Part 2

"It isn't easy to say. I suppose I shouldn't make any predictions, since I don't in the least understand all I'll have to tackle. But plenty of other women have done it, and much more--women with half a dozen little children. I'm not going to be afraid." She lifted her chin with a defiant little toss. "I suppose it will be hard, and I'll make ever so many mistakes--so will you, and we'll laugh at each other! Oh, Tom, nothing can be very bad if we keep laughing, and we have Garth!"

"You dear!" he said. "I might have known you'd take it that way. Of course"--he hesitated--"there are other alternatives. You wouldn't care to send Garth to live on a farm for a few years, if we could get hold of the right people? Like the Agnews did with that delicate boy of theirs, you know?"

"The Agnews couldn't help themselves," said Aileen. "_There's_ a woman to be pitied, if you like. Mrs. Agnew aged ten years in the first year after she had to part with Harry. We don't do that sort of thing in this family. Next?"

He laughed.

"With my first suggestion badly squashed----"

"You would have squashed it yourself if I hadn't, Tom!"

"Yes, but I knew you would," he said comfortably. "Well, the next is really more feasible." He watched her narrowly. "Suppose I stayed on at the office, and we let this house, and I lived in rooms; there would be money enough to establish you and Garth in some little country place where you wouldn't have to work, and it would be all right for the boy. It would mean separation, of course, but I might be able to run down to see you every few months. It would be far easier for you, dear."

"And for you?"

"Whatever is best for you will be best for me," he said. "You know that, Aileen, don't you? I will be quite satisfied with your choice."

"I wish I knew what you want," she said, watching his face.

"And I won't tell you." He laughed at her.

"Very well," she said, "then I will choose, and it's your own fault if you don't like it. I think that as a planner you begin well, and then slump dreadfully--at any rate, your last two efforts are simply horrid. Do you think I can take the responsibility of bringing up Garth alone, just when he needs a man's hand? He'd break his heart. I wouldn't dare to tell him we meant to leave you. And if you imagine that a little freedom from work would make up to me for being without you---- Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Tom Macleod?"

He sat down on the arm of her chair and lifted her hand against his face.

"I had to give you your choice," he said. "But you don't know what a blue funk I was in!"

"Then you ought to be more ashamed of yourself than ever!" she retorted. "We're mates, you and Garth and I: nothing matters, so long as we are together."

"Not even scrubbing?"

"No," she said. "Nor ploughing, Tom?"

"Certainly not. Nor cooking?"

"Cooking might be fun. What about milking?"

"I learned to milk in my extreme youth," said he proudly. "That's a detail. But--washing?"

"It's done in the best families," she said. "Counted out. How about clearing land?"

"I will do it with my little hatchet," said her husband. "Washing-up, Aileen?"

"Ugh!" she said. "Even in this uplifted moment I can't pretend I'm going to enjoy greasy dishes. Never mind--they'll get done. We won't think about them. Anything else?"

"Lots, I'm certain. What if the sheep get foot-rot, and the hens develop pip? Or is it the other way round? Could you manage a hen with foot-rot?"

"Just as well as you would handle a sheep with pip. What are they, anyhow?"

"Diseases which have always been happily obscure to me," he said, "Now we'll have to study them."

"We'll study them together, then," said his wife; "then, if they appear we can turn on them our united batteries of knowledge. There must be lots of other diseases, Tom. Is it hens that get glanders?"

"Very probably: it always seemed to me that hens have nasty habits," said he. "Of course, I've only looked at them with a kind of semi-detached eye, but then, I never felt any inclination for close acquaintance with a live fowl. My soul was as a star, and dwelt apart!"

"I think one of the first things you had better do would be to uproot any graceful notions about your soul," said his wife. "We shan't need encumbrances like that for some time. Stout bodies and strong muscles are likely to be more in our line; don't be surprised or shocked if you find me writhing in odd corners, because it will be only Swedish drill, to develop me--also in odd corners!"

"It will be awfully interesting," he said, laughing. "Couldn't you start it now? I believe there's one lovely exercise that you do at meal-times. Strangers are apt to run to your assistance, thinking you're strangling, but it's only neck-drill, to give you a long, slender throat!"

"I've always faintly hoped mine pleased you," rejoined his wife. "However, it's too late now--it won't matter in the Bush if one has a throat or not. My energies are going to enable me to develop strength enough to throw a bag of wheat over my shoulder, and go whistling down the lea!"

"Why not bring it home? I don't see why you want to throw good wheat about, after I shall probably have had grave trouble in growing it. And what is a lea, anyhow?"

"It's something the lowing herd winds slowly o'er," she said. "You ought to know that."

"I did, but I don't know what it looks like. And I suppose I'll have to know." The laughter died out of his eyes, and he looked at her in silence for a moment. "Aileen--it's all very well to play the fool, but we're two horribly ignorant people. I wonder if we'll do any good at all?"

"Yes--we will," she said stubbornly. "And I don't mean to stop playing the fool: at least I hope I won't have to. Think of poor old Garth, if we grew old and solemn! We'll just back each other up and worry through. We're in a pretty tight place, but we're not going to pull long faces over it. I suppose sometimes things will get bothersome, and we'll be tired, and possibly our tempers may become a bit ragged at the edges. But we'll understand, and not remember it against each other next day."

"Nor next minute, I hope," he said. "Well, a man would be a cur if he were afraid to face things with any one like you."

"Don't you expect too much of me," said his wife. "I'm an ignorant old thing, as you've justly pointed out, and when you have indigestion through my bad cooking you'll dislike me extremely. But I'll improve. Now come and we'll tell Garth all about it."

*CHAPTER III*

*GORDON'S FARM*

It was Dr. Metcalfe who found the new home for them.

He came in on Garth's first afternoon in the garden. They were gathered under the pepper tree, and Garth gave a glad little shout at sight of him.

"Oh, there's my doctor! Come along, Doctor, and have tea!"

"This seems a party," said the new-comer, regarding the table beside the boy's couch. "Cakes, as I live! and with pink and white icing! Who said you could have exciting things like that, young man?"

"Mother did--and I b'lieve you told her," said Garth cheerfully. "I'm ever so nearly well. You know you don't have to come and stick that old fernometer in my mouth any more."

"It's evident that it will be needed again to-morrow," said the doctor, regarding the cakes with a lowering brow.

"Never mind--it'll be worth it," Garth rejoined. "Anyhow, I know you're only pulling my leg!"

"The attitude of disrespect shown by one's patients is very distressing," said the doctor, subsiding into a low chair and accepting tea. "Go on, young man: don't blame me when you find the castor-oil bottle looming by your bed of pain! Then you'll wish that you had stuck to good old bread-and-butter, and you'll send for me."

"Well, you'd come," said Garth comfortably.

"I would not. I would send back a stern message--'Double dose of oil.'"

"Then I'd better have a double go of cake," said Garth. "Bettern't I, Dad?"

"Most certainly, I should say," his father answered. "It's a sound rule not to mind paying for your fun." He held the plate for Garth's inspection. "There's one in the corner, with an enormous blob of icing: it looks pretty good."

"It is," said Garth, digging his sharp little teeth into it, with a rapt expression.

"A nice pair, you are!" quoth the doctor, regarding them with a twinkle in his eye. "Not that I can blame the son, seeing what his father is. I pity you, Aileen: you'll have a hard time with them when you get to the Back of Beyond."

"Oh, did you know we were going there?" Garth queried eagerly. "Isn't it lovely, Doctor! I'm going to have a pony, Dad b'lieves. Will you come and see it?"

"It will be my one ambition," the doctor told him gravely. "Have you made any arrangements yet, Tom?"

"I'm trying to find a place," Macleod answered. "The office has been awfully decent: they say I'm to come to them if ever we return to Melbourne, and they'll do their best to take me back. Likewise, they've given me a bonus, which is handy."

"And said the nicest things about him," interpolated his wife. "_He_ won't tell you that, so I must--you can blush unseen, Tom. And the staff, to his great horror, mean to give him a silver salver."

"Very handy in the Bush, I'm sure," said the doctor.

"It's jolly good of them," Tom said; "but I wish they wouldn't. Poor beggars, they have enough to do with their money. The awful part is that I believe they're going to make speeches!"

"And you'll have to make one," said Aileen. "Do you think they would let us come and hear?"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated her husband. "I haven't made a speech since the burst of eloquence I uttered, at our wedding breakfast."

"I remember well," said the doctor. "It lasted fully ten seconds, and then you collapsed. We all blushed for you. I think I'd like to hear you make another."

"Well, you won't,'" said the victim, with finality. "I wish you'd change the subject: it hurts."

"Certainly," said the doctor. "I've found you a farm."

"You have! Where?"

"Down in the Gippsland Lakes country," said his friend.

"Is it any good?"

"I wouldn't have found it if it were not," said the doctor severely. "As a matter of fact, I believe it is rather a lucky find. It belongs to Jim Gordon, an Englishman who has been out there about fifteen years. He knocked about all over the country for a good while, and then bought this place. Now he has had money left to him, and he's going back to England. But he likes Australia, and he does not mean to stay away for ever, so he won't sell: he's fond of this little place, and he'll take a low rent if he can get a tenant who will look after it. He showed it to one man, who looked at his plunge-bath and remarked, that it would be a good thing to set tomato plants in! It seems to have given Gordon rather a shock."

"It would," said Aileen feelingly. "Did you tell him we were nice people, Doctor?"

"I went as far as I could," said the doctor guardedly.

"I wonder he hasn't already come to call, in that case," said she, laughing.

"Apart from your quite unjustifiable reasoning, he isn't exactly a calling man," the doctor remarked. "I gather that he has lived very much to himself on this place, doing most of his own work, and that he is not at all popular among the settlers near, who, probably regard him as full of unpleasant English pride--which he is. He's one of those stiff-necked people who think their own ways are always best, and so will never learn any new ones. Therefore, he has never made much money. From what he says, there is plenty of work to be done on this place. It's about the acreage you want, and there's a decent little house on it; and he does seem to have taken some pains with his orchard and garden. But for the most part he appears to have gone fishing, and let the place take care of itself."

"Would there be room on it for a pony?" Garth asked wistfully.

"Yes--and what's more, there's a pony there already!"

"Glory!" said Garth faintly.

"Have we got to take his live stock, too?" asked Macleod.

"It isn't necessary, but I should think it would suit you. There is not much--a pony or two, and a few cows and sheep. You will need all he has had, and, I should think, more: and he'll sell them at a fair valuation. He has two boats, which are let with the house, if the tenant undertakes to keep them in order--he really seems keener about the boats than about anything else. He has a horror of agents and lawyers, and wants to arrange the whole thing privately. If you will consider the place he would like you to go down with him to see it."

"I suppose he would not object to my taking a man down with me? Dawson, who values for our office, knows all about these things: and you know how much I do. The office has offered to lend me Dawson to look at any place."

"Oh, Gordon won't mind--he's really a very fair-minded old chap, and you won't find him hard to deal with. He's not the sort of person to take advantage of the young and innocent: in fact, he'll probably respect you more for taking a tame expert with you."

"It's a long way from town," Macleod said, regarding Aileen with troubled eyes.

"What of that? It's glorious country, and the very place for a small boy," said the doctor, smiling at Garth, who had forgotten cake, and was listening, his eyes shining. "You don't want to be running to town always--that's expensive and unsettling. Cuninghame is quite close, where you can get all your stores: and if you want a bigger town, Sale and Bairnsdale are within easy reach. I've never found out which of them is the capital of Gippsland, but perhaps you'll make the discovery. Did I mention that one of the boats is a motor-launch. You lucky people will be able to explore all the corners of the lakes that mere tourists never see."

"Dad!" came from Garth, in a burst of ecstasy--which somehow checked his father in a remark that busy farmers would not have much time to play about on the lakes. Looking at the delighted face, with the unnaturally large eyes, it seemed better to put that remark away among unborn speeches. He said instead--

"It sounds very jolly. I'll have to teach you to run the motor, old son. By the way, Metcalfe, do you happen to have gathered whether we are likely to make a living out of this highly desirable place?"

"Why, yes, I think you are," the doctor answered. "Gordon has not done so badly, and he's not a hard worker. Given decent seasons and fair luck you ought to get on, though it's not a place to make any fortunes out of. But go down and look at it for yourself."

Which Macleod did, returning a few days later with a cheered expression.

"It's not so bad, Dawson says," he told Aileen, gratefully sipping a cup of coffee, after his long journey. "No fortune in it, as Metcalfe said; but a living, unless we have bad luck. And it's certainly cheap. The house might be much worse--though I'm afraid you will find it bad enough, after this one, my girl."

"Bless you, I'm not expecting a palace," said Aileen cheerily. "I hope it's small: a palace would be somewhat burdensome when one came to scrub it."

"Oh, it's small enough," he said. "We'll fit in, with an extra room or two. There are some things that you don't rind in many bush homes, Dawson says--a decent bathroom, wire window-screens and doors, and a thoroughly good water-supply. They seem awfully ordinary, but I can assure you they're not! And the country is lovely: the view from the front windows will make you forget your old scrubbing-brush!"

"It will be a bad look-out for you if I do!" murmured his wife.

"That's beneath you," he said, laughing. "I don't think a respectable farmeress ought to make bad jokes. There's a good garden, and a fair orchard, and Garth will fall in love with the pony."

"Is the pony safe?" she asked.

"Very unsafe, I think--it's always in danger of going to sleep. I wouldn't like to say how old it is, and I'd hate to ride five miles on it. But Garth will think it a lovely steed. It may make you realize how much past its prime it is when I tell you Gordon wouldn't sell it. He hadn't the face to put a price on it--threw it in with the farm, on condition that it was treated kindly. Well, you couldn't treat anything like that unkindly--not if you had been brought up to reverence age!"

"It sounds a soothing beast," said Aileen--"not likely to harrow my mind by bucking Garth off."

"I'll guarantee it won't. There's another pony, too. I've bought that. Also three cows, twenty-four sheep, some assorted calves, and a lot of fowls. Dawson says they're cheap: I don't know. And I've inherited an orphan boy!"

"Tom! What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Gordon has a boy on a three-years' lease from an orphanage in Melbourne, and only six months of it have run, so I've taken him over. He's about fourteen, and quite full of wickedness. But one may train him into something."

"Did he--did he look at all clean?"

"He did not. I rather think the training will begin with soap; and it will be a terrible shock to him, because you'd say from his appearance that he'd never met it. His name is Horace, I suppose, but old Gordon always called him Horrors, and I think we'll stick to it; it's extraordinarily suitable."

"I don't think he sounds nice," said Aileen, wrinkling her pretty nose.

"To tell you the truth," said her husband confidentially, "he isn't. But he'll do a lot of odd jobs. I made inquiries about a servant, but it's as we thought--not a soul to be had. Did you sound Julia about coming?"

"I did," said Aileen. "'Is it me?' said Julia, 'that 'ud be leavin' Melbourne to go to wan of them places I've heard tell of--nowhere to go on your night out, and never a man to see, not if it was even a butcher-boy! I lived in a bog in Ireland all me days till I come to Australia; and 'tis no longer the counthry that I'd work in, but a good town with moving pictures and the grocer callin' every day for orders!' Then she wept at leaving me, and said she loved me as if I was her mother. Annie weeps too, at intervals, but of course she won't leave the young man in the baker's shop. But we couldn't afford them, anyway, Tom, so what's the good of worrying? Stop worrying at once, and tell me more about the farm."

"There's a gorgeous cloth-of-gold rose tumbling all over the veranda," he said obediently, "and lots of nice common flowers in the garden--stocks, and wallflowers, and snapdragons, and honesty, and pinks, and things like that. It's very untidy, but quite pretty. The house is in a sheltered place where anything will grow: he has orange and lemon trees, covered with fruit, and he says the lemons bear all the year round. There are guavas, too: I didn't know they grew in Victoria."

"Glory!" said Aileen, quoting her son. "I'll make guava jelly!"

"Do you know how?"

"No, but I'll learn. What else?"

"Oh--apricots, and peaches, and cherries, and apples, and pears, to say nothing of gooseberries and currants. There's a good strawberry bed, too."

"It sounds lovely," said Aileen. "Think of pies! I've been learning to make pastry, Tom, and Julia says I have a lovely hand for it. She's going to teach me all sorts of things. Do you think we can afford to buy one of those nice American oil-stoves? The ovens have glass doors, and you sit in front in ecstasy, and watch your cakes rise."

"What if they don't rise?"

"Then you go and do something else, and hope for the best. Don't depress me, Tom. They truly are lovely stoves, and you and Horrors wouldn't have nearly as much wood to cut. And they're nice and cool to work at."

"Well, that's quite enough reason," Macleod said. "If any dodge is going to make work easier for you, we'll get it, if I have to pawn my watch. Let's go and buy these fascinating things to-morrow. I've got a list of everything in the house, and you'll have to go over it, and see what else you'll need." He rose and stretched himself with a great yawn. "Eh, but I'm sleepy! The boy is asleep, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, poor man: he tried to stay awake for you, but I told him you would be too tired to talk. He's desperately anxious to hear about the pony--you must go in to see him as soon as you get up, and tell him about it. He is so happy to be going to the country. It's going to be awfully worth while, Tom."

"Is it?" Then the doubt in his eyes died at the sight of her face. "Yes, I believe it is," he said. "But then you'd make anything worth while!"

*CHAPTER IV*

*INTO THE UNKNOWN*

They said good-bye to the "House Beautiful" in the early morning, while the roses on the porch were still wet with dew. One fragrant bud brushed Aileen's shoulder as she went, and she picked it, and tucked it into her coat. If a little shiver ran through her as the door closed behind her, she gave no sign. Their cab rattled off down the familiar suburban street. Neither Tom nor Aileen looked back.

At the big station all was bustle and hurry: and soon they were in the train and slipping through the long miles of grey houses, until the just-awaking city was left far behind, and wide green paddocks and gum trees, tall and stately, surrounded them. Little townships, like beads upon a string, brought them to a halt every few miles: sometimes so close together that there seemed scarcely any break between the outlying homesteads.

"Plenty of settlement here now," Macleod said. "My mother used often to travel this road by coach, and it was a journey in the winter: the road was just a succession of bog-holes. There was one cheery spot known as the Glue-Pot. Passengers used to get out there, in a body; the women and children stood under the trees, often in pouring rain, while the men got their shoulders to the wheels and dragged and pushed the old coach through. It must have been hard on women with babies."

"Ugh!" said Aileen. "Do you know, I think our mothers were made of better stuff than we are."

"I don't," said her husband stoutly. "You aren't called upon to do what they did--you would do it if you were. But I don't think we men are anything like as good as our fathers: we're brought up softly, and we simply haven't got their muscle and endurance and pluck."

"It's just the same with you--you would do what you had to."

"I suppose we'd try. Honestly, though, we wouldn't get through as much. Every one thinks more nowadays of having a good time: the old people never took holidays, never had luxuries: worked year in and year out; had mighty few clothes, and patched them until they fell to pieces. I suppose that's partly how they made money. No, we're poor specimens compared to our fathers."

"Well, _I_ think you're just as good as Grandfather, and a jolly lot better!" said an indignant small voice; and Garth hurled himself tumultuously upon his father.

"It's something to have a champion, isn't it?" said Aileen, laughing. "Sonnie, this is where I tuck you up for a sleep," at which Garth protested that he had never been less tired in his life, but nevertheless submitted to being rolled up in a rug with his head on his mother's knee; where presently sleep came to him, and he lay peacefully while the train raced through the fertile paddocks that were once a desolate swamp, climbed the Haunted Hills laboriously, rattled down the other side, and so came upon wide plains where great bullocks ceased grazing to look lazily at the iron monster that came daily to disturb their solitude.