"Then," continued Audrey, still more earnestly. "what are we going to
do?"
"That is a poser," retorted Edwin. "The storm brought down the ti tree,
and that gave us the cabbage. The gale is dying. We had better take a
walk round and look about us. We may find something else. Heaven's
gate is open still, Audrey. We must bear this as patiently as we can,
and help will come."
"Yes, dears," she answered, "if you can be patient here a little longer,
I think there is something I can do to help us all."
"You, Audrey?" exclaimed her brothers; "you are as white as a sheet.
Let us do; we are twice as strong as you are."
"Strength is not everything," she returned quietly. "There are some
things which only a girl can do. Now this is my plan. If Edwin will
walk with me to the central station, I will ask Mrs. Feltham to let me
help her. I will go for so much a day, and then at night when she pays
me I may persuade her to sell me some flour and meat and tea, food
enough for us all, dears."
"Go out like a charwoman, Audrey!" exclaimed Edwin, in amazement. "Is
that what you mean?"
"Well, yes," returned Audrey, in a considering tone, "it certainly would
be the same thing, if you like to call it so."
"'Of old men called a spade a spade,'" grumbled Edwin. "I like to give
things their plain names, and then we know where we are."
"If little Mother Audrey goes out charing, Cuth will poison himself, and
then there will be no more food wanting for him. That Mrs. Feltham
looked as cross as two sticks," declared Cuthbert.
"Just listen to these proud young gentlemen," retorted Audrey. "Erne,
my dear, I turn to you to support me."
"I'll do as you do," returned her little sister, laying her head on her
shoulder.
"Not quite so fast, Dame Trot," interposed Edwin. "But if Audrey marches
home at night with a bag of flour on her back, you must make it into
Norfolk dumplings. Cuthbert and I, it seems, are good for nothing but
to eat them."
"You ridiculous boys, why can't you be serious?" said Audrey, adding, in
an aside to Edwin, "Erne is too ill to exist on your vegetable ribbon,
even if we boil it. Well, is not my plan better--"
"Than robin blackbreast and the burying business? Of course, you have
shut me up," he answered.
So the decision was reached. Audrey untied her bundle. Combs and
brushes, soap and towels, a well-worn text-book, a little box of her own
personal treasures, all knotted up in one of Effie's pinafores. What a
hoard of comfort it represented!
"That is a notice to quit for you and me, Cuth," remarked Edwin. "We'll
take the boundary dog his bones, and accommodate our honest charwoman
with a pailful of sea-water to assist the toilet operations."
The storm had died away as suddenly as it rose, and the receding waves
had left the shelving sands strewn with its debris--uprooted trees, old
hats, and broken boards, fringed with seaweed. A coat was bobbing up
and down, half in the water and half out, while floating spars told of
the recent wreck. A keg sticking in the sand some feet below high-water
mark attracted the boys' attention, for Edwin was mindful of his promise
to the sailors. As they set to work to roll it up, they came upon the
oysters sticking edgeways out of the sand, and clinging in clusters to
the rocks. With a hurrah of delight they collected a goodly heap. Here
was a supper fit for a king.
*CHAPTER X.*
*THE MAORI BOY.*
The bath of sea-water which Edwin had provided in the shepherd's pail
did more than anything else to restore poor Effie. When the arduous
task of opening the oysters was at last accomplished, by the aid of a
great clasp nail and a splinter of stone, the abundant and nourishing
meal which followed did them all so much good, Cuthbert and Effie
declared they did not mind being left alone in the hut half as much as
when father left them by the charcoal fires. They all wanted Audrey to
wait until morning, but her answer was resolute.
"No, dears; the chance might be gone. It is just when the men come back
from the hills Mrs. Feltham will want me. They may come in the middle
of the night. Nobody knows when, and if I am there, at least I shall
hear what they say. Perhaps they will have been with father, and bring
us a message."
This reconciled them all to her departure. Then she hurried away with
Edwin by her side, for fear the dark wintry day should close before she
reached her destination.
Edwin guessed the distance to be about four miles; but they were in poor
order for walking, and were reduced to halting by the wayside
continually. Yet, as the snail got to the top of the wall at last, so
they reached the avenue gates. Here they agreed to part. There was no
more danger of Audrey losing herself, and both were uneasy at leaving
Effie and Cuthbert alone so long.
During the walk they had talked over everything, which Audrey declared
was the greatest comfort imaginable. Edwin did not want to go up to the
house to fetch his Beauty.
"I shall come for him to-morrow," he said; "then I can tell you how
Effie is, and we shall hear how you are getting on."
The shades of night were gathering as Edwin turned away; but he could
not lose the white line of well-made road by which he was returning even
by starlight, yet he was afraid of encountering any of the wild cattle,
which he knew were roaming at will among the groves and coverts which
surrounded him. He found himself a stick, and trudged along, whistling
to keep his courage up.
It was a danger to which he was altogether unaccustomed; for there is no
four-footed creature native to New Zealand bigger than a rat, and in the
primeval forest which surrounded his home the absence of all animal life
is its marked characteristic. But here the many horses and bulls which
had strayed from the early colonists had multiplied in the bush and
grown formidable, not to speak of the pigs which Captain Cook let loose
on the New Zealand shore, and which now, like the rabbits, overrun the
island. The sound of grunting in the midst of a flax-bush or the bleat
of a bell-wether was enough to startle him.
The hoar was gathering white on the grass and sparkling like diamonds on
shrivelled fronds and gloomy evergreens, when he heard the barking of
the boundary dog, which told him he was nearing the hut, and his weary
feet jogged on at a quicker pace.
The barking grew still more furious. A battle was going forward.
Instead of turning off towards the sea to find the hut, Edwin ran on to
the point of the road where it entered another sheep-run. As it was the
public coast-road, there was no gate. The dog was stationed there, with
a chain long enough to command the whole breadth of the road, to keep
the sheep from straying on to their neighbour's ground, and well he did
his work. He seemed to know in a moment to which side the adventurous
rover belonged who dared to intrude on his beat, and sent him home with
a resolute bark and a snap of the wool just to show how easily biting
could follow. But the cry which succeeded the onslaught of the dog, the
cry which made Edwin turn aside, was so like the cry of a child that it
shot a fear through him Cuthbert might have been tempted to pay the dog
another visit, and having no more bones to give him, the hungry brute
had seized poor Cuth instead.
As Edwin came up he could just distinguish a small figure on the other
side of the boundary vainly endeavouring to pass. It must be Cuth, he
argued, because there was nobody else about; so he shouted to him to
stand still until he came up. But instead of obeying, the small figure
darted forward once more, and a fearful yell told Edwin the dog had
seized him at last.
He sprang towards them, and grasping the dog's collar with both hands,
exerted all his strength to pull him off. Strong and savage as the
hairy hermit had become from the loneliness of his life, he had all a
dog's grateful remembrance of a kindness, and recognizing the hand which
had flung him the welcome bone earlier in the day, he suffered Edwin to
choke him off without turning on him.
"Run!" cried Edwin to the boy he had delivered; "run beyond his reach
whilst I hold him."
He had no need to repeat his exhortation. The shrieking boy fled like
the wind. It was not Cuthbert; Edwin knew that by the fleetness of his
hare-like speed. He did his best to soothe and coax the angry dog,
keeping his eye meanwhile on the retreating figure.
As the distance between them increased, Edwin let the dog go. The
fugitive changed his course, and was circling round to regain the road.
Then Edwin started at right angles, and so got between him and the hut,
where Effie and Cuthbert were probably asleep.
"They will be so frightened," thought Edwin, "if he runs in for refuge.
For poor little Eff's sake I must stop him."
So they came up face to face in the open ground beyond the black shadow
of the boundary, and eyed each other in the starlight.
"Whero!" exclaimed Edwin.
"Ah, you!" cried the Maori boy, holding out both hands. "To meet you is
good."
"Come in with me and rest," continued Edwin. "Are you hurt? It was
madness to try to pass the boundary dog in the dark. He might have torn
you to pieces."