CHAPTER VI

A Strange Welcome

NELL was very tired. Since early morning she had tramped steadily, pursuing that apparently unending trail. Sometimes the way had been up steep ascents, over high ridges, where big boulders stuck up among the trees; then it would drop to lower ground, and skirt wide swamps, in one of which Dick Bronson’s horse had come to its untimely end.

But from the open ground of the last ridge she had crossed, Nell had caught sight of what looked like a cultivated field right ahead, and she was walking on with more hope now that she might reach a house of some kind before night fell, and so be saved the weird experience of spending a night alone in the open.

Several times she had walked to Button End and back again to the Lone House in a day, which was a distance of twenty miles, so her long journey on this occasion had not been so tiring to her as it would have been to any one less accustomed to very long tramps.

It was thirty miles from Blue Bird Ridge to the nearest settlement on the long trail, Doss Umpey used to say; and Nell was beginning to wonder how near she was to that settlement, when she came to a broader cross trail, which showed recent wheel marks.

A few minutes she stood hesitating which way to take, then her quick eye caught sight of a handful of straws caught on a bush.

“A cart carrying corn to the homestead, that is what it was, and this is the way it went,” she said to herself, with the quick observation which comes to dwellers in isolated spots, who have only Nature for their companion.

Then, giving a jerk to the bundle in the canvas bag, which for greater comfort she carried on her back, she went onward again, following now the broader cross trail which showed wheel marks, and here and there fluttering pennons of corn.

For a mile she tramped wearily on—a long, long mile this was—and she would many times have yielded to her desire to sit down and rest but for her fear that night might come, finding her still without a shelter for the hours of darkness.

The trail ended suddenly in a gate that gave entrance to a fenced enclosure, in which stood a barn, some smaller sheds, and a wooden house.

A man was coming in at another gate on the lower side of the enclosure, and he had with him two horses and a cart laden with wood, while a scraggy dog of mongrel type circled round and round, barking wildly at some pigs, which tried to make a rush through the opening.

Nell stood leaning against the bars of her gate hesitating to enter. A fit of shyness had suddenly come upon her, and she was wondering what these people would say to her, or how she could account satisfactorily for rambling about the country alone, without betraying to curious outsiders the fact of her grandfather’s desertion of her.

“Come right in, will you, please, miss? I’d come and open the gate for you—it’s a bit awkward, I know—but I’m afraid of Spider bolting,” shouted the man with the cart. And as one of the horses began at this moment to plunge and rear, Nell understood which was Spider without further introduction.

She opened the gate then, and walked boldly into the yard, and was going across to the man when he shouted to her again—

“Go right in, will you, please, miss? The door is unfastened right enough, only I had to shut it to keep the pigs out. Poor aunt is desperate bad to-day, worse than she has been all along, and she’ll just be downright glad to see you,” he called out. Then he had to give instant attention to Spider, as the creature was endeavouring to walk on its two hind legs, to the discomfort of the steady old animal to which it was yoked.

Nell’s heart gave a great bound of relief. If some one were ill in the house, they would be sure to let her stay and help, at least until daylight came again. So, with a nod to the man, she turned away, and walked up to the door of the house.

This opened straight into the family living-room, which was in a state of confusion such as Nell had never seen equalled. Dirty crockery was strewn on tables, chairs, and floor. Eatables of various sorts were also lying about in the same disorder. One pair of boots and a hat stood on the dresser, close to an untrimmed lamp and a basin half full of milk, while a loaf of bread, with a knife sticking in it, lay on a coat which had been flung down on a bench near the door.

“Oh, what a fearful muddle!” she murmured under her breath. And weary though she was she would have laughed at the scene before her, only she remembered there was a sick woman somewhere, and she had to find her quickly.

Three doors led out of this room, but instinct guiding her she opened the right one first, and walked into a stuffy chamber, the closeness of which seemed almost to choke her, coming as she did from the sweet fresh air of the forest.

A woman with a flushed face and tumbled grey hair lay on the bed, moaning and muttering. She took no notice when Nell bent over and spoke to her, but only moaned and muttered as before.

“She is delirious, that is what she is,” murmured Nell, pronouncing the long word with the careful satisfaction which she always seemed to derive from anything which came out of her much-studied dictionary. “Well, the other room must wait, and I’ll see to her first.”

Years before, when she was a little girl of eleven, she had helped to take care of her sick and dying father, so she was not so much at a loss, as some girls might have been, if thrust suddenly into a sick-room.

Her first move was to the window, which she opened as wide as it would go. Then she straightened the tumbled bedclothes, slipped a cool pillow under the sick woman’s head, and gently sponged the hot face.

In this room, as in the other, plates, cups, basins, and jugs were scattered about in confusion, most of them containing food in some shape or form.

Nell gathered them up as best she could, carrying them to the outer room, to be washed when she had leisure.

Finding a bucket of clean water standing in the little pantry, which opened from the general living-room, she carried a cup of it for the sick woman to drink.

“Ah, how good it is!” murmured the poor thing, opening her eyes and looking at Nell. But there was no surprise in her glance—it was just as if she had expected to see a girl in an old-fashioned blue frock waiting upon her, and with a grateful “Thank you, my dear,” she lay back on the cool pillow and closed her eyes again, only now she did not mutter or moan so much as before.

Having done what was most necessary in the sick-room, Nell stepped out to the other room, and attacked the confusion there. Having lighted the fire, which had gone out from lack of tending, she put a kettle of water on to boil, and then set to work to get the crockery ready for washing.

Absorbed in her work, she forgot how tired she was, and she was stepping briskly to and fro, when the outer door opened, and the man who had shouted to her entered with the dog at his heels.

He stopped short however then, and stared about him in genuine amazement, not at Nell, but at the wonders her hands had wrought in the matters of tidiness.

“My word, how you’ve slicked the place up, and you haven’t been long about it, neither!” he said, in a tone of deep admiration.

He had a stupid, good-natured expression, with a round rosy face like a schoolboy’s; but what puzzled Nell so much was that he talked as if he had been expecting her all day.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to-night, and I’d the feeling that if poor aunt didn’t soon have a woman to tend her, she’d not stand much chance of pulling through. How do you think she is now?” he asked anxiously.

“She seems very ill, but she lay quieter after I had made her bed and put her comfortable. Perhaps she will seem better in the morning. How long has she been sick?” Nell asked.

“It’s a matter of a fortnight now since she was first took poorly, but she has only kept her bed a week, and the doctor he’s been twice. It is a desperate way, twelve miles for him to drive out and the same back. Did you walk all the way?”

“Yes,” murmured Nell, faintly, as, with a flash, it dawned upon her that the reason of her welcome was because she had been mistaken for some one else, some one who had not come, and probably would not on this night at least, for it was beginning to get quite dark.

But she could not tell this chubby-faced farmer about herself, not to-night at least, and since the need of a woman to help was so urgent, she was surely doing no harm in availing herself of the shelter of his house, if she did her duty by the sick woman.

“Well, if you’ve walked all that twelve miles, you certainly ain’t fit to be sitting up with poor aunt to-night,” he remarked, with a disappointed air.

“Oh yes I am, and to-morrow night too, if there is a need for it. But perhaps your aunt will be better in the morning. What did the doctor say she was to have to eat?” Nell asked.

She was still moving about the kitchen, putting things in order, yet going more slowly now because the work was almost done. The countryman, however, had dropped on to a bench near the stove, and looked quite worn out.

“Oh, gruel and milk, and messes like that. Poor aunt, she always did hate spoon victuals; so, when I came in to my dinner to-day and found she couldn’t eat the gruel I’d left for her at breakfast, I just fried her an egg and a bit of bacon, and tried to get her to eat that.”

“But that wasn’t right. Why, it might have killed her!” exclaimed Nell, in a horrified tone.

“Well, it didn’t, anyhow, for she couldn’t touch it, so I ate it myself. Have you had any supper?” he asked, with a wide yawn.

“No; I really haven’t had time to think about it yet. But you will be wanting yours, I should think; the kettle is almost boiling. Shall I make you some coffee, or would you rather have tea?” said Nell, who, despite her weariness, was rather enjoying the situation, because there was lavish abundance of everything to eat and to use in this little border farmhouse, compared with the pinching poverty of the Lone House on Blue Bird Ridge.

“I don’t care. I’ll have just which is easiest to make, or what you like the best; and there are bits of food littering round on plates that will do for my supper. I’ve mostly cleared up what poor aunt couldn’t eat, since she was took sick.”

“I put the bits all together on a dish, and set it in the pantry. I’ll bring it out for you, and make some coffee, then you can get your supper while I look after your aunt; and I expect you will be glad to go to bed very soon, for you must have had some bad nights lately.”

“Well, to tell the truth, I haven’t been to bed for a week. I sleep in the loft, you see, and when I’m up there with my head under the bedclothes, I can’t hear what’s going on, so I stayed down here and got what sleep I could on two chairs and a bench. It has been a hard time,” he said, looking so tired as he sat with his head leaning against the wall, that Nell felt quite sorry for him.

“You can sleep with a quiet mind to-night,” she answered, lifting the coffee-pot from the stove and bringing it to pour him out a cup where he sat. “If your aunt is taken worse, I will be sure to call you; and if not, there won’t be any need for you to worry. I know quite a lot about nursing, and I always used to help with my father when he was ill.”

“Abe never did look like a strong man,” said the countryman, sleepily, and Nell darted a sudden look of alarm at him, wondering if he might be on the verge of some awkward questioning; so, to stave off the evil moment, she stepped into the next room, and busied herself looking after the invalid.

The sick woman still tossed and moaned; but she had been made so much more comfortable, that some at least of her suffering had been lessened, whilst the water which Nell let her have in copious draughts, seemed to refresh and cool her.

Before he went to his bed in the loft, the man came softly into the sick-room, having left his boots at the door.

“How are you feeling now, aunt?” he asked, bending over the flushed face on the pillow with lumbering tenderness.

She only muttered an incoherent something in reply, and moved her head restlessly, as if it worried her to have him hanging over the bed.

“Don’t you know me, aunt—not know Giles?” the poor fellow asked in a shocked tone, unconsciously raising his voice.

The sick woman only moaned and muttered; but Nell thought it high time to interfere, and gently plucked at his sleeve.

“I wouldn’t worry her, if I were you. The quieter she is left the sooner the fever will drop.”

“She’s worse than she has been all along,” he said, in a shocked whisper. “She has always seemed to know me before.”

“Never mind. Go to bed now, and get a good sleep; perhaps she will have come to her senses in the morning,” Nell said cheerfully; and Giles went off with a drooping head, for he had a good heart, and was warmly attached to the sick woman who had been like a mother to him.

Left alone, Nell made her preparations for keeping watch all night; then, going into the sick-room, wrapped herself in a big shawl which she had found lying on a chair, and gave herself up to the luxury of thinking.

Events had marched so quickly, that, used as she was to a monotonous life, the sudden plunge into change and activity really bewildered her.

It all began with the coming of the exhausted stranger to the Lone House on the ridge, and Nell thought of the vigil she had kept through fear lest Doss Umpey should turn him adrift at dead of night, steal his money, or do him some other harm. Following this came the night she had spent alone with poor dying Pip, and had fallen asleep to find when she awoke that the poor dog was dead.

She thought of the letter she had found in her grandfather’s pocket, with its mysterious threat, and she wondered again, as she had done so many times previously, if Dick Bronson and R. D. Brunsen had any connection with each other.

It bothered her a great deal, that she could not return to the stranger the case with the dollar notes and the portrait. She felt like a thief, to be carrying so much money about which did not belong to her; yet, by some strange contrariness, it was at the same time a comfort to her, since all the while it was in her possession she could not be said to be utterly destitute.

Presently her thoughts wandered to Mrs. Gunnage, and she wondered drowsily whether the good woman’s nerves had as yet permitted her to climb the ladder, to inspect the property which she had been obliged to leave behind when she came away.

Suddenly something different in the room struck Nell, causing her to be instantly on the alert. The moaning and muttering of the sick woman had ceased, and, bending over the bed, she found that the sufferer was lying peacefully asleep.