ROBIN FINDS STRANDED WAYFARERS
A BIG grey touring-car came slowly along the narrow track, feeling its
way round blind corners and hairpin bends. It was not a pleasant road
for touring, especially to people accustomed only to the smoothness and
width of city streets. The road that led out from Baroin had been
metalled for only part of its length: after five or six miles, winter
had put a stop to road-making, and the good surface ceased abruptly.
Then with each mile as it wound into the hills, the track grew worse. It
clung to the steep sides of the rises, a grey ribbon undulating between
walls of bracken fern, barely wide enough, in many places, to carry a
car: above it the sheer rise: below, a drop of anything from ten to a
hundred feet. Sometimes the trees near it had been cleared: more often,
they crowded it on both sides, so that the road ran between walls of
slender trunks and tossing tree-tops. This gave variety, because any
turn might reveal a tree across the track. On the other hand, the trunks
might catch a car that went over the side—a helpful possibility, at the
narrowest bends.
One drove along the hill-road, hoping earnestly that one would not meet
any other vehicle. Should this occur, the proceedings were slow and
complicated. A jinker, or a light cart, was nothing, provided the horse
did not play up: the steed could be taken out of the shafts and the cart
backed until a space was reached wide enough to allow of passing: which
might not be for a mile, or perhaps two. Still, it was simple. More
harrowing were the times when one motor encountered another, or a team
of twelve or fourteen bullocks dragging a heavy waggon. Then might be
seen the spectacle of a car feeling its way painfully in reverse gear,
along the way it had come—a way sufficiently exciting to drive on the
forward journey. Nervous passengers were wont to get out and walk.
Pitt-street and Collins-street may have their terrors for the motorist,
but they lack the thrills provided by a Gippsland track.
To avoid, so far as might be possible, the dangers of these untoward
meetings, the grey touring-car crawled like a snail round bends, and
made haste where haste did not seem suicidal. Its driver was a
middle-aged man, tanned and weather-beaten, whose ordinarily cheerful
face was set, just now, in anxious lines. His wife sat beside him,
little, and plump, and pretty. She said nothing, but occasionally
emitted short gasps of horror. To ease her feelings—it was clear that
she did not ease those of her husband—she leaned forward constantly and
pressed the button of the horn, so that their advance was preluded by a
succession of piercing shrieks. Occasionally the driver said patiently,
“I wish you wouldn’t, Milly.” To which she invariably responded:—“But
you mustn’t take a single finger from the wheel, dear, and somebody
_must_ hoot!”
The third member of the party occupied the back seat, amid a litter of
luncheon-baskets, cushions, rugs, and fishing-rods. He was a thick-set
boy of fifteen, whose dark face betrayed nothing but boredom with his
surroundings. The bush through which they travelled did not interest
him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through
space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a
bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. His mother’s
nervous gasps moved him only to faint scorn. Finally he produced a
paper-covered book from his pocket, and became lost in its pages.
Fate contrived to make Mrs. Edward Lane press unusually hard on the
button after a period of silence very grateful to her husband’s nerves.
The ear-splitting hoot that ensued made him swerve a few inches—at a
spot where there was, unfortunately, not an inch to spare. The bracken,
growing thickly from below, hid the fact that the edge of the track had
broken off. Bracken, however thick, cannot support the weight of a
six-cylinder car. There was a moment’s sick suspense as the big Buick
toppled sideways, slid for a few yards, and came to rest, wedged against
a huge tree.
Mrs. Lane shot head-first over the edge, landing in a patch of fern,
while her husband and son saved themselves in some miraculous fashion.
The bottom of the car received them, amid the flying pieces of the
shattered windscreen. Considerably astonished at finding themselves
alive, they climbed out and hurried to the assistance of the lady of the
party, who sat among the ferns, holding her ankle. She had taken her own
meteoric flight in silence, but she screamed as she saw their faces.
“Oh, you’re hurt!” she cried. “Barry!”
“Only scratches, Mother,” said Barry Lane, gruffly, his face white under
streaks of blood. “Are you hurt?”
She leaned back against her husband’s arm.
“My ankle,” she said. “Something has happened to it. But not much, I
think. Are you sure you are not injured, Edward?”
“Quite sure, dear—just scratches and bruises.” He felt her ankle
tenderly, while she winced. “No bone broken, thank goodness! Sure you’re
all right, Barry-boy?”
“Rather!” said Barry. “A bit of glass just missed my eye—luck, wasn’t
it?”
“Then, if neither of you are hurt, I’m glad the suspense is over,”
declared Mrs. Lane, with surprising energy. “I knew it had to come, only
I was sure it would be where there was a clear drop of half a mile! Now
it’s happened, and we’re all alive!”
“I like your philosophy,” said her husband. “It doesn’t deal with the
problem of how we’re to get out of this outlandish place, with a damaged
car, I suppose?” He was removing her shoe and stocking with deft fingers
as he spoke. “Only a bad sprain—poor little woman! Are you perfectly
certain you are not hiding anything else?”
“Not a thing,” she assured him, hastily. “I’m scratched, of course, but
who wouldn’t be? bracken is such scratchy stuff. Just fancy, if there
had been a log in it, what a bump I would have come! And how is the poor
car?”
“I’ll look presently. Barry, get the table-napkins out of the
lunch-baskets and climb down to the creek—soak them well, and bring
them back as quickly as you can. That’s the best we can do for the ankle
until we can find a house.”
Barry dived at the car and in a moment was plunging down the hillside.
Dr. Lane took out a pocket-flask.
“Drink this,” he said, giving her the little silver cup. “No, I don’t
care if you don’t want it—you’re to have it, Milly. There’s a certain
amount of shock about a tumble like this, even if we do happen to be all
alive. I’m going to have a drink myself. Now I’ll make you a bit more
comfortable.” He salvaged a rug from the car, folded it, and arranged it
so that she could sit on it, leaning back against a tree: and lifting
her as if she were a child, placed her upon it, with a cushion behind
her and another supporting the injured foot. Barry returned, panting,
with a handful of dripping table-napkins, with which his father bandaged
the ankle scientifically.
“That’s ever so much easier,” said Mrs. Lane, smiling at their concerned
faces. “How wise it is to take a doctor when one goes for hair-raising
trips!”
“I wish we’d taken an ambulance as well!” said her husband drily. “But
we’ll get help somewhere. Now, let’s have a look at the car, Barry. You
might have washed your face when you were at the creek!”
“Hadn’t time,” said Barry, with a grin. He was poking round the car,
pulling away the undergrowth into which it had settled. “I say, Father,
she hasn’t come off too badly, I believe!”
“No, I think not—thanks to that providential tree. We should all have
been mince-meat, but for it. One wheel is hopeless, of course, and the
petrol-tank is badly bashed—but I don’t think there’s much wrong with
the engine. Stout old car, and no mistake. But getting her up will be no
end of a job.”
“Oh, these country people make a regular living from hauling damaged
cars out of difficulties,” said Barry, with the air of a man of the
world. “A fellow at school says there’s one place on the Prince’s
Highway where the people water the road regularly every night, and keep
a team of bullocks handy to pull the cars out of the mud-holes next day!
I expect we’ll have the kindly natives along presently.”
Dr. Lane glanced up, and whistled softly.
“Well, there’s the first native, and armed to the teeth, too!” he
remarked. “But she doesn’t look as if she could do much pulling, I’m
afraid.”
“Well, she’s found game, so we shan’t starve,” Barry chuckled. “Talk
about ginger hair!”
Robin, bare-headed, was coming along the track above them—a
sufficiently unexpected figure in her blue shirt and khaki breeches,
with her red mane glinting in the sun. She carried her gun over her
shoulder: a pair of rabbits dangled limply from her hand. Just as the
boy spoke she caught sight of them and stopped in amazement. Then she
put her gun against the hillside, dropped the rabbits, and plunged down
towards them.
[Illustration: “Is anyone hurt?”]
“Is anyone hurt?”
“Not badly,” Dr. Lane said, taking off his hat. “But we’re pretty well
stranded, as you may see, and my wife has sprained her ankle. Can you
tell me where is the nearest township?”
“Merri Creek is nearest, but it is only a village—one store and a
blacksmith’s shop. You’re more than twelve miles from Baroin. That is
the only place where there is a garage—and a doctor.”
“The garage interests me most—I happen to be a doctor myself,” he said,
smiling at her. “We are staying at the hotel at Baroin; we came out this
way for a day’s fishing. Twelve miles—h’m! It’s a long way at this time
of the evening.”
“Merri Creek has a telephone; you could easily get help for the car
to-morrow,” said Robin. She was thinking rapidly, her thoughts running
upon the state of the larder at Hill Farm. She remembered the rabbits
with a throb of relief. “And there’s bacon and eggs,” she murmured, half
aloud.
“I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Lane, staring.
Robin flushed.
“I was only pondering ways and means,” she said. “You must come to our
house, of course; it isn’t more than a mile away. My mother will be very
glad to do all she can for you. I can run home and bring our horse and
buggy.”
“Is it a quiet horse?” spoke Mrs. Lane, for the first time. “I do hope
it is really quiet!”
Robin laughed outright.
“When you see Roany you won’t be anxious,” she said. “He’s long past his
wild youth. The difficulty is to make him raise anything but a jog!”
“That’s just the kind of horse I like,” Mrs. Lane answered, with a sigh
of relief. “But are you sure we shan’t be putting your people to
horrible inconvenience?”
“There is only mother and I,” Robin said. “And we have plenty of room.
Mother wouldn’t dream of letting you go anywhere else. Indeed, there
isn’t anywhere to go—ours is the only house near the road.” She turned,
and went up the hillside lightly. From the road she hailed them again.
“Can I bring back anything to make the hurt ankle comfortable?”
“It’s well bandaged with table-napkins, thank you,” Dr. Lane answered.
“I think it will be all right until we get to your house.”
“That’s a lass with a head on her shoulders,” he remarked, as Robin
gathered up her gun and her rabbits and disappeared round a bend in the
track. “We’re in luck’s way, I fancy. One would not expect to meet a
girl of her type in this wild place.”
“I was picturing spending the night in a splitter’s camp—and glad to
get there,” his wife answered. “She looked so nice and clean—far
cleaner than I feel! I wonder what the house will be like.”
“It’s any port in a storm for us to-night,” said Dr. Lane, regarding the
wreck of his car ruefully. “Merri Creek must be that little place we saw
below us a mile back—the railway terminus. It wouldn’t be a bad idea,
Barry, if you got down there and telephoned to the hotel. Tell them to
send out things for the night—your mother might as well be comfortable.
If you explain what has happened they can send them with a car from the
garage, and the garage people can size up the damage of the Buick, and
see how we’re to get her in.”
“Right-oh!” said Barry. “But I say—we don’t know the name of the people
here. How am I to tell them where to send?”
“By Jove! I never thought of that,” his father said.
“Just ask the people at Merri Creek,” said Mrs. Lane, practically. “I’m
certain there can’t be two girls with hair like that walking round these
hills in breeches! If you describe her, they will be sure to know.”
“But if a car comes out,” said Barry, “why shouldn’t we go back to
Baroin in it?”
“Because your mother isn’t going to drive twelve miles over these tracks
after being shot out once,” said Dr. Lane, concisely. “Hurry up, or
they’ll never get here before dark.” And Barry went off, wishing that he
had a chance of washing his face, on which the blood had dried
uncomfortably.
It seemed a long while before they heard the rattle of buggy-wheels and
saw Robin driving along the track. She greeted them cheerfully.
“I’ll have to drive on a little way,” she called: “there’s no room to
turn here. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”
“Then I may as well get you up to the track,” said Dr. Lane to his wife.
It was not an easy business: both were panting, and Mrs. Lane’s face was
very white, when Robin reappeared.
“Mother put a mattress on the floor of the buggy,” she said. “This is
what we call an express-waggon, and there’s lots of room behind; Mother
said it would be more comfortable than sitting on the seat, with your
foot hanging down.”
“Your mother’s a wise woman,” said Dr. Lane, thankfully. He braced his
muscles, and lifted his wife into the back of the buggy, where she sat
enthroned upon the mattress with the injured foot sticking out stiffly,
and declared that she was perfectly comfortable—a manifest untruth,
which impressed neither of her hearers. They unloaded the car of all
that was portable, and Dr. Lane climbed up beside Robin.
“Ready?” she asked. “Oh—where’s the boy?”
“He has gone to telephone from Merri Creek.”
“But he won’t know where to come afterwards.
“I fancy he’ll find his way—Barry generally gets where he wants to go.”
“I had better drive back for him after I land you at home,” said Robin,
without enthusiasm—visions crossing her mind of evening duties among
the live stock. There was milking to be done, animals to be fed and
poultry to be housed for the night. She had no mind to risk her
ducklings among the foxes for the sake of a boy who had looked
distinctly cross. Then she remembered his blood-smeared face and
mentally rebuked herself for being a pig.
“No need for that, I think,” Dr. Lane was saying, pleasantly. “I can
drive back, when I get Mrs. Lane to bed, if you will be kind enough to
let me have the trap—I’ll promise not to send it over the edge, as I
did the car!”
Robin brightened visibly.
“Certainly you can,” she said. “Old Roany will take you safely over any
of these tracks—they’re really not fit for cars.” They jogged
peacefully homewards.
“I hope I’m not jolting you very badly;” she said, presently, turning to
look at the passenger in the rear. “The road isn’t wide enough to dodge
the holes—I can only go slowly.”
“But I’m quite enjoying myself,” said the lady on the mattress. “Only, I
want to be introduced, because you aren’t a bit what we expected to meet
in the country! Our name is Lane, and we came from Melbourne yesterday
for a holiday.”
“I’m Robin Hurst,” the girl told her, smiling down at the pretty face.
“Mother and I live at Hill Farm.”
“But you haven’t always lived here?”
“Oh no. But I hope we’re always going to.”
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Lane, weakly. “It seems a strange hope!”
Robin laughed softly. Dr. Lane decided that he liked the sound.
“You have had an unlucky beginning,” she said. “It really isn’t fair to
judge our country when you try to kill yourself on the very first day.
Wait until you see the bush in the early morning, before the mists
rise—”
“Never!” said Mrs. Lane, firmly. “I dislike seeing anything before
breakfast—and not too soon after! I like well-paved streets, without
precipices, nicely furnished with electric trams. I can’t see any fun
whatever in driving along a mantelshelf on the side of a hill. It makes
me afraid: and it is so lowering to one’s pride to feel afraid!”
“But if, before you had the shelf on the side of the hill, you had no
road at all, you would look at it differently,” said Robin, laughing.
“We regard our road with respect and affection—especially the metalled
part!”
“Is there a metalled part?” queried Mrs. Lane. “I hadn’t noticed any. It
seemed to me all a terrible series of bumps and pot-holes.”
“You expect altogether too much when you come to the country,” her
husband said. “It would do you good to lead the simple life for awhile.
I’m sure Miss Hurst could show you how.”
Mrs. Lane shuddered.
“We are giving Miss Hurst and her mother quite enough trouble as it is,”
she said, hastily. She gave a sudden gasp. “My dear, have you had
measles?”
“Yes.” Robin looked surprised at the sudden query. “Why?”
“My boy has just had them—his quarantine period is almost finished, but
they don’t want him back at school before the holidays. And my husband’s
eyes had been giving him trouble, so we decided upon a long holiday.”
“What—in Baroin?” asked Robin. Baroin, to her, was the most
uninteresting of townships: she could imagine no reason for spending a
holiday there.
“The fishing was the lure,” Dr. Lane said. “I have been hearing
wonderful things of the trout in the streams here; we thought we could
put in a few weeks exploring them, with Baroin as our headquarters.
Don’t tell me that the report is only a rumour to catch tourists! I
certainly have failed to rise a single fish to-day.”
“There are trout, and big ones, if you know where to go,” Robin told
him. “Mother and I often fish.”
“And catch fish?”
“Why, of course.” Robin’s eyes twinkled. “We’re busy people; we haven’t
time to fish just for fun, like—like tourists!”
“That’s a fair hit,” Dr. Lane said, laughing. “I will certainly dog your
footsteps if I see you going out with a rod.”
“But wouldn’t you like to go out yourself this evening?” Robin asked.
“There are two or three good holes in a little creek not far from our
place. And the evening rise is the best, unless you get down really
early—about dawn.”
“Would I like!” Dr. Lane suddenly looked like a schoolboy. “Can you come
too?”
Robin shook her head.
“I can’t come this evening. There is a good deal to do. But I can easily
show you where to go.”
“Don’t let him get lost in the bush,” spoke Mrs. Lane. “He is only a
tourist, you know!” She turned her head as they came out of a belt of
timber. “Oh, what a charming house!”
“That is our place,” Robin said.
Hill Farm had indeed a look of charm in the evening sunlight. Against a
sky tinged faintly with rosy pink the white house nestled in the deep
green of garden and orchard, ending in the snowy gleam of the
newly-painted front fence. The slope before it stretched to the creek,
over which they crossed on a rough-hewn bridge: behind it cleared
paddocks stretched upwards merging into the stately timbered hills.
“I’ll have to take you round to the back,” Robin said, as old Roany
walked slowly up the little hill. “The front gate is too narrow:
besides, I painted the fence only this morning, and when I paint
anything it takes two or three days to dry. So please be careful, Dr.
Lane, if you go out that way. There’s Mother.”
Mrs. Hurst was waiting by the back gate, tall and fresh-looking in her
simple grey frock. She greeted them pleasantly, exclaiming with sympathy
over the poor, bandaged foot: and presently Mrs. Lane found herself
installed in a wide room, smelling faintly of lavender, and exquisitely
clean. The windows overlooked the western stretch of great, tree-covered
hills. A quaint old-fashioned paper covered the walls, bright with
little trails of roses; there were fresh roses on the dressing-table and
mantelshelf. A dainty tea-tray stood on a table covered with a snowy
cloth.
“I have everything ready for doctoring the foot,” Mrs. Hurst said. “But
I was sure you poor things would like a cup of tea first.”
Mrs. Lane heaved a sigh of contentment.
“I could almost weep at the sight of a teapot,” she said. “My husband
made me drink whisky, which I hate—I tried to get rid of the taste by
eating a gum-leaf, so that my mouth is now a miserable blend of alcohol
and eucalyptus! No, no sugar, thank you. Dear me, how good that is!” She
looked rather like a mischievous child as she smiled at Mrs. Hurst over
her cup.
Dr. Lane stirred his tea reflectively.
“I think we chose the place for our disaster very judiciously,” he said.
“Certainly, no stranded motorists ever fared better. Are we putting you
to very great inconvenience, Mrs. Hurst? My son has gone to telephone to
the hotel to send out our things—we could go back in the car, when it
comes, if——”
Mrs. Hurst interposed.
“But that isn’t to be thought of! We shall love to have you; Robin and I
live so quietly that to have strangers is quite exciting and delightful,
and if you can put up with our bush ways——”
Dr. Lane interrupted in his turn.
“Your bush ways, as you call them, seem ways of smoothing out
difficulties for people in distress,” he said. “And frankly, I am not
anxious to give Mrs. Lane a jolting drive. She has had a considerable
shock.”
“You must all be feeling it, I should imagine,” said Mrs. Hurst. “Please
don’t think of hurrying away: we shall be glad to have you for as long
as you care to stay. I am sure that ankle needs rest, and the Baroin
hotel is not a cheerful place to rest in.”
“Indeed, no!” said Mrs. Lane, with a faint shudder. “My window only
opens for about three inches, and the smells—! And the bar is always
full of noisy men. But perhaps there is a private hospital where I could
go for a few days: I don’t want to spoil the holiday for my menfolk.”
“Oh, I believe there is—but I don’t think you would like it. You are
not ill; a couch on our veranda would be better for you than any place
in the township.” Mrs. Hurst smiled, as she gathered the tea-things
together. “Let us see how you feel in the morning.”
“_What_ a nice hostess!” breathed Mrs. Lane, as the door closed behind
her. “Now, do leave me just as I am, dear, and go to find Barry; he may
lose his way.”
“I don’t think he’ll do that,” Barry’s father said. “But I don’t want
him to walk too far; he is not really strong yet. Sure you will be quite
comfortable until I get back, Milly?”
“Oh, perfectly. Just give me a book, so that I need not watch the
scenery all the time—scenery is _so_ unchanging! And do take care of
yourselves on that horrible hillside. If that horse should shy at a
snake, or anything, where would you be?”
“I should be lost in astonishment if that steed shied at anything
whatever,” said her husband, laughing. “If ever there were a town
mouse—!” He arranged her pillows, gave her a book, and went off with
long strides.
Barry was encountered sitting on a log by the wayside. He greeted his
father with something of relief.
“Jolly good of you to come back,” he said, climbing into the buggy. “My
legs aren’t what they were before I had measles. Mother all right?”
“Oh, yes—it is not a severe sprain. We came off uncommonly well.”
“I expect she’s pining for home,” said Barry. “Is the farm very awful? I
can’t imagine Mother in a farm-house.”
“Wait until you see it,” Dr. Lane chuckled. “We fell on our feet,
Barry—you’ll have to mind your manners.”
Barry sniffed.
“I expect my manners are good enough for this part of the world,” he
said, loftily. “The hotel people were very decent: they said a car with
our things would be out pretty soon. Gee, I could do with a cup of tea!
I found a bit of a pool and washed my face, but the water didn’t look
good enough to drink. Have we far to go?”
“We’re nearly there.” They came in sight of Hill Farm as Dr. Lane spoke.
Above them, in the little paddock near the house, could be seen Robin,
carrying in each hand a kerosene-tin bucket, and surrounded by an
excited retinue of little pigs and a Jersey calf.
“There’s the ginger-haired girl,” said Barry, indifferently. “Regular
farm-hand, isn’t she?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if she could teach you a thing or two, old man,”
said his father.
“_Me!_” There was ineffable scorn in the boy’s tone as he climbed out to
open the gate. “I don’t think I’ll worry any of the wild natives for
lessons, thanks!”