THE CHRISTMAS CARD.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward
men.”
“May?” Ruby says. “I wonder who that can be?”
She turns the card with its illuminated wreath of holly and
conventional glistening snow scene this way and that. “It’s very
pretty,” the little girl murmurs admiringly. “But who can ‘May’ be?”
The Christmas card under inspection has been discovered by Jenny upon
the floor of the room where Mr. Jack Kirke has spent the night, dropped
there probably in the hurried start of the morning. It has evidently
been a very precious thing in its owner’s eyes, this card; for it is
wrapped in a little piece of white tissue paper and enclosed in an
unsealed envelope. Jenny has forthwith delivered this treasure over
to Ruby, who, seated upon the edge of the verandah, is now busily
scrutinizing it.
“Jack, from May,” is written upon the back of the card in a large
girlish scrawl. That is all; there is no date, no love or good wishes
sent, only those three words: “Jack, from May;” and in front of the
card, beneath the glittering snow scene and intermingling with the
scarlet wreath, the Christmas benediction: “Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
“Who’s May, I wonder,” Ruby murmurs again, almost jealously. “P’raps
another little girl in Scotland he never told me about. I wonder why he
didn’t speak about her.”
Ruby does not know that the “May” of the carefully cherished card is
a little girl of whom Jack but rarely speaks, though she lives in his
thoughts day and night. Far away in Scotland a blue-eyed maiden’s heart
is going out in longing to the man who only by his absence had proved
to the friend of his childhood how much she loved him. Her heart is in
sunny Australia, and his in bonnie Scotland, all for love each of the
other.
Having failed, even with the best intentions to discover who May is,
Ruby turns her attention to the picture and the text.
“‘Glory to God in the highest,’” the little girl reads--“that’s out of
the Bible--‘and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ I wonder what
‘good will’ means? I s’pose p’raps it just means to be kind.”
All around the child is the monotonous silence of the Australian noon,
unbroken save by the faint silvery wash of the creek over the stones
on its way to the river, and the far-away sound of old Hans’ axe as he
“rings” the trees. To be “kind,” that is what the Christmas text means
in Ruby’s mind, but there is no one here to be “kind” to.
“And of course that card would be made in Scotland, where there are
lots of people to be kind to,” the little girl decides thoughtfully.
She is gazing out far away over the path which leads to the coast.
Beyond that lies the sea, and beyond the sea Scotland. What would not
Ruby give to be in bonnie Scotland just now!
The child rises and goes through the house and across the courtyard
to the stables. The stables are situated on the fourth side of the
quadrangle; but at present are but little used, as most of the horses
are grazing at their own sweet will in the adjoining paddock just now.
Dick comes out of the coach-house pulling his forelock. This building
is desolate save for a very dilapidated conveyance termed “buggy” in
Australia.
“Wantin’ to go for a ride, Miss Ruby?” Dick asks. Dick is Ruby’s
cavalier upon those occasions when she desires to ride abroad.
“Smuttie’s out in the paddock. I’ll catch him for you if you like,” he
adds.
“Bring him round to the gate,” his young mistress says. “I’ll have got
on my things by the time you’ve got him ready.”
Smuttie is harnessed and ready by the time Ruby reappears. He justifies
his name, being a coal-black pony, rather given over to obesity, but a
good little fellow for all that. Dick has hitched his own pony to the
garden-gate, and now stands holding Smuttie’s bridle, and awaiting his
little mistress’s will.
The sun streams brightly down upon them as they start, Ruby riding
slowly ahead. In such weather Smuttie prefers to take life easily. It
is with reluctant feet that he has left the paddock at all; but now
that he has, so to speak, been driven out of Eden, he is resolved in
his pony heart that he will not budge one hair’s-breadth quicker than
necessity requires.
Dick has fastened a handkerchief beneath his broad-brimmed hat, and his
young mistress is not slow to follow his example and do the same.
“Hot enough to start a fire without a light,” Dick remarks from behind
as they jog along.
“I never saw one,” Ruby returns almost humbly. She knows that Dick
refers to a bush fire, and that for a dweller in the bush she ought
long before this to have witnessed such a spectacle. “I suppose it’s
very frightsome,” Ruby adds.
“Frightsome! I should just think so!” Dick ejaculates. He laughs to
himself at the question. “Saw one the last place I was in,” the boy
goes on. “My! it was grand, and no mistake. Your pa’s never had one
here, Miss Ruby; but it’s not every one that’s as lucky. It’s just
like”--Dick pauses for a simile--“like a steam-engine rushing along,
for all the world, the fire is. Then you can see it for miles and miles
away, and it’s all you can do to keep up with it and try to burn on
ahead to keep it out. If you’d seen one, Miss Ruby, you’d never like to
see another.”
Rounding a thicket, they come upon old Hans, the German, busy in his
employment of “ringing” the trees. This ringing is the Australian
method of thinning a forest, and consists in notching a ring or circle
about the trunks of the trees, thus impeding the flow of sap to the
branches, and causing in time their death. The trees thus “ringed”
form indeed a melancholy spectacle, their long arms stretched bare and
appealingly up to heaven, as if craving for the blessing of growth now
for ever denied them.
The old German raises his battered hat respectfully to the little
mistress.
“Hot day, missie,” he mutters as salutation.
“You must be dreadfully hot,” Ruby says compassionately.
The old man’s face is hot enough in all conscience. He raises his
broad-brimmed hat again, and wipes the perspiration from his damp
forehead with a large blue-cotton handkerchief.
“It’s desp’rate hot,” Dick puts in as his item to the conversation.
“You ought to take a rest, Hans,” the little girl suggests with ready
commiseration. “I’m sure dad wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t like me to do
things when it’s so hot, and he wouldn’t like you either. Your face is
just ever so red, as red as the fire, and you look dreadful tired.”
“Ach! and I _am_ tired,” the old man ejaculates, with a broad smile.
“But what of that? But a little more work, a little more tiring out,
and the dear Lord will send for old Hans to be with Him for ever in
that best and brightest land of all. Is it not so, missie? The work has
not come to those little hands of thine yet, but the day may come when
thou too wilt be glad to leave the toil behind thee, and be at rest.
Ach! but what am I saying?” The smile broadens on the tired old face.
“Why do I talk of death to thee, _liebchen_, whose life is all play?
The sunlight is made for such as thee, on whom the shadows have not
even begun to fall.”
Ruby gives just the tiniest suspicion of a sob stifled in a sniff.
“You’re not to talk like that, Hans,” she remonstrates in rather an
injured manner. “We don’t want you to die--do we, Dick?” she appeals to
her faithful servitor.
“No more’n we don’t,” Dick agrees.
“So you see,” Ruby goes on with the air of a small queen, “you’re not
to say things like that ever again. And I’ll tell dad you’re not to
work so hard; dad always does what I want him to do--usually.”
The old man looks after the two retreating figures as they ride away.
“She’s a dear little lady, she is,” he mutters to himself. “But she
can’t be expected to understand, God bless her! how the longing comes
for the home-land when one is weary. Good Lord, let it not be long.”
The old man’s tired eyes are uplifted to the wide expanse of blue,
beyond which, to his longing vision, lies the home-land for which he
yearns. Then, wiping his axe upon his shirt-sleeve, old Hans begins his
“ringing” again.
“He’s a queer old boy,” Dick remarks as they ride through the sunshine.
Though a servant, and obliged to ride behind, Dick sees no reason why
he should be excluded from conversation. Nor does Ruby. She would have
found those rides over the rough bush roads very dull work had there
been no Dick to talk to.
“He’s a nice old man!” Ruby exclaims staunchly. “He’s just tired, or
he wouldn’t have said that,” she goes on. She has an idea that Dick is
rather inclined to laugh at German Hans.
They are riding along now by the river’s bank, where the white clouds
floating across the azure sky, and the tall grasses by the margin are
reflected in its cool depths. About a mile or so farther on, at the
turn of the river, a ruined mill stands, while, far as eye can reach on
every hand, stretch unending miles of bush. Dick’s eyes have been fixed
on the mill; but now they wander to Ruby.
“We’d better turn ’fore we get there, Miss Ruby,” he recommends,
indicating the tumbledown building with the willowy switch he has been
whittling as they come along. “That’s the place your pa don’t like you
for to pass--old Davis, you know. Your pa’s been down on him lately for
stealing sheep.”
“I’m sure dad won’t mind,” cries Ruby, with a little toss of the head.
“And I want to go,” she adds, looking round at Dick, her bright face
flushed with exercise, and her brown hair flying behind her like a
veritable little Amazon.
That settles the question. Dick knows by sore experience that when
this little lady wants her own way she usually gets it.
“Your pa said,” he mutters; but it is all of no avail, and they
continue their course by the river bank.
The cottage stands with its back to the river, the mill, now idle and
unused, is built alongside. Once on a day this same mill was a busy
enough place, now it is falling to decay for lack of use, and no sign
or sound either there or at the cottage testify to the whereabouts of
the lonely inhabitant. An enormous brindled cat is mewing upon the
doorstep, a couple of gaunt hens and a bedraggled cock are pacing the
deserted gardens, while from a lean-to outhouse comes the unmistakable
grunt of a pig. Dick heaves a sigh of relief.
“He’s not at home,” he mutters. “I’m just as glad, for your pa would
have been mighty angry with me. Somewhere not far off he’ll be, I
reckon, and up to no good. Come along, Miss Ruby; we’d better be
getting home, or the mistress’ll be wondering what’s come over you.”
They are riding homewards by the river’s bank, when they come upon a
curious figure. An old, old man, bent almost double under his load of
faggots, his red handkerchief tied three cornered-wise beneath his chin
to protect his ancient head from the blazing sun. The face which looks
out at them from beneath this strange head-gear is yellow and wizened,
and the once keen blue eyes are dim and bleared, yet withal there is a
sort of low cunning about the whole countenance which sends a sudden
shiver to Ruby’s heart, and prompts Dick to touch up both ponies with
that convenient switch of his so smartly as to cause even lethargic
Smuttie to break into a canter.
“Who is he?” Ruby asks in a half-frightened whisper as they slacken
pace again. She looks over her shoulder as she asks the question.
The old man is standing just as they left him, gazing after them
through a flood of golden light. Dick looks too.
“He’s an old wicked one!” he mutters. “That’s him, Miss Ruby, him as we
were speaking about, old Davis, as stole your pa’s sheep. Your pa would
have had him put in prison, but that he was such an old one. He’s a bad
lot though, so he is.”
“He’s got a horrid face. I don’t like his face one bit,” says Ruby. Her
own face is very white as she speaks, and her brown eyes ablaze. “I
wish we hadn’t seen him,” shivers the little girl, as they set their
faces homewards.
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