"Better come home," whispered Cyril, with a lively recollection in his mind of the big hand that had played with his collar so short a time past.

But Betty was trying to swallow her indignation and to keep her voice quiet.

"This is our place," she said. "This was our place before yours."

"Well," said Brown, "it's mine now."

"It isn't yours," said Betty shrilly; "it belongs to our grandfather--so there!"

Again Brown smiled.

"Well, that's a stuffer," he said, "it belongs to _my_ grandfather."

Betty's eyes widened in horror at the new boy's depravity. "Oh, you story!" she said in a shocked voice, then turning to the uneasy Cyril, "Hit him, Cyril!" she said. "Hit him one in the eye for taking our place and telling such a wicked story."

But Cyril was already widening the distance between himself and John Brown, and a feeling of anger was beginning to stir in his small breast against Betty for trying to mix him up in this quarrel.

"Come on home," he said, "what's the good of having a row with a fellow like that?"

"But it's our water," said Betty, her face red with anger towards the fisher. She stooped down and picked up a stone.

Brown turned and looked at the little group; Cyril a good distance in the rear; and angry-faced Betty, with Nancy cowering in terror behind her.

"Look here," he said, "I'm not going to have any of you people poaching on my grandfather's property. You can come as far as the fence _if_ you like, but I advise you to come no further."

Betty's stone flew through the air--many yards distant from the boy on the post.

"Good, again," he said. "There are plenty more stones and I'm here yet."

Again Betty repeated the process, and with even worse results. She never _could_ aim straight in all her life!

"Good shot!" said Brown, laughing again.

"Oh, Cywil, do _smash_ him," begged Betty in desperation.

"He daren't, he hasn't the pluck," mocked Brown.

"No Bruce is afraid," said Betty, using her favourite taunt. "Come on Cyril!"

But when she looked over her shoulder Cyril was nowhere in sight, and Nancy was scudding away, like a terrified rabbit, through the scrub around her.

Through the air rang a clear shrill voice--it belonged to golden haired Dorothea--"Betty, come home."

"You're called," said Brown, winding up a yard or so of his line.

Betty stooped, grasped another stone, took aim at a distant wattle in sheer desperation, and caught Brown on the hand.

The pain of it drew a sharp exclamation from him, and brought him from his post in a towering rage.

And Betty took to her bare heels and ran--ran as though her grandfather and all his emus were after her.

Near the wicket-gate she ran against Cyril, who was throwing stones in the air for the dog to snap at as they fell.

"Bwoun!" she gasped. "He's coming!"

Cyril looked down the track and beheld no one.

"It's all right," he said; "go inside and shut the gate. I'll give him what for. I'd just like to see him touch you. I'd knock him into next year as soon as look at him."

But no Brown appeared.

Cyril put his hands in his pockets and strutted towards the track through the bush--to the intense admiration of Elizabeth.

"No Bruce is afraid of any one," he said. "You and Nancy go in."

A girl in a short long print dress ran down the verandah steps. A mane of golden hair hung down her back and some of it lay over her shoulders, and when she stood still she tossed it away.

"You're to come home at once, Betty," she said, "and mind baby. And oh, you naughty girl, you've got your boots and stockings off again. What _will_ mother say?"

CHAPTER III

"THE DAILY ROUND--THE COMMON TASK"

Betty's boots and stockings were on once more, and her school frock exchanged for one whose school days lay far behind it. In spite of "lettings down" and repeated patchings and mendings it was in what its small wearer called the "ragetty tagetty" stage of its existence, and was donned only when she was about the dirty part of "cleaning up."

It was Sat.u.r.day morning now, and she was very busy. Her mother could never capably wield a broom, or scrub, or dust, or cook--she had done all four, but the results were pathetic. Even Nancy knew the story of her life, which began with "once upon a time, almost twenty years ago,"

and was told in varying fragments whenever a story was begged for.

There was the story of the jolly sea-captain and his one wee daughter--their own mother--and of how they had sailed the seas and seen many people and many lands. There was the story of the old house within the iron gates--built by convicts more than fifty years ago--and of how the sea-captain had bought it and built a tower and spiral staircase and a roof promenade, which he called his "deck." And of how he and his small daughter settled down in the great house together; and how her wardrobe was always full of beautiful clothes and her purse full of real sovereigns; and two ponies she had to her name, and a great dog that was the terror of the neighbourhood, and a little dog that lived as much as it could in her lap. There was the story of her garden full of rare flowers, and her ferneries of rare ferns, and her aviary of rare birds.

Then there was the story of the little girl "grown up," with hair done on the top of her head, and long sweeping dresses, and a lover chosen by her father himself--by name John Brown; and of the pale young author who lived beyond the iron gates, in a small weather-board cottage with an iron roof who wrote dainty little sonnets and ballads, which he read to her under the old gum trees.

And lastly, there was the story of the captain's pretty daughter slipping away from the great house--to become mistress of the wee cottage behind the pine trees. And of how the captain returned all letters unopened and sailed away to other lands for five years; of how afterwards the poor author lay ill unto death, and the little wife--"mother" now--carried pretty Dorothy to the great house and sent her trotting into the library, saying "grandpa" as she ran; and of how the little girl had been lifted outside the house by a servant, who had civilly stated the orders he had received, never to allow any one from the author's house to "cross the threshold" of that other great one.

And now it was to-day--and besides Dorothea there were the twins (Cyril and Elizabeth), Nancy and the baby; a goodly number for the small weather-board cottage to shelter and for the author, who had only had one book published, to bring up.

So it fell out that there was only a rough state girl to do the work of the cottage, and much sweeping and dusting was Elizabeth's "share"; much "washing-up" and tidying. To Nancy belonged the task of setting the tables and amusing the baby; and Cyril was engaged at a penny a week to stock the barrel in the kitchen with firewood and chips, and bits of bark to coax contrary fires. He was the only one who received payment for his work, and no one demurred, for was he not the only boy of the family and in the eyes of them all a sort of king!

So Betty was dressed in working garb and was bestowing her usual Sat.u.r.day morning attention upon the "living-room"--drawing-room they had none. The little room that had evidently been destined by its builder to fulfil such a mission, had been seized and occupied by the author in the beginning of his residence at The Gunyah.

The living-room was a low-ceiled room with French windows leading to the verandah. It had a centre table, several cane chairs, a small piano, a rocking-chair and a dilapidated sofa. Its floor was oilclothed and its windows uncurtained--only Dorothea had arrived at the stage that sighed for prettinesses.

Betty was quite happy when she had swept the floor, shaken the cloth, put all the chairs with their backs to the wall, and polished the piano.