When we came up with her she was all right again, and tried to smile.

Whatever put her out for the time she always worked things by kindness, and would lead us straight if she could. Driven, she knew we couldn't be; and I believe she did us about ten times as much good that way as if she had scolded and raged, or even sneered at us.

When we rode up to Mr. Storefield's farm we were quite agreeable and pleasant again, Jim makin' believe his horse could walk fastest, and saying that her mare's pace was only a double shuffle of an amble like Bilbah's, and she declaring that the mare's was a true walk--and so it was. The mare could do pretty well everything but talk, and all her paces were first-cla.s.s.

Old Mrs. Storefield was pottering about in the garden with a big sun-bonnet on. She was a great woman for flowers.

'Come along in, Aileen, my dear,' she said. 'Gracey's in the dairy; she'll be out directly. George only came home yesterday. Who be these you've got with ye? Why, d.i.c.k!' she says, lookin' again with her sharp, old, gray eyes, 'it's you, boy, is it? Well, you've changed a deal too; and Jim too. Is he as full of mischief as ever? Well, G.o.d bless you, boys, I wish you well! I wish you well. Come in out of the sun, Aileen; and one of you take the horses up to the stable. You'll find George there somewhere.'

Aileen had jumped down by this time, and had thrown her rein to Jim, so we rode up to the stable, and a very good one it was, not long put up, that we could see. How the place had changed, and how different it was from ours! We remembered the time when their hut wasn't a patch on ours, when old Isaac Storefield, that had been gardener at Mulgoa to some of the big gentlemen in the old days, had saved a bit of money and taken up a farm; but bit by bit their place had been getting better and bigger every year, while ours had stood still and now was going back.

Chapter 15

George Storefield's place, for the old man was dead and all the place belonged to him and Gracey, quite stunned Jim and me. We'd been away more than a year, and he'd pulled down the old fences and put up new ones--first-rate work it was too; he was always a dead hand at splitting. Then there was a big hay-shed, chock-full of good sweet hay and wheat sheaves, and, last of all, the new stable, with six stalls and a loft above, and racks, all built of ironbark slabs, as solid and reg'lar as a church, Jim said.

They'd a good six-roomed cottage and a new garden fence ever so long.

There were more fruit trees in the garden and a lot of good draught horses standing about, that looked well, but as if they'd come off a journey.

The stable door opens, and out comes old George as hearty as ever, but looking full of business.

'Glad to see you, boys,' he says; 'what a time you've been away! Been away myself these three months with a lot of teams carrying. I've taken greatly to the business lately. I'm just settling up with my drivers, but put the horses in, there's chaff and corn in the mangers, and I'll be down in a few minutes. It's well on to dinner-time, I see.'

We took the bridles off and tied up the horses--there was any amount of feed for them--and strolled down to the cottage again.

'Wonder whether Gracey's as nice as she used to be,' says Jim. 'Next to Aileen I used to think she wasn't to be beat. When I was a little chap I believed you and she must be married for certain. And old George and Aileen. I never laid out any one for myself, I remember.'

'The first two don't look like coming off,' I said. 'You're the likeliest man to marry and settle if Jeanie sticks to you.'

'She'd better go down to the pier and drown herself comfortably,' said Jim. 'If she knew what was before us all, perhaps she would. Poor little Jeanie! We'd no right to drag other people into our troubles. I believe we're getting worse and worse. The sooner we're shot or locked up the better.'

'You won't think so when it comes, old man,' I said. 'Don't bother your head--it ain't the best part of you--about things that can't be helped.

We're not the only horses that can't be kept on the course--with a good turn of speed too.'

'"They want shooting like the dingoes," as Aileen said. They're never no good, except to ruin those that back 'em and disgrace their owners and the stable they come out of. That's our sort, all to pieces. Well, we'd better come in. Gracey 'll think we're afraid to face her.'

When we went away last Grace Storefield was a little over seventeen, so now she was nineteen all out, and a fine girl she'd grown. Though I never used to think her a beauty, now I almost began to think she must be. She wasn't tall, and Aileen looked slight alongside of her; but she was wonderful fair and fresh coloured for an Australian girl, with a lot of soft brown hair and a pair of clear blue eyes that always looked kindly and honestly into everybody's face. Every look of her seemed to wish to do you good and make you think that nothing that wasn't square and right and honest and true could live in the same place with her.

She held out both hands to me and said--

'Well, d.i.c.k, so you're back again. You must have been to the end of the world, and Jim, too. I'm very glad to see you both.'

She looked into my face with that pleased look that put me in mind of her when she was a little child and used to come toddling up to me, staring and smiling all over her face the moment she saw me. Now she was a grown woman, and a sweet-looking one too. I couldn't lift her up and kiss her as I used to do, but I felt as if I should like to do it all the same. She was the only creature in the whole world, I think, that liked me better than Jim. I'd been trying to drive all thoughts of her out of my heart, seeing the tangle I'd got into in more ways than one; but now the old feeling which had been a part of me ever since I'd grown up came rushing back stronger than ever. I was surprised at myself, and looked queer I daresay.

Then Aileen laughed, and Jim comes to the rescue and says--

'd.i.c.k doesn't remember you, Gracey. You've grown such a swell, too. You can't be the little girl we used to carry on our backs.'

'd.i.c.k remembers very well,' she says, and her very voice was ever so much fuller and softer, 'don't you, d.i.c.k?' and she looked into my face as innocent as a child. 'I don't think he could pull me out of the water and carry me up to the cottage now.'

'You tumble in and we'll try,' says Jim; 'first man to keep you for good--eh, Gracey? It's fine hot weather, and Aileen shall see fair play.'

'You're just as saucy as ever, Jim,' says she, blushing and smiling. 'I see George coming, so I must go and fetch in dinner. Aileen's going to help me instead of mother. You must tell us all about your travels when we sit down.'

When George came in he began to talk to make up for lost time, and told us where he had been--a long way out in some new back country, just taken up with sheep. He had got a first-rate paying price for his carriage out, and had brought back and delivered a full load of wool.

'I intend to do it every year for a bit,' he said. 'I can breed and feed a good stamp of draught horse here. I pay drivers for three waggons and drive the fourth myself. It pays first-rate so far, and we had very fair feed all the way there and back.'

'Suppose you get a dry season,' I said, 'how will that be?'

'We shall have to carry forage, of course; but then carriage will be higher, and it will come to the same thing. I don't like being so long away from home; but it pays first-rate, and I think I see a way to its paying better still.'

'So you've ridden over to show them the way, Aileen,' he said, as the girls came in; 'very good of you it was. I was afraid you'd forgotten the way.'

'I never forget the way to a friend's place, George,' she said, 'and you've been our best friend while these naughty boys have left mother and me so long by ourselves. But you've been away yourself.'

'Only four months,' he said; 'and after a few more trips I shan't want to go away any more.'

'That will be a good day for all of us,' she said. 'You know, Gracey, we can't do without George, can we? I felt quite deserted, I can tell you.'

'He wouldn't have gone away at all if you'd held up your little finger, you know that, you hard-hearted girl,' said Grace, trying to frown.

'It's all your fault.'

'Oh! I couldn't interfere with Mr. Storefield's business,' said Aileen, looking very grave. 'What kind of a country was it you were out in?'

'Not a bad place for sheep and cattle and blacks,' said poor George, looking rather glum; 'and not a bad country to make money or do anything but live in, but that hot and dry and full of flies and mosquitoes that I'd sooner live on a pound a week down here than take a good station as a present there. That is, if I was contented,' he went on to say, with a sort of a groan.

There never was a greater mistake in the world, I believe, than for a man to let a woman know how much he cares for her. It's right enough if she's made up her mind to take him, no odds what happens. But if there's any half-and-half feeling in her mind about him, and she's uncertain and doubtful whether she likes him well enough, all this down-on-your-knees business works against you, more than your worst enemy could do. I didn't know so much about it then. I've found it out since, worse luck.

And I really believe if George had had the savey to crack himself up a little, and say he'd met a nice girl or two in the back country and hid his hand, Aileen would have made it up with him that very Christmas, and been a happy woman all her life.

When old Mrs. Storefield came in she put us through our facings pretty brisk--where we'd been, what we'd done? What took us to Melbourne,--how we liked it? What kind of people they were? and so on. We had to tell her a good lot, part of it truth, of course, but pretty mixed. It made rather a good yarn, and I could see Grace was listening with her heart as well as her ears. Jim said generally we met some very nice people in Melbourne named Jackson, and they were very kind to us.

'Were there any daughters in the family, Jim?' asked Grace.

'Oh! yes, three.'

'Were they good-looking?'

'No, rather homely, particularly the youngest.'

'What did they do?'

'Oh! their mother kept a boarding-house. We stayed there.'

I don't think I ever knew Jim do so much lying before; but after he'd begun he had to stick to it. He told me afterwards he nearly broke down about the three daughters; but was rather proud of making the youngest the ugliest.