The Happy Adventurers Part 6

She could not make up her mind how much of her story she might tell to d.i.c.k. Her vow had only applied to grown-ups, and since the Campbells had helped her to wish d.i.c.k over, presumably they would allow her to take him into her confidence. But would he believe such an unlikely story--and what about Young Outram? They had not bargained for two boys. She decided to wait and see if Prudence came again, and, in the meantime, to write and tell d.i.c.k that she was alive and well, and that some explanation of his most extraordinary vision would certainly be forthcoming sooner or later.

The morning pa.s.sed much more quickly than the previous morning had done. Mollie and Grannie worked hard at the jig-saw puzzle, and, without breaking her word by the smallest fraction, Mollie contrived to get a considerable amount of information about Australia from Grannie. Not, of course, that she was totally ignorant on the subject of our Australian colonies, but her knowledge was vague, and her interest before this time had been so faint that it was hardly worth mentioning. Grannie, on the other hand, had had a brother and many friends in Australia, and had, at one time or another, corresponded with a number of people there. She was able to tell Mollie several thrilling tales of bush fires, of the gold-fields, and of Ned Kelly, the great bushranger. But in none of her stories did the name of the Campbells appear.

After lunch Mollie was again tucked up on her sofa and told to take a little nap. Grannie was somewhat amused to be asked for the photograph-alb.u.m again. "Bairns have queer fancies," she thought to herself, as she laid it on Mollie's lap. "Don't look too long, my lamb," she said aloud. "Try and go to sleep. You were all the better yesterday. There is Aunt Mary playing the piano--dear me, it is long since I heard that tune!"

When Mollie was left alone she opened the alb.u.m, lay back on her cus.h.i.+ons, and stared hard at the picture of prim little Prudence.

"_Now_ we shall see! Was it a dream, or will she come again? That is the question."

But nothing happened. Prudence stared solemnly and stolidly back, looking almost too good for human nature's daily food.

"But she wasn't, I feel sure she wasn't, even if it _was_ all a dream. Oh--_how_ disappointing! I did hope that parrot of d.i.c.k's meant something, and I do so want to see those children again and know what happened next. Besides, it would be thrilling to be a Time-traveller--one could see all sorts of things."

As she meditated over her disappointment Mollie turned the pages of the alb.u.m, looking rather listlessly at the other children, and deciding that none was so attractive as Prudence, till she came to a group of three girls and a boy. She looked closer, then stretched out her hand for the reading-gla.s.s and looked again: "I do believe it is--yes, it _is_--Hugh and Prudence and Grizzel and Baby! How I _wish_ they would come alive!"

Even as she said the last word she saw a smile dawn upon Prue's face. She did not drop the alb.u.m this time but held tightly on to it, closed her eyes, and counted twenty. When she opened them there stood Prue, looking as good and sweet as ever.

"Oh, I _am_ glad to see you!" Mollie exclaimed, sitting up and holding out her hands. "I thought it was all a dream, and that you were not coming. You will take me with you again, won't you? I did love yesterday."

Prudence smiled and took Mollie's hands in her own. "We need not waste time talking to-day," she said. "Listen to the music."

Mollie shut her eyes and listened to Aunt Mary, who just then began to sing--Mollie could hear the words quite plainly:

"Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me."

They were standing on a rough deeply rutted cart-track high up on a hill-side. Behind them the hill rose steeply, so thickly wooded that Mollie could not see plainly to the top. Before her it fell in a gentle slope to a narrow valley, through which ran a shallow creek with green banks on either side. Straight before her, half-way up the opposite hill, she saw a white cottage covered with a scarlet flowering creeper. It had cas.e.m.e.nt windows all wide open, and a trellised porch. The garden of the cottage reached to the foot of the hill, and for three-quarters of its length was filled with rows of vines, looking like green lines ruled on a brown slate.

On one side of the little vineyard Mollie could see a path winding up the hill, twisting in and out between vines and overhanging trees till it lost itself in a flower-garden, which made such a splash of rosy pink and flaming scarlet that Mollie thought it might have been spilt out of a sunset.

By the roadside at her feet sat Grizzel, red curls still bobbing round her head, and apparently the very same blue overall still clothing her slim little body. She was moulding a lump of wet clay, shaping it into a bowl, pinching here, smoothing there, patting and pressing with both little grubby hands. On a strip of gra.s.s before her stood a long row of golden b.a.l.l.s, glittering in the suns.h.i.+ne as if they had newly left a jeweller's shop.

Prudence stood beside Mollie, rolling a clay ball round and round in her hands; and Mollie discovered presently that she herself was also rolling a lump of sticky stiff mud into some sort of shape, she was not sure what, but it seemed very important that it should be exactly right.

As she watched the other two children, she saw Grizzel rise to her feet and run a few steps along the road to where, on the upper slope, a wedge had been sliced out of the hill, leaving a three- cornered open s.p.a.ce which glittered curiously. This apparently was where the golden b.a.l.l.s came from, for Grizzel stooped down, and lifting a handful of s.h.i.+ning sand let it filter evenly through her fingers over her bowl. She then set the bowl on the ground, and lightly rubbed the gold sand into its surface. She repeated this process three times, then straightened herself, rubbed her gritty hands on her overall, shook the curls out of her eyes, and said:

"It's quite a nice bowl. If _only_ we could make them hold water, Prue, it would do beautifully for Mamma's Russian violets."

As Grizzel spoke Mollie suddenly realized that she knew where she was. They were in "the hills", across the way was their summer cottage, and those blue-green trees were gum trees. She remembered the long road she had seen from the Look-out, and how she had longed to follow it and see what lay behind those hills.

She carried her ball along to the wedge in the hill-side and rolled it in the golden sand, rubbing it and sprinkling it as she had seen Grizzel do, and soon it took on a splendid yellow s.h.i.+ne.

"It looks very nice, Mollie," said Grizzel. "I like the way you've shaped it like an orange. I wonder if I could make a bunch of cherries--I think I will try to-morrow. Put it here beside mine; it is the hottest place."

Mollie stopped and put her ball--which she now saw she _had_ shaped like an orange--beside Grizzel's on the sunny patch of gra.s.s. Then she stood up and looked round her again.

"Where is Hugh?" she asked, "and Baby, and your father and mother?"

"I think that is Hugh prowling among the roses over the way,"

Prudence answered, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking across the valley at the garden. "What is he doing, I wonder--he seems to have lost something! Baby is with Bridget. Papa and Mamma haven't come up yet. Miss Hilton is supposed to be taking care of us, but she is rather a goose."

"All the better for us," said Grizzel. "If she were strict and fussy we wouldn't have nearly such a nice time as we do. You have only to say snake to Miss Hilton and she is ready to faint; it is useful sometimes."

"Why should you say snake?" asked Mollie, feeling rather relieved to hear that the elders of the family were away.

"Because there are snakes about, and she is terrified of them,"

Prudence explained.

"Oh dear--so am I, horribly frightened!" Mollie exclaimed. "I never saw a snake in my life except in the Zoo." "Then how do you know you are frightened of them?" Grizzel asked. "You only have to be a little firm with them and they won't do you any harm. I have lived in Australia for years and years and have never once been bitten."

"I hope I will never meet one when I am alone," Mollie said, shaking an unconvinced head.

While the other children counted their b.a.l.l.s, dried their hands, and tied on their sunbonnets, Mollie stood still and gazed about her.

The country she saw looked strange and unfamiliar to her eyes. So far as she could see there seemed to be few trees but gum trees, with their monotonous foliage and gaunt grey trunks, so different from the mossy trunks at home in English woods. Here and there one had fallen, and lay like a giant skeleton on the ground. On all sides were hills, not very high, but rolling one behind the other like waves, some wooded and some bare of trees and covered only with short gra.s.s and rough boulders. Over everything was the same beautiful clear sunlight that had impressed Mollie so much on her first visit, and the air was warm and soft. She thought of the dull street at home in North Kensington, with brick houses all crowded up together and dingy little back-yards, and she wished that her family could come and live in this wide and sunny country.

As she stood, a cry came across the valley.

"Coo-eee! Cooo-eeeee!"

"There's Bridget calling for tea," said Prudence. "Come on quick; I'm as hungry as a hunter, and Biddy said she would make some damper, because we are rather short of bread."

"What is damper?" asked Mollie, as she followed the other two down the hill. "Is it wet bread?"

"Don't you know what _damper_ is?" Grizzel asked, with round eyes.

"It is unleavened bread--you know, like the Children of Israel ate.

Sometimes we find manna too, lying underneath the trees, but I don't like it much. I am glad I am not a Child of Israel," she added; "I don't like that old Moses. Do you?"

"I haven't thought about him very much," Mollie confessed; "I suppose he was all right in his own way."

"He was so fond of Thou shalt not," Grizzel objected, "and I can't _bear_ thou shalt nots. If _I_ had made the commandments I should have said 'Thou oughtest not to commit murder, but if thou doest thou shalt be hung'. Don't you think that would be more interesting?"

"No, I don't," Mollie answered decidedly, "I like things to be short and plain like Thou shalt not steal. Then you know where you are."

Prudence looked disapprovingly at her sister. "You should not talk like that, Grizzel; it is flippant, and you know what Papa says about flippancy."

Grizzel made a face but did not answer, and they went on in silence till they reached the foot of the hill. They crossed the little creek by stepping-stones, and walked slowly up the winding path, the vines with their ripening grapes on the one side, and on the other great cherry trees, laden with the largest and reddest cherries that Mollie had ever seen in her life. They hung down temptingly among the green leaves, dangling their little bunches in the most inviting way imaginable, some scarlet, some black, and some almost white, but all ripe and luscious. The children stretched up their hands and pulled some, which tasted as good as they looked.

"I'm going to make cherry jam to-morrow," Grizzel said, dropping her stones on the ground and carefully pus.h.i.+ng them into the soil with the heel of her boot. "I'm going to make the first beginnings of my fortune."

"What fortune?" asked Mollie, throwing her stones away in the careless fas.h.i.+on of people who are accustomed to buying their fruit in shops.

"My jam fortune," Grizzel answered. "Every year Mamma sends a case of jam home to Grandmamma, and this year I am going to put in twelve tins of my very own jam, and Grandmamma will sell it and put the money in the bank for me. She promised she would if I was a good girl, and I've been as good as it is possible for a human being to be."

"But can _you_ make really-truly jam?" Mollie asked incredulously-- Grizzel looked so small and young to be a maker of real jam in shoppy tins.

"Grizzel is a _beautiful_ cook," said Prudence, with an air of great pride. "You wait till you taste her herring-shape, and her parsnip sauce. Mamma says that cooks are born, not made, and that Grizzel is born and I'm not made."

Mollie felt an immense respect for Grizzel. Cooking was not her own strong point, as her Guide captain had informed her in plain language more than once, and in any case food at home was too precious for children to experiment with except under supervision-- there could be no playing about with fruit and sugar for instance.

She began to think that if there were some things she could teach these forty-years-ago children, there were also some things she could learn from them--a thought which would have given her mother much pleasure could she have seen into her daughter's mind at that moment.