Seven Little Australians Part 13

"Haven't you got any more?" she said anxiously. Then he noticed what a tall, gaunt, strange-looking Judy it was. Her clothes were hanging round her almost in tatters, her boots were burst and white with dust, her brown face was thin and sharp, and her hair matted and rough.

"My golly!" the little boy said again, his eyes threatening to start out of his head--"my golly, Judy, what have you been doin'?"

"I--I've run away, Bunty," Judy said, in a quavering voice.

"I've walked all the way from school. I wanted to see you all so badly."

"My jiggery!" Bunty said.

"I've thought it all out," Judy continued, pus.h.i.+ng back her hair in a weary moray. "I can't quite remember everything just now, I am so tired, but everything will be all right."

"But what'll he say?" Bunty said with frightened eyes, as a vision of his father crossed his mind.

"He won't know, of course," Judy returned, in a matter-of-fact manner. "I shall just live here in this loft for a time, and you can all come to see me and bring me food and things, and then presently I'll go back to school." She sank down among the straw and shut her eyes in an exhausted way for a minute or two, and Bunty watched her half fascinated.

"How far is it from your school?" he said at last.

"Seventy-seven miles." Judy shuddered a little. "I got a lift in a luggage train from Lawson to Springwood, and a ride in a cart for a little way, but I walked the rest. I've been nearly a week coming," she added after a pause, and shut her eyes again for quite a long time. Then a tear or two of weakness and self-pity trickled from beneath her black lashes, and made a little clean mark down her cheeks. Bunty's throat swelled at the sight of them, he had never seen Judy cry as long as he could remember. He patted her thin hand, he rubbed his head against her shoulder, and said, "Never mind, old girl," in a thick voice.

But that brought, half a dozen great heavy drop hurrying down from beneath the closed lashes, and the girl turned over and lay face downwards to hide them. Then she struggled up to a sitting position and actually began to laugh.

"IF the Miss Burtons could see me!" she said. "Oh, I've managed everything so beautifully; they think I'm spending a fortnight at Katoomba--oh, BUNTY, you ought to see the curls Miss Marian Burton wears plastered at each side of her cheeks!" She broke off, laughing almost hysterically, and then coughing till the tears came back in her eyes.

"Do go and get me something to eat," she said crossly, when she got her breath--"you might remember I've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning; only you always were selfish, Bunty."

He got up and moved away in a great hurry. "What could you eat?

what shall I get?" he said, and put one leg down the trap-door.

"Anything so long as it's a lot," she said--"ANYTHING!--I feel I could eat this straw, and crunch up the beams as if they were biscuits. I declare I've had to keep my eyes off you, Bunty; you're so fat I keep longing to pick your bones."

Her eyes shone with a spark of their old fun, but then she began to cough again, and, after the paroxysm had pa.s.sed, lay back exhausted.

"Do fetch some of the others," she called faintly, as his head was disappearing. "You're not much good alone, you know."

His head bobbed back a moment, and he tried to smile away the pain her words gave him, for just at that minute he would have died for her without a murmur.

"I'm awf'ly sorry, Judy," he said gently, "but the others are all out. Wouldn't I do? I'd do anything, Judy please."

Judy disregarded the little sniffle that accompanied the last words, and turned her face to the wall.

Two big tears trickled down again.

"They MIGHT have stayed in," she said with a sob. "They might have known I should try to come. Where are they?"

"Pip's gone fis.h.i.+ng," he said, "and Nell's carrying the basket for him. And Baby's at the Courtneys', and Esther's gone to town with the General. Oh, and Meg's ill in bed, because her stays were too tight last night and she fainted."

"I suppose they haven't missed me a sc.r.a.p," was her bitter thought, when she heard how everything seemed going on as usual, while she had been living through so much just to see them all.

Then the odd feeling of faintness came back, and she closed her eyes again and lay motionless, forgetful of time, place, or hunger.

Bunty sped across the paddock on winged feet; the sight of his father near the stables gave him a momentary shock, and brought his own trouble to mind, but he shook it off again and hurried on.

The pantry door was locked. Martha, the cook, kept it in that condition generally on account of his own sinful propensities for making away with her tarts and cakes; it was only by skilful stratagem he could ever get in, as he remembered dejectedly.

But Judy's hunger! Nothing to eat since yesterday morning!

He remembered, with a feeling of pain even now, the horrible sinking sensation he had experienced last week when for punishment he had been sent to bed without his tea. And Judy had forgone three meals! He shut his lips tightly, and a light of almost heroic resolve came into his eyes. Round at the side of the house was the window to the pantry; he had often gazed longingly up at it, but had never ventured to attempt the ascent, for there was a horrible cactus creeper up the wall.

But now for Judy's sake he would do it or die. He marched round the house and up to the side window; no one was about, the whole place seemed very quiet. Martha, as he had seen, was cooking in the kitchen, and the other girl was whitening the front veranda.

He gave one steady look at the great spiky thorns, and the next minute was climbing up among them.

Oh, how they pierced and tore him! There was a great, jagged wound up one arm, his left stocking was ripped away and a deep red scratch showed across his leg, his hands were bleeding and quivering with pain.

But he had reached the sill, and that was everything.

He pushed up the narrow window, and with much difficulty forced his little fat body through. Then he dropped down on to a shelf, and lowered himself gingerly on to the floor. There was no time to stay to look at his many hurts, he merely regarded the biggest scratch with rueful eyes, and then began to look around for provender. The pantry was remarkably empty--not a sign of cakes, not a bit of jelly, not a remnant of fowl anywhere. He cut a great piece off a loaf, and carefully wrapped some b.u.t.ter in a sc.r.a.p of newspaper. There was some corned beef on a dish, and he cut off a thick lump and rolled it up with the remains of a loquat tart. These parcels he disposed of down the loose front of his sailor coat, filling up his pockets with sultanas, citron-peel, currants, and such dainties as the store bottles held. And then he prepared to make his painful retreat.

He climbed upon the shelf once more, put his head out of the window, and gave a look of despair at the cactus. And even as he knelt there sounded behind him the sharp click of a turning key.

He looked wildly round, and there was Martha in the doorway, and to his utter horror she was talking to his father, who was in the pa.s.sage just beyond.

"Row's Embrocation, or arnica," the Captain was saying. "It is probably in this pantry, my good girl, because it is the last place I should expect it to be in. I left it on my bedroom mantelpiece, but somebody has seen fit to meddle with it. Why in the name of all that is mysterious can't you let my things alone?"

"And for what should I be after moving it for?" Martha retorted.

"I don't mix the pastry with it to make it lightsome, leastway not ordinarily."

She tossed her head, and the action revealed the small, kneeling, terrified figure at the window. Now the door was only half open, and her master was standing just beside it outside, so she only had the benefit of the spectacle.

Twice she opened her mouth to speak, but Bunty made such frantic, imploring faces at her than she closed it again, and even began to examine the bottles on the shelf near the door to give the boy an opportunity of retreat.

One minute and he would, have been safe--one minute and he would have been in the thick of the cactus, that had quite lost its terrors.

But the Fates were too strong for him. And all because Martha Tomlinson's shoe was don at the heel. In turning round it twisted a little under her, and, in trying to recover her balance, she put out one hand. And in putting out one hand she knocked over a jug.

And the jug communicated its shock to dish. Which toppled over, and coolly pushed the great basin of milk off the shelf on to the floor.

I don't know if ever you have tried to clean a board floor after milk, but I am sure you can imagine it would be a disagreeable task, especially if you had scrubbed it well only that morning. It was hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that Martha, in her profound irritation at the disaster, turned angrily round, and, pointing to the figure now stuck in the window, demanded in an exasperated tone whether the blessed saints could stand that dratted boy any longer, for she couldn't, so there.

The Captain took an angry step into the pantry and gave a roar of command for Bunty to come down.

The boy dropped in an agony of dread and shrinking.

"Always his hands a-pickin' and stealin' and his tongue a-lyin',"

said Martha Tomlinson, gazing unkindly at the unhappy child.

Two, three, four, five angry cuts from the riding-whip in the Captain's hands, and Bunty had ducked under his arm and fled howling down the pa.s.sage and out of the back door.

Away across the paddocks he went, sobbing at every step, but hugely commending himself for bearing all this for someone else's sake.

He could hardly have believed, had anyone told him previously, that he could have done anything so absolutely n.o.ble, and the thought comforted him even while the cuts and scratches smarted. He tried to stifle his sobs as he reached the shed, and even stuffed half a handful of currants into his mouth towards that end.

But it was a very tearful, scratched, miserable face that bobbed up the opening near Judy again.