A little later Jim came out to where Norah waited in the hall, a little huddled figure in one corner of a leather armchair.

"He's quite comfortable," he said; "hasn't spoken, but the doctor says it's a natural sleep, and Brownie and he are going to sit with him. Old kiddie, are you awfully tired?"

"I'm not tired one bit!" said Norah, with no idea that she was not speaking the exact truth.

"H'm!" said Jim, looking at her. He went into the dining-room, returning a minute later with a gla.s.s of wine.

"You're to have this," he said authoritatively, "and then I'm going to put you to--"

He broke off, looking at her with a little smile on his tired face.

Norah had put her head down on the arm of the big chair, and was fast asleep.

CHAPTER XX

MATES

The sleepy river murmurs low, And far away one dimly sees, Beyond the stretch of forest trees, Beyond the foothills dusk and dun, The ranges sleeping in the sun.

A. B. PATERSON.

Autumn was late that year at Billabong, and the orchard trees were still green, though a yellow leaf showed here and there in the Virginia creeper, as David Linton lay on the verandah and looked out over the garden. From his couch he could see the paddock beyond, and here and there the roan hides of some of his Shorthorns. They did not generally graze there; but Jim had brought some into the paddock the day before, remarking that he was certain his father would recover much more quickly if he could see a bullock now and then. So they grazed, and lay about in the yellow gra.s.s, and David Linton watched them contentedly.

From time to time Mrs. Brown's comfortable face peeped out from door or window, with an inquiry as to her master's needs; but he was not an exacting patient, and usually met her with a smile and "Nothing, Brownie, thanks--don't trouble about me." Lee Wing came along, shouldering a great coil of rubber hose like an immense grey snake, and stopped for a cheerful conversation in his picturesque English; and Billy, arriving from some remote corner of the run, left his horse at the gate and came up to the verandah, standing a black statue in shirt, moleskins and leggings, his stockwhip over his arm, while Mr. Linton asked questions about the cattle he had been to see. Afterwards Mrs.

Brown brought out tea, having met and routed with great slaughter Sarah, who was anxious to have the honour that up to to-day had been Norah's alone.

"It's dull for you, sir," she said. "No mistake, it do make a difference when that child's not in the house!"

"No doubt of that," Mr. Linton said. "But I'm getting on very well, Brownie, although I certainly miss my nurses."

"Oh, we can make you comferable an' all that," Brownie said, disparagingly. "But when it comes to a mate, we all know there ain't any one for you like Miss Norah--though I do say Master Jim's as handy in a sick-room as that high-flown nurse from Melbourne ever was--I'm glad to me bones she's gone!" said Brownie, in pious relief.

"So am I," agreed the squatter hastily. "Afraid I don't take kindly to the imported article--and I'm perfectly certain Norah and she nearly came to blows many times."

"An' small wonder," said Brownie, her nose uplifted. "Keepin' her out of your room, if you please--or tryin' to--till Miss Norah heard you callin' her, an' simply came in at the winder! An' callin' her 'ducksy bird.' I ask you, sir," said Brownie, indignantly, "is 'ducksy bird'

the thing anybody with sense'd be likely to call Miss Norah?"

"Poor Norah!" said Mr. Linton, laughing. "She didn't tell me of that indignity."

"Many a trile Miss Norah had with that nurse as I'll dare be sworn, she'd never menshin to you, sir," Brownie answered. "She wouldn't let a breath of anything get near you that'd worry you. Why, it was three weeks and more before she'd let you be told about Bobs!"

David Linton's brow darkened.

"I couldn't have done any good, of course," he said. "But I'm sorry I couldn't have helped her at all over that bad business. Well, I hope Providence will keep that young man out of my path in future!"

"An' out of Billabong," said Brownie with fervour. "Mr. Cecil's safer away. I guess even now he'd have a rough time if the men caught him--an'

serve him right!"

"He seems penitent," Mr. Linton said, "and even his mother wrote about him more in sorrow than in anger. The atmosphere of admiration in which he has always lived seems to have cooled, which should be an uncommonly good thing for Cecil. But I don't want to see him."

"Nor more don't any of us," Brownie said, wrathfully. "Billabong had enough of Mr. Cecil. Dear sakes!--when I think of him clearin' away from Miss Norah that night, an' what might have 'appened but for that blessed 'eathen, Lal Chunder, I don't feel 'ardly Christian, that I don't! Not as she ever made much of it--but--poor little lamb!"

Mr. Linton's face contracted, and Brownie left the topic hastily. It always agitated the invalid, who had indeed only been told of Norah's night adventure because of the risk of his hearing of it suddenly from outsiders or a newspaper. The district had seethed over the child's peril, and Lal Chunder had found himself in the embarra.s.sing position of a hero--which by no means suited that usually mild-mannered Asiatic.

He had developed a habit of paying Billabong frequent, if fleeting, calls; apparently for the sole purpose of looking at Norah, for he rarely spoke. There was no guest more welcome.

Presently Murty O'Toole and Dave Boone came round the corner of the verandah.

"Masther Jim gev special insthructions not to be later'n half-past four in takin' y' in, sir," said the Irishman. "The chill do be comin' in the air afther that, says he. An' Miss Norah towld me to be stern wid ye!"

"Oh, did she?" said Norah's father, laughing. "Well, I suppose I'd better be meek, Murty, if the orders are so strict--though it's warm enough out here still."

"The cowld creeps up from thim flats," Murty said, judicially. "An'

whin y' are takin' things aisy--well, y' are apt to take a cowld aisy as well."

"I'm certainly taking things far too easy for my taste," Mr. Linton said, smiling ruefully. "Five weeks on my back, Murty!--and goodness knows how much ahead. It doesn't suit me."

"I will admit there's some on the station 'twould suit betther," Murty answered. "Dave here, now--sure, he shines best whin he's on his back!

an' I can do a bit av that same meself. ("You can that!" from the outraged Mr. Boone.) But y' had the drawback to be born widout a lazy bone in y'r body, so 'tis a hardship on y'. There is but wan thing that's good in it, as far as th' station sees."

"What's that, Murty?"

"Mrs. Brown here do be tellin' me Miss Norah's not to go away--an'

there's not a man on the place but slung up his hat!" said the Irishman. "Billabong wouldn't be the same at all widout the little misthress--we had a grudge agin that foine school in Melbourne, so we had. However, it's all right now." He beamed on his master.

"Only a postponement, I'm afraid, Murty," said that gentleman, who beamed himself, quite unconsciously.

"Yerra, it's no good lookin' ahead--time enough to jump over the bridge when y' come to it," said Murty, cheerfully. "Annyhow, she'll not be lavin' on us yit. Well, if y' are ready, sir?" He nodded to Boone and took up his position at the head of Mr. Linton's couch.

"I'll go into the dining-room," the squatter said, as they carried him gently into the hall. "Put me near the window, boys--no, the one looking down the track. That's all right," as his couch came to anchor in the bay of a window that gave a clear view of the homestead paddock. He chatted to them awhile longer before wishing them good-night.

The stockmen tramped out, making violent efforts to be noiseless.

"Whisht, can't y'?" said Murty, indignantly, as Dave cannoned into a chair in the hall. "Have y' not got anny manners at all, thin, Davy?

wid' him lyin' there, an' good luck to him! Did y' see how he made us put his sofy in that square little winder?"

"Why?" asked the slower Mr. Boone.

"An' what but to see the first glimpse av them kids comin' home? Y' do be an a.s.s, Davy!" said Murty, pleasantly. "Begob, 'tis somethin' f'r a man's eyes to see how Miss Norah handles that bay horse!"

Left to himself, David Linton made a pretence at reading a paper, but his eyes were weary, and presently the sheet crackled to the floor, and lay unheeded. Brownie, coming in softly, thought he had fallen asleep, and tiptoed to the couch with a light rug, which she drew over him.

They handled him very carefully; although his clean, hard life had helped him to make a wonderful recovery, his injuries had been severe; and it would be many weeks yet before he could use his leg, even with crutches. The trained nurse from Melbourne, who had been more or less a necessary evil, or, as Jim put it, "an evil necessary," had been dispensed with a week before; and now he had as many attendants as there were inhabitants of Billabong, with Norah as head nurse and Brownie as superintendent, and Jim as right-hand man. Once there had been a plan that Jim should go North, for other experience, after leaving school. But it was never talked of now.

This was the first day, since they had brought her father home, that Norah had been induced to leave him; and then it had taken a command on his part to make her go. She was growing pale and hollow-eyed with the long watching.

Dr. Anderson, whose visits were becoming rarer, had prescribed a tonic, which Norah had taken meekly, and without apparent results.