! What will we do?"

"There's a doctor staying at the hotel, I know," Tom said quickly. "I'm afraid to tackle it myself--I don't know enough about it. Don't worry old man, we'll have you right in no time. Get ready, Aileen, and put his arm in a sling. I'll run the horses up."

He flung himself on to the amazed Jane, who went out of the gate and across the paddock with more haste than she considered either pleasant or proper. Aileen caught sight of Horrors' gaping face.

"Get the buggy out--quickly!" she told him. "And have the harness ready." She watched him go shambling towards the harness-room before she turned to take Garth indoors.

"Does it hurt you much, little son?"

"A bit," said Garth briefly, with shut lips. "What is 'put it out,' Mother?"

"Oh, twisted a little," she told him. "A doctor will make it all right very quickly; only it will hurt you until we get to him." She looked at the set little face. "Garth dear--don't try not to cry, if it is very bad."

"I would be awful 'shamed if I howled," said Garth steadily. "And Dad would think I was a coward. Dad wouldn't howl."

"Dad is grown-up, and you are only seven," Aileen said. "He wouldn't expect you to be able to stand as much as he can. He will understand, if it's a bit too much for you, dear."

"I'd hate to howl," said Garth. "And howling wouldn't make it better."

"Let me see if this will ease it," she said, her own eyes full of tears. She folded a silk muffler into a sling, and raised his arm, very gently. Even under the soft mother-hands the child turned white.

"Oh, my little son, I wish I had it!" she said, under her breath.

"I'm ... jolly glad you haven't," panted Garth. His mother put him into a chair, watching him narrowly, lest he should be faint.

"Sure you're all right, sonnie?"

"I'm--pretty right," he said. "You'll come, Mother, won't you?"

"Of course I'm coming." She pinned on her hat quickly, throwing her apron into a corner. "I'll be back in a minute."

Running, she found Tom's flask, and mixed some weak brandy and water in it, slipping it into her pocket. Then there was nothing to be done until a "Coo-ee!" told them that the buggy was ready.

Tom lifted the boy very tenderly to the seat, and they drove out, trying vainly to avoid jolting on the rough track. Garth steadied the injured arm with his free hand, and tightened his lips, uttering no sound; but at an especially severe bump he gave a little sigh, and, half-turning, put his face against his mother's shoulder. She put hers down to him, murmuring broken words.

"I wish you'd howl, or something, old son," said Tom miserably. A muffled "Won't!" came from the hidden face. They drove on slowly bumping and jolting.

"Three miles of it!" Aileen thought, in despair.

"He can't stand it!" She pressed the little face closer to her.

They turned out of the paddock and down the lane, winding in and out among the trees. Presently Tom uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"Cattle! What beastly luck!"

Ahead, a small mob of half-grown calves blocked the narrow lane. A tall man on a brown cob came riding some distance behind them. The calves were feeding lazily, and took very little notice of Tom's angry shouts; nor did their driver hurry himself at first. Presently, however, he seemed to awaken to the fact that his property was in the way, and trotted lazily forward.

"I wish to goodness you'd clear your confounded cattle off this track!" Tom sang out wrathfully.

"One'd think you was in a hurry," said the tall man easily. "Ain't I got as much right to the road as yous?" Then his face changed as he looked at Aileen. "Beg pardon," he said, and they saw that he was their acquaintance of the steamer. "I didn't know it was you, Mr. Macleod. Is the kid hurt?"

"Dislocated wrist," was Tom's brief answer. "Do you happen to know if the doctor is still at the hotel?"

"I know he's not," was the unexpected answer; and Aileen felt Garth shiver. "Went away by this morning's boat."

"And there is no other doctor?" Tom's voice was sharp with anxiety.

"Not nearer than Bairnsdale." The man swung himself to the ground, leaving the reins trailing over the brown cob's head. "Can I have a look, son?"

Aileen slipped away the sling, and Garth held out his wrist mutely.

"H'm," said the man. "Rotten luck, eh, son? Fell down an' trod on it, did you? Think you can trust me to put it right?"

"Oh! can you?" The words came from Aileen in a gasp.

"I'd like a bob for every one I've done," said the new-comer. "Most chaps in the Bush know a bit o' surgery." He nodded to Tom. "Hold him steady."

He took the little wrist in weatherbeateh hands that were wonderfully gentle. "It won't take not half a second, son--just set your teeth."

There was a moment's quick manipulation, while Aileen turned sick: a smothered gasp from Garth, and then a sharp click.

"There!" said the tall man, "all over; and you stood it like a brick, old man. Oh, poor kid--hold him, missus!" For Garth had suddenly grown limp and helpless in her arms.

"On'y fainted--can't blame him, neither," their new friend said. "Give him to me, missus, an' I'll lay him flat."

Garth opened his eyes some minutes later to find himself staring at the sky, with uncomfortable spears of grass tickling the back of his neck. His wrist was tightly bandaged, and there was an extremely unpleasant taste of brandy in his mouth. He felt queer, and very lazy; even though the spears of grass were very uncomfortable, it was far too much trouble to move. Then he saw his mother's face, white and strained as he had learned to know it during his illness, and he smiled at her weakly.

"Hallo, Mother!"

"Dear little son!" she whispered, and a tear fell on his face.

"Had a stiff time, didn't y', ol' chap?" said the tall man, smiling down from a height which seemed to Garth about sixty feet in the air. "Well, you're a man, anyway. I tell you, I've pulled joints in for full-grown men an' heard 'em howl like a dingo over it."

Garth's eyes sought and found his father's.

"Didn't want to cry," he said feebly.

"I'm proud of you, my son," Tom said. They smiled at each other.

"An' you fell off of a pony, they tell me," said the tall man. "Well, we all do that, sometime or other. When are you goin' to ride her again?"

"To-morrow," Garth whispered. "Can I, Dad?"

For the second time that day Aileen checked herself in a quick protest. She looked at Tom.

"Certainly you can," he answered gravely. "We'll tackle her together, old son."

*Chapter VIII*

*Rain--And A Friend*

But it was not to-morrow, nor for a good many to-morrows, as Tom had probably foreseen, that Garth was in a position to apply himself anew to the education of Jane. He passed a restless night, and morning found him feverish and heavy-eyed, his wrist stiff and painful. He had neither appetite nor energy, and did not resist his mother's suggestion that he should stay in bed.

"You can't expect anything else," Tom said sagely. "He's had a nasty shock, poor youngster, and we must remember he isn't really strong yet, even if he _has_ got a little colour in his cheeks."

"Indeed, he has none this morning," Aileen said.

"Don't worry; he'll get it back again." Tom was far from feeling as cheerful as his words, but to reassure the tired girl across the breakfast-table seemed necessary. "Just make a baby of him for a few days, and let the other work rip. Don't do any cooking except for the boy."

"And let you starve on tinned things? I don't want both of you ill," responded his wife, laughing. "You give me splendid advice except where you're concerned yourself: and there you are just no good at all. It's a pity, because it shakes my respect in you!"

"You might remember with advantage that I'm the head of the house, and treat me with reverence," he told her severely. "I'll be forced to take steps to make you obey me!"

"I would laugh very much if you did," said his wife, with conviction. "Run away and play in your garden; I'm going to make a pudding as soon as I have fixed up Garth's room, and I really can't be bothered with heads of houses!" She swept him a mock curtsey, and was gone.

When she emerged from Garth's room half an hour later the dining-room was neat and tidy and breakfast cleared away, save for a loaf of bread ornamenting the writing-table--since the best of men is apt to overlook such unconsidered trifles in tidying after a meal. She laughed softly, and restored it to the bread-crock. In the kitchen Tom was just finishing washing dishes.

"Oh, you blessed person!" Aileen said gratefully. "But you shouldn't, really, Tom!"

"Why shouldn't I?" asked her husband. "You're just jealous, because I wash up so much better than you!" A large fragment of ash from his pipe fell into his dish as he spoke, and clung lovingly to the saucepan he was cleansing.

"H'm!" said his wife. "Well, I don't drop tobacco ashes in, at all events!"

"That's more jealousy, because you can't smoke," said he loftily. "Every one who is well brought up knows that ashes are invaluable, for cleaning saucepans!" He polished vigorously. "There--look at your old porridge-pot!"--waving a wet and gleaming aluminium utensil at her, regardless of a shower of soapy drops.

"It's lovely," said his wife, accepting the saucepan and the shower with meekness. "And you're a dear, though in the interests of your character I generally try to conceal the fact. What vegetables do you intend to present to your starving family to-day?"

Tom fell into the speech of the Chinese gardener who had supplied them in the city.

"Cabbagee, cauliflow', gleen pea an' dly pea, Flench bean, bload bean, spallowglass!" he chanted. "No, not asparagus; but I felt so like old Ah Chee I couldn't stop! Just give your orders, ma'am. Whatever old Gordon didn't do on this place, he certainly left us a good vegetable garden."

"He did indeed," Aileen said. "Now, having dangled all these before my eyes, tell me what ought to be used first."

"Cauliflow'," said Tom promptly. "They're blooming like the rose, only more so."

"I'm so glad--it doesn't have to be shelled!" said his wife. "Peas or beans would have embarrassed me this morning. Where's the cookery book? I never can remember whether it goes into boiling water or cold."

"Does it matter, so long as you leave it there long enough?"

"I believe it matters exceedingly, though I don't see why," said she.

"Mere red tape," said Tom scornfully. "Why not try both ways, and see which comes out best?"

"Think of your feelings on the day when it happened to be wrong," said his wife absently, puckering her brows over her book.

Tom scalded his dish-cloth, wrung it out, and hung it on the rail he had erected for towels.

"There, that's done," he said. "Now I'd better go and catch a cauliflower, since my suggestions only meet with scorn. Want any potatoes?"

"Please," said Aileen. She watched him cross the yard to the shed, and return with his spade, and presently heard him singing as he worked--a gay little snatch of comic opera that was somehow oddly out of place in the Bush.

"He seems happy enough," she said to herself. "I wish I didn't hate it so."

She went out upon the veranda, and stared across the paddocks. The loveliness of the country always helped her--even when the realization was strong upon her that she hated her new life. Not for worlds would she have admitted it to either Tom or Garth; that would not have been playing the game--and to play the game had been instilled into her since her childhood as the one thing worth doing.

She did not always admit it to herself; then it was easier to be cheery for her two boys. She met each day with a laugh and tried to laugh until it ended. But sometimes it was hard. She missed the "House Beautiful," with its dainty comfort and luxuries; the ease of the old days, the little pleasures and excitements, the stir and bustle of city life. The loveliness of the country lay like a weight upon her. Beyond the blue hills her mind saw Melbourne, with its broad streets and great buildings in their setting of gleaming river, and jewelled parks; the huge shops, the gay streets, the "Block," with the familiar faces going up and down. There were all the friends who had helped to make life so merry; here was nothing but silence and green spaces--and work. How she hated the work! the dull repetition of each day's tasks, the grime, the greasy dishes, the hot kitchen, the sight and smell and touch of raw meat! In the first days, while they fought the dirt of the house together, it had been easier, hard as the fight was for her unaccustomed strength. Now she was settling down to a dull routine of daily tasks, and her existence seemed bounded by pots and pans and dish-mops. It was all very small and paltry: but then, life nowadays was made up of small and paltry things, which somehow mounted to a big whole. Perhaps it was because she was tired that morning that it seemed rather too big for her.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, I suppose I'll get broken in, in time," she said. "I hope it won't take too long."

Tom came round the corner suddenly, and chaffed her for idling; and she answered him laughingly, until a call came from Garth's room, and, with a cheery, "Coming, sonnie!" she ran to him. Tom finished scorning his vegetables, and shouldered his spade once more.

"Well, it's a queer sort of a life to come to--and not much of a one," he muttered. "But thank goodness, Aileen's as happy as a cricket, so it's all right!"

There were days that followed when Aileen found it harder than ever to play at being happy.

The fine weather deserted them, and for nearly a week rain fell unceasingly. Mud came up to their very doors, so that to keep the house clean was no easy matter. The garden paths were muddy rivers, the flowers sodden with wet. Garth, a prisoner to the house, and with his bandaged arm in a sling, moped for lack of occupation, became as naughty as was possible to his sunny nature, and openly declared that the country was beastly, and he wanted to go home. Even Tom ceased to sing, and grew bored with long days in the house. The hills and the lake disappeared, blotted out behind a drifting veil of grey rain. The roof developed unsuspected leaks, which all Tom's untaught efforts failed to locate; and, to catch the drips, tubs and basins sat on the floor in the passage--traps for the unwary in the dark. Tradesmen, never very regular callers, ceased coming altogether. Their bread ran short, and Aileen tried her hand at baking, producing loaves that were responsible, through indigestion, for much of the family's low spirits. Tom tramped through the downpour to the township, and returned empty-handed and in disgust--it was the weekly half-holiday, and the baker's shop was shut! So Aileen baked again--this time the soda-bread of Ireland, as taught by Julia; and was more successful. Meat ran out; they would have killed fowls, but no one knew how to prepare them. It was a dreary time. They ate strange dishes made with lentils, and wondered how vegetarians contrived to look cheerful.

The days crawled by slowly, to the ceaseless sound of the drip-drip-drip on the corrugated iron roof. The tanks ran over, and made rivers about the house---they were as yet too new to the country to be grateful for any sign of a superabundance of water. All the firewood was wet and sodden, and refused to burn: and the chimneys smoked furiously. Aileen found, to her horror, that there were signs that already her temper was beginning to feel "frayed at the edges"; more than once she caught herself up just in time to prevent herself making a sharp answer to some remark of Tom's. It made her afraid.

"If I'm like that within three weeks, what shall I be in three months?" she asked herself. "Aileen Macleod, you _can't_ be a pig! I'll begin praying Mrs. Wiggs' prayer every day--'Lord, keep me from gettin' sour.' It wouldn't do, with two boys to look after."

A cry startled her, and a heavy splash, and the little mother dropped the food she was preparing and fled to the rescue. In the passage, now nearly dark, Garth's boots protruded from the largest of the tubs. There was water everywhere: and Garth, half-choked, and hampered by his slung arm, was endeavouring to struggle out of the tub. To her relief, he was laughing.

"I'm an awful goat!" he said, dripping, but cheerful. "Didn't it serve me jolly well right for being grumpy!"

"Did you hurt your arm?" asked his mother anxiously, helping him to his feet.

"Not a scrap--wasn't it luck! But I'm soaked, Mother." The small boy gave an irrepressible chuckle. "I say, I must have looked funny! Don't you wish you'd seen me!"

Suddenly, to her astonishment and disgust, Aileen found that she was crying. The stupid little accident was the last straw to her endurance: her self-control slipped from her in the relief of finding Garth unhurt. She struggled in vain to command her voice, and took refuge in silence; but presently a stifled sob made Garth lift his head in amazement, and a tear fell on his upturned face.

"Mother--you're not crying! Oh, Mother, darling, I was a pig--I'm so sorry!"

His arm was round her neck and his cheek pressed to her wet one. The clinging touch helped to calm her.

"I'm all right, sweetheart," she told him. "Don't worry--I was just a bit tired, that's all. You mustn't tell Daddy, or he'd be worried."

"Sure you aren't sick?" Garth asked, greatly alarmed. That mother should cry was sufficiently amazing to mean something very bad indeed.

"No, not a bit. I was only tired, and I was afraid you were hurt. I'm a silly old mother, that's all." She was helping him into dry clothes, handling his stiff arm very gently.

"I've been making you tired--cross beast I am!" said Garth penitently. "I won't be horrid any more, Mother!" He hugged her again violently.

"Poor old man; you've had a horrid week," she said. "Never mind; Daddy says he thinks it is going to clear up, and you may be able to get out to-morrow. Listen, Garth!" She raised her head as the sound of voices came through the thin boarding of the wall. "Daddy has a visitor. How exciting!"

"Who d'you think it is?" Garth asked eagerly. "Why, we haven't had a sign of a visitor since we've been here!"

"It sounds like your friend's voice," said Aileen, wrestling with his buttons.

"That nice man what pulled my arm straight?" Garth said. "I'd like to see him. He did hurt, but he was jolly quick. I was getting sick of that old arm. He's a--a very decent sort of chap, isn't he, Mother?"

"Very decent, I think," she said. "At least, I never was so glad of any one in my life. Let's go and see him, sonnie."

Tom rose as they entered the sitting-room.

"Here's Mr. O'Connor, Aileen."

"Thought it was about time I came to see how my patient was," said the big man. "Hullo, old chap; your Dad says you're nearly all right. Looks a bit washy yet, don't he?"

"I'm quite well," Garth said eagerly. "When can I take my arm out of this old sling?"

Nick O'Connor laughed.

"Seems to think I'm his doctor, don't he? Well, I wouldn't be in a hurry for a few days. You don't want a weak wrist, do you? And when you do take it out, mind you wear a wrist-strap." He turned back to Aileen. "And how d'you like Gippsland, Mrs. Macleod?"

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said. "I never saw such a lovely country."

"Oh, it's pretty enough. But there's no fortunes to be made here; it's hard scratchin' for a living. I was just askin' your husband what he was thinkin' of doin' with the place."

"I'm hanged if I know," said Tom. "My predecessor didn't do much."

"Queer chap, ol' Gordon," said their guest. "He wasn't the sort of fellow you could talk to at all: lived by himself, and never spoke to no one. Him and that kid Horrors. I wish I'd known you were coming in; some of us would a' done something to the house. Awful dirty, I suppose it was, Mrs. Macleod?"

"It was pretty bad," she said. She caught his eye, and laughed.

"Pretty bad!" said Tom explosively. "Of all the pigsties----!"

"I bet it was a pigsty," said O'Connor, chuckling. "I was on'y here once, about six months ago, lookin' for a stray calf: but then I poked me nose into the kitchen, an' mighty quick took it out again."

"Well, they hadn't washed it since," Tom remarked.

"Not they. Well, it's all very well to laugh, but it was jolly rough on you, Mrs. Macleod. My word, you've got the place nice now! And the garden's a fair credit to you: it was the on'y part of the place where old Gordon did any work. As long as he could go fishin', much he cared for anything else. What was you thinkin' of doin' with the land?"

Tom gave a short laugh.

"I'm blessed if I know," he said. "To tell you the truth, I don't know a thing about it. I've a little stock running on it, so I've just been pegging away at getting things ship-shape before I tackled farming in earnest. What would you advise me to do with it, Mr. O'Connor?"

The big man drew out his pipe.

"Mind me smokin'? Well, it all depends. If you'd bought the place it'd be different; then I'd start clearin' it up a bit, if I was you. But you've on'y got it on a lease, an' so that ain't worth your while. Ol' Gordon'd never appreciate it, if you did clear it for him. No; you might dairy in earnest--an' a dawg's life it is; or you might run sheep an' a few calves. That's easier, an' it pays. Young stock does pretty well on these hills."

"That would suit me better," Tom said. "I'm too old to start dairying, not knowing anything about the game: and labour is too hard to get.

"That's so," agreed O'Connor. "An' when you've got men to milk, ain't you fair under their heel! They're boss, an' they make you know it. Why, I knew one man employin' six milkers: Mr. Beresford, up Lindenow way. Mrs. Beresford was doin' all the cookin' for them, and she wasn't a bit strong, either--a delicate lady, she was, an' awful nice: an' it was hot weather. They _was_ beasts. If she sent 'em down a stew they'd put earth in it an' send it back and tell her they wanted joints; and one day she made 'em a ginger pudding, an' they chose to think it wasn't good enough for them, so they plastered up the cracks in the walls of their hut with it, and sent up word she had to make something else. An' she had to."

"Had to! I'd have seen them shot first!" Tom exclaimed.

"So'd Mr. Beresford. But he couldn't see sixty cows left unmilked. An' those six beauties of his would have walked off like a shot an' left his cows. They've done it on lots of places. Once you start dairyin', you can be as proud as you like on your own account, but you've got to be jolly meek and humble on account of the cows."

"Is Beresford still at it?"

"Not he. He sold all his cows, and went back to sheep; it was a pity, too, 'cause he'd good land an' a lovely herd. But Mrs. Beresford was too delicate, an' he wouldn't have her worked to death. Anyhow, she did die, afterwards, poor thing!"

"Well!" said Tom expressively. "That puts dairying out of the question; one doesn't want to risk experiences of that kind."

"It's all very well if you're brought up to it," said the visitor. "Then you get used to all sorts of things. But you ain't." He looked at them reflectively. "You've both of you got 'city' written all over you, if you don't mind me sayin' so. That bein' so, I couldn't advise you to try cows."

"Well, look here," said Tom. "Say I go in for sheep and young stock, as you said--knowing nothing about them. Is there a reliable man--any settler living near--who would buy them for me--for a commission, of course--and advise me about selling, when they were fit to sell?"

"Bless you, I'd do that, without any ol' commission," said O'Connor cheerfully.

"I couldn't have that. If I take up your time I must pay you."

"Take up my time! Why, you've on'y got to come to sales with me--I'm always 'goin' to them--an' let me give you a word of advice: an' I can come over here now and then, to see how they were doin'. That ain't nothing to be paid for. You'll want to put in a bit of a crop for winter feed, an' I'll lend you my plough an' horses an' 'Possum--you can pay for them, if you like."

"Who is 'Possum?"

"'Possum's me right hand-man," said Nick O'Connor, with a twinkle. "Very useful, too. I can ride over an' help you get the crop in. You'll want to put in potatoes, too, won't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Tom said.

"Oh, there's money in spuds," said the big man. "And in fruit: you ought to make a bit off your orchard. And the hotels will always buy vegetables--likewise the summer visitors."

Aileen leant forward, a new light in her eyes.

"I can help in that," she said. "And, Mr. O'Connor, I want to go in for fowls--lots of fowls: chickens and ducks and turkeys."

"So you'd ought to. They take mighty little feeding: eat insecks and grasshoppers all the summer, an' they do fine on peas in the winter!"

"D'ly pea," said Tom, laughing at her.

"Yes, dry peas. We'll make him put in some for you, Mrs. Macleod--just a little crop."

"But how will I buy fowls? There are only a dozen or so here."

"Oh, 'Possum's the one to help you there," said the visitor. "What 'Possum don't know about fowls ain't worth finding out. Don't you worry, Mrs. Macleod, we'll fix it up all right."

"But we can't take up your time and 'Possum's without paying you," Tom said. "I know how valuable a man's time is."

Mr. O'Connor exhibited symptoms of impatience.

"Now, look here," he said. "You're neighbours; an' for five years we haven't had not what you could call a neighbour on this place. Nobody's very proud about here, but we do get full up of a man like ol' Gordon, who thinks himself too good to speak to any poor Australian. You ain't that sort, an' we're jolly glad to have you. If I needed advice about buyin' things in the city, wouldn't you give it to me?"

"Like a shot," said Tom. "But----"

"Well, thank goodness, I don't!" said Mr. O'Connor, pursuing his argument. "But I'll come to you when I need a lot of shares, or a swaller-tail coat an' hat, or anything fancy like that. Meanwhile, if you won't let us advise you about things like calves and spuds, where's the fairness come in? I've said I'll let you pay me for the ploughin', 'cause it's cheaper for you to do it that way than to buy an outfit an' start learnin' to use it. But the rest is on'y bein' neighbours. So s'pose we don't say any more about it. Eh, son--would you like to learn to be a farmer?"

"Rather!" said Garth, with shining eyes. "Am I big enough?"

"Oh, you're quite big enough for a start. I'll tell 'Possum to keep an eye on you." He rose, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "Well, they'll be waiting tea for me: I must get along home." He shook hands all round. "We'll make good Gippslanders of you in no time," he said. "Jolly nice drop o' rain we've had this last week, isn't it?--good thing for your ploughin', Mr. Macleod. Well, so long!" He was gone.

"Didn't I tell you he was a jolly decent sort of chap?" Garth said. "And he is, too!"

*Chapter IX*

*"Maggie Or Something"*

Morning broke clear and fine, with a golden sun smiling over a clean-washed world. Garth greeted it with a merry little shout.

"Hurrah, Mother! No more rain!"

"Not a drop," answered Aileen from the passage, where the steady swish of her broom could be heard. "It's going to be the most beautiful day!"

"Can I get up to breakfast?" Garth demanded. "I'm so sick of breakfast in bed, Mother."

"Oh, yes, I think so. I'll come and help you in a moment."

"I'm all right," Garth responded. "I'll be quite careful of my arm--don't you bother." He capered out into the passage, a cheery figure in pyjamas, flourishing a bath-towel; and disappeared into the bathroom, whence came presently much splashing, mingled with snatches of song.

"Bless him! I'm sure he's better," Aileen murmured. Something of the weight on her heart seemed to be lifted this morning. Perhaps it was the beauty of the day: perhaps an added hope and interest in life since their visitor of the night before. She sang as she swept. That in itself was not unusual, since singing was a cheerful exercise, and she believed in encouraging cheerfulness. "One's mouth can't turn down at the corners if one is singing," she was accustomed to think. But her song was not forced to-day: and Tom, coming up the path, caught the happy note in it, and smiled unconsciously.

"Look here," said he, later, at breakfast. "I want to draw the family attention to a painful fact. It's more than a fortnight since we came here; and for that whole fortnight Mother Aileen has not been outside the house!"

"Why, Tom, I've been----"

"You've been into the garden about three times, and once to the pigsty," he interrupted. "I knew that quite well, but it doesn't count. Does it, Garth?"

"'Course it doesn't," said Garth, his utterance impeded by porridge.

"Not at all. Your only other excursion was when you went to poke your nose into Horrors' room, and nearly fainted at what you saw there!"

"I didn't--though indeed, any one might well have fainted," Aileen defended herself. "It was like a charnel-house!"

"What's a charnel-house?" queried Garth, much interested.

"Horrors' room," said his father promptly. "At least, it was, until we went through it with fire and sword. Never mind; we're getting off the subject. Does the family think it's the square thing for Mother Aileen never to have been outside her gate?

"No!" from Garth.

"Certainly not!" from Aileen, amiably.

"I'm surprised to find you so sensible," said Tom, grinning at her. "Well, seeing that you have done nothing but scrub, and sweep, and cook, and generally behave like a galley-slave since we left Melbourne, it's time something was done about it. You're getting thin, and you've no colour, and if you're not very careful you'll get the blues; and where would Garth and I be then?"

"You needn't worry: I don't go in for such stupid things," said his wife, laughing. A shade of pink crept into her cheeks; behind the laugh it made her a little afraid, to think how near the surface blues had really been.

"Anyhow, it really won't do, old girl;" he said seriously. "No one could stand it: and this last week of wet weather has been enough to try any one. Therefore, I propose that to-day we leave the house to Horrors and the cats, and go exploring."

"Glory!" ejaculated Garth.

"It sounds nice," said Aileen. "Let me think if I can manage it."

"You're not to think at all. There's cold mutton, isn't there?

"Lots."

"Anything else?

"Cold odds and ends of pudding. And Garth's broth."

"There you are--what more do you want? That's supper, all ready. We can take out bread-and-butter and hard-boiled eggs, and make billy-tea: and that's lunch. We'll all hurry up, and finish the housework, so that you can g