"And you say that you have one of Peek & Wallis's wagons? Why, they are most dreadful particular sort of people, and they always want money down and no end of security besides; no blame to them either, seeing how bad some people are about paying their just debts," said the woman, with so much surprise in her tone that Rumple felt it necessary to explain a little further.

"Oh, Mr. Melrose cabled from Cape Town to Mr. Wallis, saying that he would be security for the paying of the wagon hire. Mr. Melrose is a gentleman whom we met on board ship, a very nice person indeed; but it seemed so funny to see his photograph here," and Rumple waved a languid hand towards the portrait in the silver frame. His head was aching furiously, and he felt very weak and shaken from the fall; but he had to make some sort of explanation about himself, and it seemed almost like a certificate of respectability to be able to claim acquaintance with a person whose portrait had the place of honour in the house.

"So you know Cousin Tom, do you? I know he has been to Europe lately, although we have not heard from him since he got back. But now that I know where you have come from I must send off to the road and have a notice stuck up, so that your sister may know where to find you;" and the good woman was bustling out of the room, when Rumple stretched out an imploring hand to stop her.

"If you please, can't I go with the somebody, and then Nealie will not have to worry about me, and it will save such a lot of bother?" he said, with so much entreaty that the woman hesitated; but seeing how pale and shaken he looked she decided that his family would have to take a little trouble on his behalf, and said so.

"You will have to lie still for a few hours, for you are more shaken than you realize; but we will stick a notice up on the side of the road, to let your people know where to find you, and then they can camp here for the night, so as to be ready to start on again first thing to-morrow morning," she said, and then hurried away to post a messenger off to the main road, which was two or three miles away, while Rumple lay staring about at his new surroundings, The ceiling and walls of the room were of canvas, and the furniture was good of its kind, but dreadfully crowded.

There was a piano, too, but the dust lay so thickly on it that he decided that the family were not very musical, or else that they were too busy with other things to have much time for relaxation. There was a deep veranda in front of the window and a lot of flowers planted in pots and tins. Beyond the veranda he had glimpses of a gorgeous garden, with sweetpeas, marguerites, queer-looking cactus plants, blazing-red geraniums, and a coral tree in full bloom.

"I wonder if Father will have a garden like this at Hammerville?" he muttered to himself, with a keen pleasure in all the riot of blossom that was to be seen from his sofa, and then he lay quite still trying to make some verses about the garden, and at the same time wondering lazily what the others were doing, until he fell asleep and did not wake until milking time. He felt so much better then, and he was so furiously hungry, that he decided to go on a voyage of discovery to see for himself what the outside of his haven of refuge was like.

The yard outside was a scene of pretty lively activity. The cows were just being fastened for milking, that is to say they were tied by the head, each one to her stall, and then the hind leg was strapped so that there could be no danger of the animal kicking the pail over.

There were several people moving about, and just at first Rumple did not see his hostess; but presently he heard a shrill voice cry out: "Mother, there is the little boy out and running about!"

Rumple felt considerably ruffled by this remark, which was not strictly true, for he was not really a little boy now, at least not compared with Don and Billykins, and he certainly could not be accused of running about when he was merely leaning against the garden fence and looking into the cowyard.

Then the elderly woman detached herself from a group of cows and came bustling up to the fence, exclaiming at sight of him: "Well, well, you look a sight better than before you went to sleep. How are you feeling now, dear?"

"I am dreadfully hungry," admitted Rumple, looking up into her kindly face with a smile, and thinking how much better she would look if she did her hair like Nealie, instead of dragging it into a knot at the back of her head; but really her face was so kind that her hair did not matter very much either way.

"Hungry are you? That is right. Here, come into the kitchen with me and have something to eat straight away, for we shan't have supper until the milking is done and the creatures seen to for the night. It will take another hour or more, and you have had no dinner."

Rumple followed his hostess into the kitchen, which was canvas-walled like the best parlour, but many sizes larger and so much more comfortable that Rumple decided it looked really beautiful, while the smell of new-baked bread and cakes made a fragrance very delightful to a hungry boy.

There was a wood fire smouldering on a great open fireplace, and raking the embers open the good woman put a toasting fork into Rumple's hands and bade him toast scones for himself. He was invited to put the b.u.t.ter on for himself also, and there was milk to drink in a big mug close beside him. So the next half-hour pa.s.sed pleasantly enough.

But when his hunger was satisfied Rumple began to worry about the others and started for the cowyard once more in order to see if any news of the wagon had arrived. Truth to tell, he was feeling very guilty because of all the trouble he was giving, for he knew that Rupert and Nealie would be very worried and anxious concerning him, and the journey would be delayed also.

He had discovered that the woman who had found him lying in the road and had brought him home was a Mrs. Warner, that her husband was away from home that day on business, and that all the people moving about the cowyard were the sons and daughters of the house, with the exception of an old black fellow who had only one eye.

The milking was over and the cows had all been turned into the home paddock for the night, but now a strange humming noise made itself heard on the quiet air.

"Why, what is that?" asked Rumple as one of the young Warners pa.s.sed him, bowed under the weight of two heavy pails of sour milk for the poultry.

"That is the separator. Do you want to see it at work?" asked the boy, with a friendly grin. He was a few years older than Rumple and scorched to a berry-brown by the sun.

"What is a separator?" demanded Rumple, whose knowledge of farming was of a rather antiquated description, Beechleigh being about twenty years behind the times.

"It is the thing that parts the cream from the milk. Go into the dairy and have a look at it," said the youth, nodding his head in the direction of a long, low shed that had been built into the side of the hill, and which was so covered with creepers that it looked almost like a part of the bank.

Away went Rumple, nothing loath. Something fresh always appealed to him, and in this new land fresh things were meeting him at every turn.

Fascinated, he stood watching the machine, the cream pouring from one spout and the milk from the other, while a rosy-faced Miss Warner turned the handle, and another Miss Warner, with pale cheeks and quite a stylish air, bustled about the dairy putting things straight for the night.

"If you please, have you seen or heard anything of our wagon?" asked Rumple, when at length the separating was done for the night and both girls were busy clearing up.

"No, we haven't; but Bella and a friend are going to walk out to the road after work to see if they can find out anything for you," said the stylish sister, and Bella, the red-cheeked one, gurgled and choked with amazing enjoyment, and said:

"My friend indeed! La, Amy, how neatly you always put things!"

They all went in to supper after that, but Rumple, who had eaten so many scones and so much b.u.t.ter that he would not be hungry for a long time to come, sat on the step of the veranda and stared out at the darkening night, feeling a little homesick for the others.

Then away in the distance he heard the slow rumble of wagon wheels, and a moment later a clear voice rang out on the still air:

"Steady, Rocky, steady, old fellow, or you will upset the whole show into the ditch!"

"It is Nealie!" yelled Rumple in an ecstasy of joy. "Mrs. Warner, our wagon is coming, for I can hear my sister Nealie calling to the horse."

"Now that is downright good news. Come, bustle about, girls, and get some more supper ready, for the poor things will be nearly starved by this time, I should think!" cried the hospitable mistress of the farm.

CHAPTER X

A Fright at Night

"There he is, there he is!" squealed Ducky in the shrillest of trebles as Rumple started to run along the dusty track up which the wagon was advancing.

"Oh, you blessed boy, how could you have the heart to give us such a fright?" cried Sylvia, who had been walking at the side of the wagon and now rushed forward to fling her arms round Rumple and hug him until he was nearly smothered.

"I'm awfully sorry, truly I am, but I didn't know anything about it; and I tell you I just felt bad when I woke up in Mrs. Warner's parlour and she told me that she had picked me up in the road and thought at first that I was dead," explained Rumple, with an air of gloomy importance; for in spite of the sorrow he felt at having given the others so much anxiety there was a thrill of satisfaction at having figured in such a fashion. To be picked up for dead had a good sound with it, and might serve as quite a big incident when he wrote the story of his life.

"Oh, my dear, I will never let you sit upon the rack out of sight again unless you are tied fast to the seat!" cried Nealie, who by this time had jumped down from the wagon and was hugging him in place of Sylvia, who had been pushed aside.

"Or we might tie the frying pan and the tin billy round his neck, and then there would be such a rattle when he fell that we should be sure to hear and could pick him up at our leisure," said Rupert. There was a quiet drawl in his tone which meant that his foot was more painful than usual; but Nealie had been so occupied with her anxiety on Rumple's account that she had little time for watching her eldest brother, who never said a word about himself, however bad he might feel.

"I shall not do such a stupid thing again of course, but it might have been worse," said Rumple. "This is a jolly place: no end of cows, and a real separator; you put them in at the top, the milk I mean, not the cows, and they come out cream one side and milk the other. Mrs. Warner is jolly too, and oh! what do you think, she is cousin to that Mr.

Melrose who left the ship at Cape Town, and sent the cable to Mr.

Wallis."

By the time Rumple had managed so much of explanation the horse and wagon had halted outside the cowyard, and Mrs. Warner came rushing out to greet the arrivals.

"I am really glad to see you; we don't get many visitors in these lonely places, you know, and so company is always a treat. I am afraid that you must have been rather scared when you found your brother was missing, but when he was able to tell us how it all happened we sent off a notice to be stuck up at the side of the road as soon as possible."

"It was most kind of you to be so thoughtful," said Nealie. "Only the trouble was that we had found out Rumple was missing, and we had come back on our tracks, right past the place where the notice was posted, and we had nearly reached the cutting where they are going to make the railway. We halted there, because we knew that when we pa.s.sed that place before Rumple was with us, and after we had been there about half an hour a man came riding up from the way we had come, and he asked what was the matter that we were so down on our luck; so we told him that one of our brothers was missing, and then he said that he had seen a notice up at the Four-Mile Corner, that stated a boy had been found lying in the road, and had been taken to Warner's Farm, in the Holderness Valley, but he was not hurt."

"I had that bit put to keep you from being scared," said Mrs. Warner, nodding her head in a vigorous fashion. "I guessed that you would be feeling pretty bad, and so I just told Tom to put it in big black letters that the boy wasn't hurt."

"It was most kind of you!" said Nealie, flushing and paling. "I do not know how I should have had the courage to find my way up here but for those last words, and I am so very, very grateful to you for being so kind to Rumple."

"Tcha!" cried Mrs. Warner, making a funny clicking noise with her tongue. "Come in and have some supper, all of you; though where we can put seven of you to sleep is more than I can say, for we are pretty full with our own lot; but we will manage somehow, don't you fret."

"Oh, but, please, we have our own supper things, and we always sleep in the wagon; that is, we girls sleep in the wagon, and the boys have two mattresses underneath, so we never have to trouble anyone," said Nealie hastily.

"What a fine idea!" cried Mrs. Warner, holding up her hands in astonishment. "It makes you so independent of hotels and that sort of thing; besides, these wayside houses are not many of them suitable places for young people to stay at. But you are not going to eat your own supper when you come to see me, not if I know it. Come along into the kitchen, all of you, there is plenty to eat, only you have caught us all in the rough."