“Daddy!”
At the quivering voice her father lifted his head and Norah saw that his eyes were wet.
“It’s my dear old friend Stephenson,” he said brokenly. “I told you about him. We thought he was dead—there was the body; I don’t understand, but this is he, and he’s alive, thank God!”
The Hermit stirred and begged again for water, and Mr. Linton held him while he drank. His face grew anxious as he felt the scorching heat of the old man’s body.
“He’s so thirsty,” Norah said tremulously, “goodness knows when he’d had a drink. His poor lips were all black and cracked when I found him.”
“Had he no water near him?” asked her father, quickly. “You got this?”
“Yes, from the creek,” Norah nodded. “I’ll get some more, Daddy; the billy’s nearly empty.”
When Norah returned, laden with two cans, her father met her with a very grave face.
“That’s my girl,” he said, taking the water from her. “Norah, I’m afraid he’s very ill. It looks uncommonly like typhoid.”
“Will he—will he die, Daddy?”
“I can’t tell, dear. What’s bothering me is how to get help for him. He wants a doctor immediately—wants a dozen things I haven’t got here. I wish that blessed black boy hadn’t gone! I don’t quite know what to do—I can’t leave you here while I get help—he’s half delirious now.”
“You must let me go,” said Norah quietly. “I can—easily.”
“You!” said her father, looking down at the steady face. “That won’t do, dear—not across fifteen miles of lonely country. I—” The Hermit cried out suddenly, and tried to rise, and Mr. Linton had to hold him down gently, but the struggle was a painful one, and when it was over the strong man’s brow was wet. “Poor old chap!” he muttered brokenly.
Norah caught his arm.
“You see, I must go, Daddy,” she said. “There’s no one else—and he’ll die! Truly I can, Daddy—quite well. Bobs’ll look after me.”
“Can you?” he said, looking down at her. “You’re sure you know the track?”
“Course I can,” said his daughter scornfully.
“I don’t see anything for it,” Mr. Linton said, an anxious frown knitting his brow. “His life hangs on getting help, and there’s no other way, I’ll have to risk you, my little girl.”
“There’s no risk,” said Norah. “Don’t you worry, Daddy, dear. Just tell me what you want.”
Mr. Linton was writing hurriedly in his pocket-book.
“Send into Cunjee for Dr. Anderson as hard as a man can travel,” he said shortly. “Don’t wait for him, however; get Mrs. Brown to pack these things from my medicine-chest, and let Billy get a fresh horse and bring them back to me, and he needn’t be afraid of knocking his horse up. I’m afraid we’re too late as it is. Can he find his way here?”
“He’s been here.”
“That’s all right, then. Tell Anderson I think it’s typhoid, and if he thinks we can move him, let Wright follow the doctor out with the express-wagon—Mrs. Brown will know what to send to make it comfortable. Can you manage Bobs?”
“Yes—of course.”
Mr. Linton put his hand on her shoulder.
“I’ve got to let you go,” he said. “It’s the only way. Remember, I won’t have a minute’s peace until I know you’ve got safely home.”
“I’ll be all right, Daddy—true. And I’ll hurry. Don’t bother about me.”
“Bother!” he said. “My little wee mate.” He kissed her twice. “Now—hurry!”
Bobs, grazing peacefully under a big gum tree, was startled by a little figure, staggering beneath saddle and bridle. In a minute Norah was on his back, and they were galloping across the plain towards home.
A young man sat on the cap of the stockyard fence at Billabong homestead, swinging his legs listlessly and wishing for something to do. He blessed the impulse that had brought him to the station before his time, and wondered if things were likely to be always as dull.
“Unless my small pupil stirs things up, I don’t fancy this life much,” he said moodily, in which he showed considerable impatience of judgment, being but a young man.
Across the long, grey plain a tiny cloud gathered, and the man watched it lazily. Gradually it grew larger, until it resolved itself into dust—and the dust into a horse and rider.
“Someone coming,” he said, with faint interest. “By Jove, it’s a girl! She’s racing, too. Wonder if anything’s wrong?”
He slipped from the fence and went forward to open the gate, looking at the advancing pair. A big bay pony panting and dripping with sweat, but with “go” in him yet for a final sprint; and on his back a little girl, flushed and excited, with tired, set lips. He expected her to stop at the gate, but she flashed by him with a glance and a brief “Thank you,” galloping up to the gate of the yard. Almost before the pony stopped she was out of the saddle and running up the path to the kitchen. The man saw Mrs. Brown come out, and heard her cry of surprise as she caught the child to her.
“Something’s up,” said the stranger. He followed at a run.
In the kitchen Norah was clinging to Mrs. Brown, quivering with the effort not to cry.
“Someone ill in the bush?” said the astonished Brownie, patting her nurseling. “Yes, Billy’s here, dearie—and all the horses are in. Where’s the note? I’ll see to it. Poor pet! Don’t take on, lovey, there. See, here’s your new governess, Mr. Stephenson!”
Norah straightened with a gasp of astonishment.
“You!” she said.
“Me!” said Dick Stephenson ungrammatically, holding out his hand. “You’re my pupil, aren’t you? Is anything wrong?”
“There’s a poor gentleman near to dyin’ in the scrub,” volunteered Mrs. Brown, “an’ Miss Norah’s come all the way in for help. Fifteen mile, if it’s a inch! I don’t know ow’ you did it, my blessed pet!”
“You don’t mean to say you did!” said the new “governess” amazed. Small girls like this had not come his way. “By Jove, you’re plucky! I say, what’s up?”
Norah was very pale.
“Are you really Mr. Stephenson?” she asked. “I... You’ll be surprised.... He’s...” Her voice failed her.
“Don’t worry to talk,” he said gently. “You’re done up.”
“No—” She steadied her voice. “I must tell you. It’s—it’s—your father!”
Dick Stephenson’s face suddenly darkened.
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly. “You’re making a mistake; my father is dead.”
“He’s not,” said Norah, “He’s my dear Hermit, and he’s out there with typhoid, or some beastly thing. We found him—and Dad knows him quite well. It’s really him. He never got drowned.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” The man’s face was white.
But Norah’s self-command was at an end. She buried her face in Brownie’s kind bosom, and burst into a passion of crying.
The old woman rocked her to and fro gently until the sobs grew fainter, and Norah, shame-faced, began to feel for her handkerchief. Then Mrs. Brown put her into the big cushioned rocking-chair.
“Now, you must be brave and tell us, dearie,” she said gently. “This is pretty wonderful for Mr. Stephenson.”
So Norah, with many catchings of the breath, told them all about the Hermit, and of her father’s recognition of him, saying only nothing of her long and lonely ride. Before she had finished Billy was on the road to Cunjee, flying for the doctor. Dick Stephenson, white-faced, broke in on the story.
“How can I get out there?” he asked shortly.
“I’ll take you,” Norah said.
“You!—that’s out of the question.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m not tired,” said Norah, quite unconscious of saying anything but the truth. “I knew I’d have to, anyhow, because only Billy and I know the way to the Hermit’s camp, and he has to fetch the doctor. You tell Wright to get Banker for you, and put my saddle on Jim’s pony—and to look well after Bobs. Hurry, while Brownie gets the other things!”
Dick Stephenson made no further protests, his brain awhirl as he raced to the stables. Brownie protested certainly, but did her small maid’s bidding the while. But it was a very troubled old face that looked long after the man and the little girl, as they started on the long ride back to the camp.
Mile after mile they swung across the grey plain.
Norah did not try to talk. She disdained the idea that she was tired, but a vague feeling told her that she must save all her energies to guide the way back to the camp hidden in the scrub, where the Hermit lay raving, and her father sat beside the lonely bed.
Neither was her companion talkative. He stared ahead, as if trying to pierce with his eyes the line of timber that blurred across the landscape. Norah was glad he did not bother her with questions. She had told him all she knew, and now he was content to wait.
“It must be hard on him, all the same,” thought Norah, looking at the set young face, and sparing an instant to approve of the easy seat in the saddle displayed by her new “governess.” To believe that your father was dead all these years, and then suddenly to find him alive—but how far apart in every way! “Why, you hardly know,” mused Norah, “whether you’ll like him—whether he’ll be glad to see you! Not that anyone could fail to like the Hermit—anyone with sense, that is!”
Mile after mile! The plain slipped away beneath the even beat of the steadily cantering hoofs. The creek, forded slowly, sank into the distance behind them; before, the line of timber grew darker and more definite. Jim’s pony was not far inferior to Bobs in pace and easiness, and his swinging canter required no effort to sit, but a great weariness began to steal over his rider. Dick Stephenson, glancing at her frequently, saw the pallor creeping upon the brave little face.
He pulled up.
“We’ll go steady for a while,” he said. “No good knocking you up altogether.”
Norah checked her pony unwillingly.
“Oh, don’t you think we ought to hurry?” she said. “Dad’s waiting for those medicines you’ve got, you know.”
“Yes, I know. But I don’t think we’ll gain much by overdoing it.”
“If you’re thinking about me,” Norah said impatiently, “you needn’t. I’m as right as rain. You must think I’m pretty soft! Do come on!”
He looked at her steadily. Dark shadows of weariness lay under the brave eyes that met his.
“Why, no,” he said. “Fact is, I’m a bit of a new chum myself where riding’s concerned—you mustn’t be too ashamed of me. I think we’d better walk for a while. And you take this.”
He poured something from his flask into its little silver cup and handed it to Norah. Their eyes met, and she read his meaning through the kindness of the words that cloaked what he felt. Above her weariness a sense of comfort stole over Norah. She knew in that look that henceforth they were friends.
She gulped down the drink, which was hateful, but presently sent a feeling of renewed strength through her tired limbs. They rode on in silence for some time, the horses brushing through the long soft grass. Dick Stephenson pulled hard at his pipe.
“Did—did my father know you this morning?” he asked suddenly.
Norah shook her head mournfully.
“He didn’t know anyone,” she answered, “only asked for water and said things I couldn’t understand. Then when Dad came he knew him at once, but the Hermit didn’t seem even to know that Dad was there.”
“Did he look very bad?”
“Yes—pretty bad,” said Norah, hating to hurt him. “He was terribly flushed, and oh! his poor eyes were awful, so burning and sunken. And—oh!—let’s canter, Mr. Stephenson, please!”
This time there was no objection. Banker jumped at the quick touch of the spur as Stephenson’s heel went home. Side by side they cantered steadily until Norah pulled her pony in at length at the entrance to the timber, where the creek swung into Anglers’ Bend.
“We’re nearly there,” she said.
But to the man watching in the Hermit’s camp the hours were long indeed.
The Hermit was too weak to struggle much. There had been a few sharp paroxysms of delirium, such as Norah had seen, during which David Linton had been forced to hold the old man down with unwilling force. But the struggles soon brought their own result of helpless weakness, and the Hermit subsided into restless unconsciousness, broken by feeble mutterings, of which few coherent words could be caught. “Dick” was frequently on the fevered lips. Once he smiled suddenly, and Mr. Linton, bending down, heard a faint whisper of “Norah.”
Sitting beside his old friend in the lonely silence of the bush, he studied the ravages time and sorrow had wrought in the features be knew. Greatly changed as Jim Stephenson was, his face lined and sunken, and his beard long and white as snow, it was still, to David Linton, the friend of his boyhood come back from the grave and from his burden of unmerited disgrace. The frank blue eyes were as brave as ever; they met his with no light of recognition, but with their clear gaze undimmed. A sob rose in the strong man’s throat—if he could but see again that welcoming light!—hear once more his name on his friend’s lips! If he were not too late!
The Hermit muttered and tossed on his narrow bed. The watcher’s thoughts fled to the little messenger galloping over the long miles of lonely country—his motherless girl, whom he had sent on a mission that might so easily spell disaster. Horrible thoughts came into the father’s mind. He pictured Bobs putting his hoof into a hidden crab-hole—falling—Norah lying white and motionless, perhaps far from the track. That was not the only danger. Bad characters were to be met with in the bush and the pony was valuable enough to tempt a desperate man—such as the Winfield murderer, who was roaming the district, nobody knew where. There was a score of possible risks; to battle with them, a little maid of twelve, strong only in the self-reliance bred of the bush. The father looked at the ghastly face before him, and asked himself questions that tortured—Was it right to have let the young life go to save the old one that seemed just flickering out? He put his face in his hands and groaned.
How long the hours were! He calculated feverishly the time it would take the little messenger to reach home if all went well; then how long it must be before a man could come out to him. At that thought he realised for the first time the difficulty Norah had seen in silence—who should come out to him? Black Billy must fetch the doctor and guide him to the sick man; but no one else save Norah herself knew the track to the little camp, hidden so cunningly in the scrub, at that rate it might be many hours before he knew if his child were safe. Anxiety for the remedies for his friend was swallowed up in the anguish of uncertainty for Norah. It seemed to him that he must go to seek her—that he could not wait! He started up, but, as if alarmed by his sudden movement, the Hermit cried out and tried to rise, struggling feebly with the strong hands that were quick to hold him back. When the struggle was over David Linton sat down again. How could he leave him?
Then across his agony of uncertainty came a clear childish voice. The tent flaps were parted and Norah stood in the entrance white and trembling, but with a glad smile of welcome on her lips—behind her a tall man, who trembled, too. David Linton did not see him. All the world seemed whirling round him as he caught his child in his arms.
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