Part 5

Cameron working obstinately on one frightful day, the thermometer one hundred and seventeen degrees, had a 'touch of the sun,' and even after the doctor had left him quieted, his head in cool cloths, his temperature falling, he still moaned for his wife, cried to her like a child, stretched out his arms, raved, besought her to hold his hand. It was then that Hermie broke her promise, down on her knees, just hidden by the bed-curtain, writing wildly with the pen she had brought for the doctor to write his prescription.

'By the next boat,' she wrote; 'if you wait for the one after, it will be wicked of you. How can you stay like this? Challis, Challis--all our lives spoiled for her to have a chance! We have no chance; father's life is worse than any dog's. Challis--I think I hate Challis! Going along quietly and happily, are we? Miss Macintosh taking your place? We are starving, worse than starving; the food we have to eat is worse than none at all. He needs delicate things, ice and invalid dishes, properly cooked. I have just been to the safe to look what I could get, and the mutton has gone bad--it goes bad nearly every day in summer here; there is no milk, for the cows have no feed, there is some nasty mouldy bread and bad butter, and golden syrup with flies in it, and sugar alive with ants. You! You and Challis are eating the best things that can be bought with money. I hate Challis! The doctor says we are to keep his head cool with water, and to stand vessels full of water about the room to cool the air. The well is nearly dry, the sun has turned the tank water bad, or else a wombat or a bird has fallen in, and it is poisonous. Bartie has gone a mile with the cart to beg some from the Dalys.

'Miss Macintosh taking care of us all so nicely! We have no one in the world but Miss Browne. Oh yes, we have told you lies and lies, but you ought not to have believed them. You should have come to see for yourself that he was happy and well. Oh, if you could hear him crying, just to hold your hand, he says, and to hear you talk! Ah, mother, mother, mother, how cruel you are!'

But the spirit of the man, just learning to be indomitable, kept him back from long illness. In four days he was up again, easily turned sick and faint, but able to lie on the sofa, and even take an interest in the delicacies that Hermie set before him. She had ridden Tramby into Wilgandra herself, gone to the grocer, and implored him for nice things--calf's foot jellies, and whitebait, and Canadian tinned fruit.

'My sister, Challis Cameron, the pianist will be back soon. I have written for them to come, so you will be sure to be paid.'

And the grocer, a kindly spot in his heart still for the youngest housekeeper he had ever taken orders from, made up a big basket of tinned goods, and said he would wait for Challis to pay him.

'Hermie,' Cameron said from the sofa on the fifth day, 'my head is still confused, but I seem to remember when I was very bad that you kept telling me mamma was coming. There has been no letter, has there?'

Hermie grew a little pale.

'No, there has been no letter, papa,' she said.

'Hermie,' he cried, after spending a minute trying to find the reason for her curiously averted head, 'you did not write for mamma, Hermie?'

She turned to him then, her blue young eyes on fire.

'I did,' she said; 'it is time, more than time she came. If she does not come soon, you--we--we shall all be dead!'

'Child, child!' he said.

He had risen from his sofa and gone to the window, to look once more with aching eyes at his wretched lands. If this had been the green isle in the sea he had dreamed of making it, he would have sent long ago himself. But these desolate acres!

'Child,' he groaned, 'I couldn't let her come to this. I am only half a man--half a man. God left the manliness out of me when He made me, and gave me womanish ways instead. And I have never fought them down, as it must have been meant I should do. But I will begin again, I will work harder--things must take a turn, and then I can meet her, and she will not despise me. Child, God has no more awful punishment than when He lets those we love despise us. Send another letter, tell her not to come yet--not just yet. Let me have one more chance.'

Hermie was sobbing at his side, pulling at his arm, trying to urge him back to the sofa. She knew he was not talking to her, knew he was hardly aware she was there, but her sensitive spirit, leaping at his troubles with him, was bowed down with the knowledge and weight of them. How she loved this man--this grey-haired, blue-eyed man at her side! Hardly the love of daughter for father; her feelings for him had in them something of the passionate, protecting tenderness of a mother for a crippled child.

'Lie down,' she said, 'there--let me move these pillows; that is better. She must come--she should have come long ago. And I told her to be sure to come by the next boat. Now lie still; I am going to get your lunch.'

The exertion and emotion had tried him exceedingly. He lay still, still, his face to the wall; and now his mood brought a tear from under his eyelid. It was too late! She would have started! Ah, well, praise God for that! God who took these things out of our hands. She was coming--he might give up for a little time, and lie with his head on her breast; she who had always forgiven him would forgive him still and clasp him to her, and call him, 'Dear One.' Then all he would ask would be the happiness of dying before the world began again.

The happy tears rolled down his cheeks. Hermie, tip-toeing back with her tray, saw them, and was filled with dismay. What had she done by this interference?

'Darling,' she said, dropping beside him, 'don't mind, don't mind. The letter is not posted yet--Bartie was going to take it in this afternoon. It is not mail day till to-morrow. We will not send it.'

Not posted! Not posted! She was not coming--she might not know of his extremity, his need for her! The chill wind passed over him and dried his tears, dried his heart.

'Here is the letter,' the poor child cried; 'don't look like that, darling. I would not vex you for the world. Shall I tear it up?'

He looked at it piteously. Oh, that Bartie had it, riding with it through the bush, summoning her, summoning her!

'Shall I burn it?' said the poor little girl.

'Yes,' he said, 'burn it.' His voice was lifeless, his eyes stared dully at the wall.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*An Atheist*

'Thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.'

Hermie put her letter and all hopes of rescue together into the kitchen fire.

Life was an endless drab again.

She went listlessly out, and stood on the doorstep to look at it.

Her father did not want her, he had pushed his lunch aside, and bidden her, irritably--he who was so gentle--to leave him to himself.

Bart, poor grave little Bart, a man at fourteen, was working about the place. Neither he nor the young ones had gone to school while the father had been ill. He and Roly had been all the morning beating monotonously at a bush fire just across the road. There was no excitement about it, there seemed little danger; the fire burned quietly, steadily--it had been burning for two days--but this morning it had crept to the fences; the boys had been obliged to cut boughs and beat at it.

Roly sat on the fence most of the time, and sleepily kept back the cunning yellow tongues from the patch Bart had entrusted to him. Bart walked up and down, mechanically threshing out the little licking flames that longed to curl round the fence.

Sometimes he left Roly on guard, and went to do necessary work, feed the two calves, shed a burning tear over the dying sheep, give Tramby a few drops of water.

Hermie went down to him wearily, a sun-bonnet on her head.

'There's no danger about the fire?' She looked at it a little apathetically.

'Oh no; if there were three of us, we could put it all out. Roly's not much use, of course.'

'Bart, what are we going to do?'

'For water? Oh, Daly's going to let me have a big cask to-night. You've got half a bucketful still, haven't you? I didn't want to take Tramby out till it was cooler. Reminds me, I must mend the cart--that old shaft's smashed again.'

'And when that cask's gone?'

'Oh, I'll go and get some from old Perry. His well's not half dry, and there's only himself. But don't you go and be wasteful, Herm--no washing clothes and that sort of waste.'

'I want a bath--I want to turn on a tap, and not have to use just a dipper or two. All Challis has to do is turn on a tap.' Hermie spoke with a strange bitterness.

Bart smiled good-humouredly. 'Yes, she's a lucky little beggar,' he said. 'My word, if I could have the bath-water she wastes, I'd make this poor old place look up a bit.'

He looked round on the desolate acres, looked at them with yearning affection. He was a quiet-natured boy; he did not call himself unhappy; he would have felt he had nothing left to ask for, had he but a plentiful water supply for the stock and crops, and better tools to work with, and a little more strength in that young arm of his. Like his mother, he had the knack of doing the thing at hand with all his power, and already he was a far more proficient farmer than his father would ever be.

'What are you going to do now?' the girl asked, as he hurried away. 'I'll come with you if you like.' Such a hot, patient young face his was, it smote her that she seldom heeded him. He looked pleased at her faint show of interest.

He showed her the corn, coming up bravely, the wheat patch, not drooping quite as much as it might have done. He pointed to the trees in the little orchard. 'In another month or two those apricots and peaches will be about ripe,' he said; 'make a nice change, won't they?' His eyes dwelt lovingly on the green small fruit. 'When the drought breaks----'

'Pshaw!' said the girl.

'Oh,' the lad said cheerfully, 'it will, one of these days; then we'll go along grand.'

He had caught the spirit of patience, of acceptance of ills, from the settlers about.

'But the sheep, nothing will give them life again!' The girl's eyes burned.

The boy had no fortitude against this; he gave a sudden wet glance towards the far end of the selection.

'Let's go and see how they're getting on,' he said in a low tone.

The girl rebelled.

'No--why?' she said. 'It only makes us miserable, and we can't help.'

'All right, you go back,' Bart said. 'I'll have to go. I might have to light another fire.'

Hermie followed him.

The sheep crept away from the house to die, once they found no water was to be had there. They chose to lie down and cease to be at the spot where once had been a dam. Patches of ashes showed where Bart had piled wood over the poor carcases and burnt them up, in his wise young knowledge that the air must be kept pure.

None were dead to-day, though fifty seemed dying. Half a dozen brown ragged little lambs filled the air with piteous outcry.

Hermie's heart swelled.

'Can't you do anything?' she said.

'No,' he said, 'they'll have to go. I've had to give them up, dear. If I can get water for the house for the next week, I'll be glad. Daly is running very short himself.'

There were footsteps in the bush just near, a panting of breath, a curious dragging sound.

'Floss,' said Hermie, and remembered for the first time she had not seen her little sister for hours. 'Where can she have been?'

The child was dragging a bucket. Her face was almost purple with the heat; she had kept her eyes half closed, to shut out the almost unendurable glare, and did not know she was so close to home till she stumbled almost into Bart's arms.

When she saw Hermie there too, she clung to the handle jealously.

'It's not for the house,' she said, 'so don't you think it. Let it alone, Bart! Bart, if you take it, I'll scratch.'

Such a fierce little face it was!

'I'm only going to carry it for you, Chucks,' Bart said. 'You shall do what you like with it.'

'True'n honour?'

'True and honour.'

The little girl relinquished her hold, but kept a guarding eye on the precious fluid.

'Where did you get it, old girl?' Bart said.

'Don't tell father?'

'Why ever not?' said Hermie.

Floss turned on her vehemently.

'I took it,' she said. 'Don't care, I'm glad. They've got a whole cask, the greedies, and lots of money, so they can get as much as they like. They get casks from the Bore, and they're sent down in the train, and they've got a cart to fetch it. They drink it all themselves--pigs! They don't care about the sheep.'

'Not the Scotts, Floss--you've not been stealing the poor Scotts' water?' cried Hermie, aghast. The Scotts lived in a miserable hut on the adjoining selection, and were the nearest neighbours.

Flossie's eyes blazed indignantly.

'Them!' she said. 'They've got less than us! I got it from those mean measuring men.'

Hermie looked puzzled.

'She must mean that camp of surveyors down the road,' Bart said. 'It's a mile away at least. Why, you poor old Flossie, have you been right down to that camp for this little drop of water?' He put his disengaged arm over her bony little shoulders.

Floss caught her breath, and looked unhappily into the half-full bucket.

'The first one was fuller,' she said, 'but the s-sheep nearly knocked me down to g-get it, and they s-s-spilled it on the g-ground.' Her voice shook with sorrow for the waste.

'Twice,' muttered Bart, 'she's been twice, Hermie.'

They were back among the sheep now, and Bart hardly knew what to do with such a drop among so many.

'This one,' said Floss; 'look at its poor eyes--and that one lying down, and the little lambs, Bartie.'

Bart put the bucket to the noses of the ones she touched, but had to drag it away before the poor things had half what they wanted.

A piteous bleat went up from the others.

'I--I think I'll just get one more,' Floss said, and almost staggered to the bucket. 'It's quite easy to steal it now; the camp's left all by itself. Oh, I must get one more--look at that one's eyes.'

But Bart picked her up in his arms, and started back to the house with her.

'You'll just come and lie down quietly,' he said. 'I never saw anything like your face. You'll be ill like father. Poor little Floss! poor little old Floss!'

'There--there would have been half a bucket more,' said Floss, 'only I nearly fell once, and it s-s-spilled.' She was sobbing on his shoulder, sobbing heart-brokenly, hard little Floss who never cried.

Hermie took the child from her brother at the door.

'I'll undress her and sponge her,' she said; 'that will cool her a little, but I quite expect she will be ill like father. Well, it is all Challis's fault.'

In an hour Floss lay asleep, the fierce heat of her cheeks a little faded, and Hermie's hands were idle again.

Miss Browne was helping Lizzie to fold the poor rags of clothes from the wash; the father still begged to be left alone; outside Bart and Roly still threshed monotonously at the fire.

Hermie went into the tiny bedroom that had been run up for her because the house was too small--the bedroom that the mother had been so pleased to hear was built. She found herself looking in the glass at herself, looking sadly, listlessly.

She saw a girl, thin, undeveloped, with a delicately cut face, and shadows lying like ink-smears beneath her eyes. Her womanhood was coming, and she had no strength to meet it; at her age she should have had rounded limbs and pleasing curves. She seemed to recognise this, as she gazed unhappily at her angles. Her hair pleased her, for the sun was making a glory of it; there was a nameless beauty about her face that she recognised vaguely.

'I shall never marry,' she sobbed. 'No one ever comes here but that heavy, stupid Morty. I shall be like Miss Browne in a few more years. I'm getting untidy now--no one can be tidy in clothes like these; I never care how I do my hair--what is the use, when there is no one to see it? I've not been to a party or a proper picnic, like the girls in the book, in all my life. I shouldn't know what to do, if I did go to one. No; I shall grow just like Miss Browne, and it is all Challis's fault.'

A portrait of the sweet-faced girl-player hung on the wall. Hermie tore it down from its place and broke it into fragments.

'I'm just tired to death of seeing you smile!' she muttered.

Miss Browne came in--Miss Browne, with perspiration on her face and a strand or two of her colourless hair loose. She carried an armful of Hermie's clothes from the wash. 'They are a very bad colour,' she said, 'but we cannot blame Lizzie, when there was next to no water. My dear, what is the matter?'

Hermie did not even wipe the tears from her face; she was sitting still, her hands on her knees, and letting the salt drops trickle drearily down her cheeks.

Miss Browne took a step towards her, then paused timidly. There had never been much intimacy or confidence between them. Hermie, with her innate love of daintiness and beauty and the hardness of youth, despised while she pitied the poor woman.

'Is it--anything I can help--your father--Floss--you are anxious--worried?'

'Oh no,' said Hermie, 'I wasn't thinking of any one but myself.' She leaned her head back, and had a sense of pleasure in her rolling tears. 'I suppose I'm not much more miserable than usual; but then I expect you are miserable--every one is, I think.'

'But not in the middle of the day, love,' the lady-help said.

'Why not?'

'Oh'--vaguely--'there isn't time, as a rule. One is so busy. It is a different thing when you go to bed.'

'What do you do then,' said Hermie, 'when you are miserable in bed?'

Miss Browne thought a second. 'I think I say my prayers,' she said.

'And if that does not cure you?'

'I say them again.'

'And if you are still miserable?'

'I--I think I go to sleep then; one is generally tired.' She spoke apologetically.

Hermie leaned her head still farther back. 'Saying prayers would not help me much,' she said. 'I am an atheist.'

'What?' screamed Miss Browne.

'An atheist,' said Hermie. 'It is very comfortable to be one. You have only to think about eating and sleeping. Oh dear!'

She arose languidly and administered water to Miss Browne, who was gasping alarmingly. 'This room is hot,' she said. 'Go and lie down in your own. You shouldn't have made me talk, if you didn't want to hear things. Mind that bit of loose wood at the door.'

Miss Browne, thus dismissed, went away like a chidden child, but her eyes were full of terror, and her very knees trembled. She groped her way to the sitting-room and poured out the frightful story into Mr. Cameron's ears.

He made his own way presently to the hot, cramped bedroom. Hermie had let her hair down, and was sitting on the edge of the bed surveying her poor little prettinesses tragically in the looking-glass.

Her father sat down on the bed beside her, and disclaimed fatigue and headache and everything else she urged upon him.

'What is this Miss Browne tells me, little one?' he said, and almost indulgently, so young, slight, and absurd she looked, to be questioning eternity.

Hermie twisted her wavy hair up into a hard plain knot.

'I only said I was an atheist,' she said, and her young lips quivered and her eyes grew wild.

He put his arm round her.

'How long have you been feeling like this, childie?'

She burst into a passion of frightened tears.

'Since yesterday morning,' she said.

'Tell me about it,' he whispered.

She swallowed a few sobs. 'I'm tired of saying prayers, nothing gets better--nothing comes. It--it's easy enough to believe in God, if you live in Sydney and have water laid on--and cool days and money and a mother. But out here--oh, He can't expect us to believe in Him!'

'I think a few of us do,' he said.

'Us!' she repeated. 'You don't believe anything, do you, father? I've never heard you say a word. I have thought for long enough you were an atheist too.'

He took his arm away and moved to the little window; it was almost ten minutes before he turned round and came back to her.

'Child,' he said, 'sometimes I think my mistakes are too many for me. I have nothing to say to you. I dare not even say, Forgive me. Poor little child, to have come to such rocks! I should have helped you long ago. Only, you see, I had got in the habit of leaving these things to mother.'

'Mother did not often go to church,' said Hermie discontentedly. 'I don't remember her talking religion much.'

'She breathed it instead,' he said; 'she is the best woman in the world, never forget that, Hermie. When we were first married I was full of the young university man's talk--brain at war with established doctrines. She never came over weakly to me, as some women might have done, she never kept spotlessly aloof, indeed, she conceded me freely many of my points. But she managed to make it plain to me that all these questions mattered very little--Christ, and prayer, and love, and doing our best--those were her rocks, and waves of dogma washing for ever on them could not move them.'

'Did she ever read any of those books of yours--those on the top shelf?' whispered Hermie.

'Ah,' said Cameron, 'you have been reading those, have you? Oh yes, she was never afraid to read anything that was written, but she distinguished between faith and creed. She said she did not try to explain or understand God, only to believe in Him. She is quite right. It is the hard names, the popular orthodoxies, the iron creeds, that take the soul and heart and warmth out of religion. When you were little, she did nothing more than show you God as your Father, and Christ as your Saviour, to be tenderly loved and obeyed, and gone to for refuge and comfort.'

'No,' said Hermie.

'No; it was her way. She wanted the love of God to be a living thing to you all--a glad, warm, spontaneous thing, like the love you bore us, only deeper. She would have no lines and rules and analyses of it while you were small. It was not a thing she actually spoke about very often, but white hours, find room for themselves at times--on plain Mondays and Saturdays as often as on quiet Sundays, and she had a way of making the influence of them run, clear, fresh, pleasant streams through the mud-flats of life. Can you realise in any degree what it is to me to find her daughter with such thoughts, Hermie?' His voice was very low. Hermie pulled the pin from the plain tight knob, and let all her hair hide her flushed face again.

'If--if only I had known you thought like this!' she muttered.

'Yes,' he said; 'it is a thing I shall never be able to put away from my mind again, that I did not let you know. A man gets in the way of keeping quiet things like these to himself, but I should not have forgotten I had children. I knew Miss Browne was a good woman, whatever her faults, and I felt that I might leave you to her. Don't think I am excusing myself.'

'It was not your fault, darling, darling,' Hermie said, and clung to him; 'but think how miserable we are--all of us, even poor little Floss! How can He forget us like this?'

Cameron's blue eyes looked out at the blue sky.

'Not to understand, only to believe. He does not lead us always through green pastures. The severe and daily discipline makes us shrink, no doubt. But we have to go on.'

'Oh, darling, I do love you, I do love you!' wept the girl.

'Tie up your hair, childie, and we will go down and sit among the roses, if any are still alive. I am quite strong enough to walk.'