In the Mist of the Mountains Part 30

The heading of the columns said the _Hypocrites_, and the line beneath "By Hugh Kinross."

CHAPTER XXII

A MASTER MIND

Hugh had come back. When he had gone away he had taken with him one small portmanteau that went easily into the luggage rack above his head.

But on the return journey he had quite a little sum to pay for excess luggage.

For instance no railway carries a motor bicycle for the consideration tendered to it for a pa.s.senger ticket. And a motor bicycle was amongst the things turned out on the Burunda platform when Hugh came back, and, to the astonishment of Kate who had gone to meet him, claimed by him.

"My dear fellow," she exclaimed when a.s.sured it was unmistakably his, "how glad I am! I knew you would come to it sooner or later. Oh, what rides we will have together!" Her face beamed.

"Preserve us!" said Hugh; "Melbourne is not responsible for developing maniacal symptoms in me, I a.s.sure you. It's for you, of course."

"You mad boy," said Kate, "haven't I already the best you could buy?"

"But it turns your little face red," said Hugh, "and makes your little heart beat too fast on these hills. This one won't."

And then it was that Kate discovered the motor attachment of the new machine and was divided between ecstasy and economic qualms.

Hugh swiftly laid the latter. The speculation had gone well--better than his best expectations; he had to break out somewhere, he said.

The breaking out included a tricycle for m.u.f.fie, who was ever in hot water with Max for stealing rides on "Trike" just when that gentleman needed the steed himself. A splendid set of croquet was for Pauline, who delighted in the game and had been overwhelmed with sorrow because one night, when mallets and b.a.l.l.s "happened" to be left out on the lawn all night, a vagrant cow with a depraved appet.i.te came in and, as Paul said mournfully, "went and chewed corners all over the b.a.l.l.s."

For Lynn, who had been heard bewailing the fact that all the books she loved had been left in the other house, was a large parcel containing six of the most delightful fairy-books in the world.

And, most exciting of all, there were four volumes, thin certainly, but most gaily bound and gilt-edged and padded up as well as possible with thick paper and pictures--the books they had all written that day in the summer-house.

There they lay, three bound in scarlet and one in green, _The Horty Stepmother_, by Pauline Lomax; _The Fairy who Had_, by Lynn Lomax; _There was a Dog_, by m.u.f.fie Lomax; and _The Mother who said No_, by Max Lomax. Kate was delighted with them and said she would give much to be at the elbow of the Judge and Mrs. Lomax in New Zealand when these choice volumes from their gifted offspring reached them.

For Miss Bibby too there was an offering.

"There aren't many modern women left who can fitly wear these things,"

Hugh said when he showed it to Kate, "but it struck me that it would become a certain old-world air that lingers about Agnes Bibby."

"Ho, ho," said Kate to herself, and stole a glance at him; but she allowed warmly that the thing was very pretty.

It was a chatelaine made of finely-fretted silver. The customary thimble, scissors and other useful and feminine trifles dangled there, but there was also added a delicately-chased case that might have been expected to hold a bodkin, but contained indeed a very up-to-date fountain-pen, gold-mounted.

"A woman without a waistcoat pocket for her fountain-pen has always seemed such a pathetic object to me," Hugh said. "When you were a business woman, K, it often moved me to internal tears to notice the disadvantage you were at in this respect."

Kate acknowledged the disadvantage.

"Though I did stick to a skirt pocket long after the dressmakers had declared them anathema," she said, "but there was always the danger of sitting on your pen or having it leak a wide black mark in the back width of your best frock. Even the sacred repository behind the ear that will lodge a penny pen refuses to accommodate a stout and slippery fountain one. But with that arrangement she will be able to make notes all day."

Hugh hastened to display a miniature note-book, also made to hang suspended from the waist.

"She will be armed at all points, you see," he said, "and the minute she sees men like columns walking, as some one says, she can jot them down."

"But what are all the other things?" asked Kate, pointing to several still unaccounted-for parcels and hampers standing about the verandah just where the driver had set them down.

"Oh, by George, yes," said Hugh. "You must look after those things, K, or they won't keep. It's to-morrow's dinner."

"To-morrow's fiddlestick!" said Kate unbelievingly.

"'Tis, I a.s.sure you," said Hugh; "I'm giving a grand picnic to-morrow at the Falls to celebrate my safe return. Thought of it in bed last night, telephoned the X.Y.Z. Company to pack a bit of lunch that would keep a day and to meet the train with it, and there you are," he waved his hand at the hampers.

"A bit of lunch!" said Kate sarcastically. "Are you sure there is enough there to take the edge off our appet.i.tes?"

"Don't get anxious," said Hugh, "there's a little more to follow in the morning--little things that don't keep well, you know. We can easily pick them up at the station as we pa.s.s."

"Little things like----?" said Kate.

"Oh, mustard," said Hugh--"I remembered how you dislike stale mustard.

And b.u.t.ter--you can't leave b.u.t.ter shut up, you know--and other little things."

"Half a dozen of everything, I suppose," Kate said, attacking the hampers. "H'm, champagne."

"Well, you've got to drink the health of those shares."

"Poultry."

"It will keep, won't it? They a.s.sured me it was only cooked at 2 o'clock to-day."

"Oh, it will _keep_."

"Peaches--pineapples--French confectionery."

"Well, my dear girl, you will all want a square feed when you get to the bottom of those Falls."

"And who are we all, pray?" inquired Kate.

"Well," said Hugh, "there are the ducky little girls, that's two. I sent them a wire each this morning and had their acceptances before the X.Y.Z. got to work."

"That was smart," said Kate.

"Yes, I rather pride myself on my executive abilities when I've once got going," said Hugh. "Next I wired Edith and told her to stay away and Gowan, too. Told her you'd chaperone. I don't want the gloomy brewer's soul going by me like a stork at my own picnic. Told her to send along the kids though--all five of them."

"That's seven," said Kate, "and ourselves, nine,--anyone else? I hope so, for there's enough here for nineteen, and I hate waste."

"Oh, I sent wires over the road, of course."

"Half a dozen wires?" said Kate.