Chapter VI: Robin Finds Stranded Wayfarers

A BIG grey touring-car came slowly along the narrow track, feeling its way round blind corners and hairpin bends. It was not a pleasant road for touring, especially to people accustomed only to the smoothness and width of city streets. The road that led out from Baroin had been metalled for only part of its length: after five or six miles, winter had put a stop to road-making, and the good surface ceased abruptly. Then with each mile as it wound into the hills, the track grew worse. It clung to the steep sides of the rises, a grey ribbon undulating between walls of bracken fern, barely wide enough, in many places, to carry a car: above it the sheer rise: below, a drop of anything from ten to a hundred feet. Sometimes the trees near it had been cleared: more often, they crowded it on both sides, so that the road ran between walls of slender trunks and tossing tree-tops. This gave variety, because any turn might reveal a tree across the track. On the other hand, the trunks might catch a car that went over the side—a helpful possibility, at the narrowest bends.

One drove along the hill-road, hoping earnestly that one would not meet any other vehicle. Should this occur, the proceedings were slow and complicated. A jinker, or a light cart, was nothing, provided the horse did not play up: the steed could be taken out of the shafts and the cart backed until a space was reached wide enough to allow of passing: which might not be for a mile, or perhaps two. Still, it was simple. More harrowing were the times when one motor encountered another, or a team of twelve or fourteen bullocks dragging a heavy waggon. Then might be seen the spectacle of a car feeling its way painfully in reverse gear, along the way it had come—a way sufficiently exciting to drive on the forward journey. Nervous passengers were wont to get out and walk. Pitt-street and Collins-street may have their terrors for the motorist, but they lack the thrills provided by a Gippsland track.

To avoid, so far as might be possible, the dangers of these untoward meetings, the grey touring-car crawled like a snail round bends, and made haste where haste did not seem suicidal. Its driver was a middle-aged man, tanned and weather-beaten, whose ordinarily cheerful face was set, just now, in anxious lines. His wife sat beside him, little, and plump, and pretty. She said nothing, but occasionally emitted short gasps of horror. To ease her feelings—it was clear that she did not ease those of her husband—she leaned forward constantly and pressed the button of the horn, so that their advance was preluded by a succession of piercing shrieks. Occasionally the driver said patiently, “I wish you wouldn’t, Milly.” To which she invariably responded:—“But you mustn’t take a single finger from the wheel, dear, and somebody _must_ hoot!”

The third member of the party occupied the back seat, amid a litter of luncheon-baskets, cushions, rugs, and fishing-rods. He was a thick-set boy of fifteen, whose dark face betrayed nothing but boredom with his surroundings. The bush through which they travelled did not interest him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. His mother’s nervous gasps moved him only to faint scorn. Finally he produced a paper-covered book from his pocket, and became lost in its pages.

Fate contrived to make Mrs. Edward Lane press unusually hard on the button after a period of silence very grateful to her husband’s nerves. The ear-splitting hoot that ensued made him swerve a few inches—at a spot where there was, unfortunately, not an inch to spare. The bracken, growing thickly from below, hid the fact that the edge of the track had broken off. Bracken, however thick, cannot support the weight of a six-cylinder car. There was a moment’s sick suspense as the big Buick toppled sideways, slid for a few yards, and came to rest, wedged against a huge tree.

Mrs. Lane shot head-first over the edge, landing in a patch of fern, while her husband and son saved themselves in some miraculous fashion. The bottom of the car received them, amid the flying pieces of the shattered windscreen. Considerably astonished at finding themselves alive, they climbed out and hurried to the assistance of the lady of the party, who sat among the ferns, holding her ankle. She had taken her own meteoric flight in silence, but she screamed as she saw their faces.

“Oh, you’re hurt!” she cried. “Barry!”

“Only scratches, Mother,” said Barry Lane, gruffly, his face white under streaks of blood. “Are you hurt?”

She leaned back against her husband’s arm.

“My ankle,” she said. “Something has happened to it. But not much, I think. Are you sure you are not injured, Edward?”

“Quite sure, dear—just scratches and bruises.” He felt her ankle tenderly, while she winced. “No bone broken, thank goodness! Sure you’re all right, Barry-boy?”

“Rather!” said Barry. “A bit of glass just missed my eye—luck, wasn’t it?”

“Then, if neither of you are hurt, I’m glad the suspense is over,” declared Mrs. Lane, with surprising energy. “I knew it had to come, only I was sure it would be where there was a clear drop of half a mile! Now it’s happened, and we’re all alive!”

“I like your philosophy,” said her husband. “It doesn’t deal with the problem of how we’re to get out of this outlandish place, with a damaged car, I suppose?” He was removing her shoe and stocking with deft fingers as he spoke. “Only a bad sprain—poor little woman! Are you perfectly certain you are not hiding anything else?”

“Not a thing,” she assured him, hastily. “I’m scratched, of course, but who wouldn’t be? bracken is such scratchy stuff. Just fancy, if there had been a log in it, what a bump I would have come! And how is the poor car?”

“I’ll look presently. Barry, get the table-napkins out of the lunch-baskets and climb down to the creek—soak them well, and bring them back as quickly as you can. That’s the best we can do for the ankle until we can find a house.”

Barry dived at the car and in a moment was plunging down the hillside. Dr. Lane took out a pocket-flask.

“Drink this,” he said, giving her the little silver cup. “No, I don’t care if you don’t want it—you’re to have it, Milly. There’s a certain amount of shock about a tumble like this, even if we do happen to be all alive. I’m going to have a drink myself. Now I’ll make you a bit more comfortable.” He salvaged a rug from the car, folded it, and arranged it so that she could sit on it, leaning back against a tree: and lifting her as if she were a child, placed her upon it, with a cushion behind her and another supporting the injured foot. Barry returned, panting, with a handful of dripping table-napkins, with which his father bandaged the ankle scientifically.

“That’s ever so much easier,” said Mrs. Lane, smiling at their concerned faces. “How wise it is to take a doctor when one goes for hair-raising trips!”

“I wish we’d taken an ambulance as well!” said her husband drily. “But we’ll get help somewhere. Now, let’s have a look at the car, Barry. You might have washed your face when you were at the creek!”

“Hadn’t time,” said Barry, with a grin. He was poking round the car, pulling away the undergrowth into which it had settled. “I say, Father, she hasn’t come off too badly, I believe!”

“No, I think not—thanks to that providential tree. We should all have been mince-meat, but for it. One wheel is hopeless, of course, and the petrol-tank is badly bashed—but I don’t think there’s much wrong with the engine. Stout old car, and no mistake. But getting her up will be no end of a job.”

“Oh, these country people make a regular living from hauling damaged cars out of difficulties,” said Barry, with the air of a man of the world. “A fellow at school says there’s one place on the Prince’s Highway where the people water the road regularly every night, and keep a team of bullocks handy to pull the cars out of the mud-holes next day! I expect we’ll have the kindly natives along presently.”

Dr. Lane glanced up, and whistled softly.

“Well, there’s the first native, and armed to the teeth, too!” he remarked. “But she doesn’t look as if she could do much pulling, I’m afraid.”

“Well, she’s found game, so we shan’t starve,” Barry chuckled. “Talk about ginger hair!”

Robin, bare-headed, was coming along the track above them—a sufficiently unexpected figure in her blue shirt and khaki breeches, with her red mane glinting in the sun. She carried her gun over her shoulder: a pair of rabbits dangled limply from her hand. Just as the boy spoke she caught sight of them and stopped in amazement. Then she put her gun against the hillside, dropped the rabbits, and plunged down towards them.

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Not badly,” Dr. Lane said, taking off his hat. “But we’re pretty well stranded, as you may see, and my wife has sprained her ankle. Can you tell me where is the nearest township?”

“Merri Creek is nearest, but it is only a village—one store and a blacksmith’s shop. You’re more than twelve miles from Baroin. That is the only place where there is a garage—and a doctor.”

“The garage interests me most—I happen to be a doctor myself,” he said, smiling at her. “We are staying at the hotel at Baroin; we came out this way for a day’s fishing. Twelve miles—h’m! It’s a long way at this time of the evening.”

“Merri Creek has a telephone; you could easily get help for the car to-morrow,” said Robin. She was thinking rapidly, her thoughts running upon the state of the larder at Hill Farm. She remembered the rabbits with a throb of relief. “And there’s bacon and eggs,” she murmured, half aloud.

“I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Lane, staring.

Robin flushed.

“I was only pondering ways and means,” she said. “You must come to our house, of course; it isn’t more than a mile away. My mother will be very glad to do all she can for you. I can run home and bring our horse and buggy.”

“Is it a quiet horse?” spoke Mrs. Lane, for the first time. “I do hope it is really quiet!”

Robin laughed outright.

“When you see Roany you won’t be anxious,” she said. “He’s long past his wild youth. The difficulty is to make him raise anything but a jog!”

“That’s just the kind of horse I like,” Mrs. Lane answered, with a sigh of relief. “But are you sure we shan’t be putting your people to horrible inconvenience?”

“There is only mother and I,” Robin said. “And we have plenty of room. Mother wouldn’t dream of letting you go anywhere else. Indeed, there isn’t anywhere to go—ours is the only house near the road.” She turned, and went up the hillside lightly. From the road she hailed them again.

“Can I bring back anything to make the hurt ankle comfortable?”

“It’s well bandaged with table-napkins, thank you,” Dr. Lane answered. “I think it will be all right until we get to your house.”

“That’s a lass with a head on her shoulders,” he remarked, as Robin gathered up her gun and her rabbits and disappeared round a bend in the track. “We’re in luck’s way, I fancy. One would not expect to meet a girl of her type in this wild place.”

“I was picturing spending the night in a splitter’s camp—and glad to get there,” his wife answered. “She looked so nice and clean—far cleaner than I feel! I wonder what the house will be like.”

“It’s any port in a storm for us to-night,” said Dr. Lane, regarding the wreck of his car ruefully. “Merri Creek must be that little place we saw below us a mile back—the railway terminus. It wouldn’t be a bad idea, Barry, if you got down there and telephoned to the hotel. Tell them to send out things for the night—your mother might as well be comfortable. If you explain what has happened they can send them with a car from the garage, and the garage people can size up the damage of the Buick, and see how we’re to get her in.”

“Right-oh!” said Barry. “But I say—we don’t know the name of the people here. How am I to tell them where to send?”

“By Jove! I never thought of that,” his father said.

“Just ask the people at Merri Creek,” said Mrs. Lane, practically. “I’m certain there can’t be two girls with hair like that walking round these hills in breeches! If you describe her, they will be sure to know.”

“But if a car comes out,” said Barry, “why shouldn’t we go back to Baroin in it?”

“Because your mother isn’t going to drive twelve miles over these tracks after being shot out once,” said Dr. Lane, concisely. “Hurry up, or they’ll never get here before dark.” And Barry went off, wishing that he had a chance of washing his face, on which the blood had dried uncomfortably.

It seemed a long while before they heard the rattle of buggy-wheels and saw Robin driving along the track. She greeted them cheerfully.

“I’ll have to drive on a little way,” she called: “there’s no room to turn here. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

“Then I may as well get you up to the track,” said Dr. Lane to his wife.

It was not an easy business: both were panting, and Mrs. Lane’s face was very white, when Robin reappeared.

“Mother put a mattress on the floor of the buggy,” she said. “This is what we call an express-waggon, and there’s lots of room behind; Mother said it would be more comfortable than sitting on the seat, with your foot hanging down.”

“Your mother’s a wise woman,” said Dr. Lane, thankfully. He braced his muscles, and lifted his wife into the back of the buggy, where she sat enthroned upon the mattress with the injured foot sticking out stiffly, and declared that she was perfectly comfortable—a manifest untruth, which impressed neither of her hearers. They unloaded the car of all that was portable, and Dr. Lane climbed up beside Robin.

“Ready?” she asked. “Oh—where’s the boy?”

“He has gone to telephone from Merri Creek.”

“But he won’t know where to come afterwards.

“I fancy he’ll find his way—Barry generally gets where he wants to go.”

“I had better drive back for him after I land you at home,” said Robin, without enthusiasm—visions crossing her mind of evening duties among the live stock. There was milking to be done, animals to be fed and poultry to be housed for the night. She had no mind to risk her ducklings among the foxes for the sake of a boy who had looked distinctly cross. Then she remembered his blood-smeared face and mentally rebuked herself for being a pig.

“No need for that, I think,” Dr. Lane was saying, pleasantly. “I can drive back, when I get Mrs. Lane to bed, if you will be kind enough to let me have the trap—I’ll promise not to send it over the edge, as I did the car!”

Robin brightened visibly.

“Certainly you can,” she said. “Old Roany will take you safely over any of these tracks—they’re really not fit for cars.” They jogged peacefully homewards.

“I hope I’m not jolting you very badly;” she said, presently, turning to look at the passenger in the rear. “The road isn’t wide enough to dodge the holes—I can only go slowly.”

“But I’m quite enjoying myself,” said the lady on the mattress. “Only, I want to be introduced, because you aren’t a bit what we expected to meet in the country! Our name is Lane, and we came from Melbourne yesterday for a holiday.”

“I’m Robin Hurst,” the girl told her, smiling down at the pretty face. “Mother and I live at Hill Farm.”

“But you haven’t always lived here?”

“Oh no. But I hope we’re always going to.”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Lane, weakly. “It seems a strange hope!”

Robin laughed softly. Dr. Lane decided that he liked the sound.

“You have had an unlucky beginning,” she said. “It really isn’t fair to judge our country when you try to kill yourself on the very first day. Wait until you see the bush in the early morning, before the mists rise—”

“Never!” said Mrs. Lane, firmly. “I dislike seeing anything before breakfast—and not too soon after! I like well-paved streets, without precipices, nicely furnished with electric trams. I can’t see any fun whatever in driving along a mantelshelf on the side of a hill. It makes me afraid: and it is so lowering to one’s pride to feel afraid!”

“But if, before you had the shelf on the side of the hill, you had no road at all, you would look at it differently,” said Robin, laughing. “We regard our road with respect and affection—especially the metalled part!”

“Is there a metalled part?” queried Mrs. Lane. “I hadn’t noticed any. It seemed to me all a terrible series of bumps and pot-holes.”

“You expect altogether too much when you come to the country,” her husband said. “It would do you good to lead the simple life for awhile. I’m sure Miss Hurst could show you how.”

Mrs. Lane shuddered.

“We are giving Miss Hurst and her mother quite enough trouble as it is,” she said, hastily. She gave a sudden gasp. “My dear, have you had measles?”

“Yes.” Robin looked surprised at the sudden query. “Why?”

“My boy has just had them—his quarantine period is almost finished, but they don’t want him back at school before the holidays. And my husband’s eyes had been giving him trouble, so we decided upon a long holiday.”

“What—in Baroin?” asked Robin. Baroin, to her, was the most uninteresting of townships: she could imagine no reason for spending a holiday there.

“The fishing was the lure,” Dr. Lane said. “I have been hearing wonderful things of the trout in the streams here; we thought we could put in a few weeks exploring them, with Baroin as our headquarters. Don’t tell me that the report is only a rumour to catch tourists! I certainly have failed to rise a single fish to-day.”

“There are trout, and big ones, if you know where to go,” Robin told him. “Mother and I often fish.”

“And catch fish?”

“Why, of course.” Robin’s eyes twinkled. “We’re busy people; we haven’t time to fish just for fun, like—like tourists!”

“That’s a fair hit,” Dr. Lane said, laughing. “I will certainly dog your footsteps if I see you going out with a rod.”

“But wouldn’t you like to go out yourself this evening?” Robin asked. “There are two or three good holes in a little creek not far from our place. And the evening rise is the best, unless you get down really early—about dawn.”

“Would I like!” Dr. Lane suddenly looked like a schoolboy. “Can you come too?”

Robin shook her head.

“I can’t come this evening. There is a good deal to do. But I can easily show you where to go.”

“Don’t let him get lost in the bush,” spoke Mrs. Lane. “He is only a tourist, you know!” She turned her head as they came out of a belt of timber. “Oh, what a charming house!”

“That is our place,” Robin said.

Hill Farm had indeed a look of charm in the evening sunlight. Against a sky tinged faintly with rosy pink the white house nestled in the deep green of garden and orchard, ending in the snowy gleam of the newly-painted front fence. The slope before it stretched to the creek, over which they crossed on a rough-hewn bridge: behind it cleared paddocks stretched upwards merging into the stately timbered hills.

“I’ll have to take you round to the back,” Robin said, as old Roany walked slowly up the little hill. “The front gate is too narrow: besides, I painted the fence only this morning, and when I paint anything it takes two or three days to dry. So please be careful, Dr. Lane, if you go out that way. There’s Mother.”

Mrs. Hurst was waiting by the back gate, tall and fresh-looking in her simple grey frock. She greeted them pleasantly, exclaiming with sympathy over the poor, bandaged foot: and presently Mrs. Lane found herself installed in a wide room, smelling faintly of lavender, and exquisitely clean. The windows overlooked the western stretch of great, tree-covered hills. A quaint old-fashioned paper covered the walls, bright with little trails of roses; there were fresh roses on the dressing-table and mantelshelf. A dainty tea-tray stood on a table covered with a snowy cloth.

“I have everything ready for doctoring the foot,” Mrs. Hurst said. “But I was sure you poor things would like a cup of tea first.”

Mrs. Lane heaved a sigh of contentment.

“I could almost weep at the sight of a teapot,” she said. “My husband made me drink whisky, which I hate—I tried to get rid of the taste by eating a gum-leaf, so that my mouth is now a miserable blend of alcohol and eucalyptus! No, no sugar, thank you. Dear me, how good that is!” She looked rather like a mischievous child as she smiled at Mrs. Hurst over her cup.

Dr. Lane stirred his tea reflectively.

“I think we chose the place for our disaster very judiciously,” he said. “Certainly, no stranded motorists ever fared better. Are we putting you to very great inconvenience, Mrs. Hurst? My son has gone to telephone to the hotel to send out our things—we could go back in the car, when it comes, if——”

Mrs. Hurst interposed.

“But that isn’t to be thought of! We shall love to have you; Robin and I live so quietly that to have strangers is quite exciting and delightful, and if you can put up with our bush ways——”

Dr. Lane interrupted in his turn.

“Your bush ways, as you call them, seem ways of smoothing out difficulties for people in distress,” he said. “And frankly, I am not anxious to give Mrs. Lane a jolting drive. She has had a considerable shock.”

“You must all be feeling it, I should imagine,” said Mrs. Hurst. “Please don’t think of hurrying away: we shall be glad to have you for as long as you care to stay. I am sure that ankle needs rest, and the Baroin hotel is not a cheerful place to rest in.”

“Indeed, no!” said Mrs. Lane, with a faint shudder. “My window only opens for about three inches, and the smells—! And the bar is always full of noisy men. But perhaps there is a private hospital where I could go for a few days: I don’t want to spoil the holiday for my menfolk.”

“Oh, I believe there is—but I don’t think you would like it. You are not ill; a couch on our veranda would be better for you than any place in the township.” Mrs. Hurst smiled, as she gathered the tea-things together. “Let us see how you feel in the morning.”

“_What_ a nice hostess!” breathed Mrs. Lane, as the door closed behind her. “Now, do leave me just as I am, dear, and go to find Barry; he may lose his way.”

“I don’t think he’ll do that,” Barry’s father said. “But I don’t want him to walk too far; he is not really strong yet. Sure you will be quite comfortable until I get back, Milly?”

“Oh, perfectly. Just give me a book, so that I need not watch the scenery all the time—scenery is _so_ unchanging! And do take care of yourselves on that horrible hillside. If that horse should shy at a snake, or anything, where would you be?”

“I should be lost in astonishment if that steed shied at anything whatever,” said her husband, laughing. “If ever there were a town mouse—!” He arranged her pillows, gave her a book, and went off with long strides.

Barry was encountered sitting on a log by the wayside. He greeted his father with something of relief.

“Jolly good of you to come back,” he said, climbing into the buggy. “My legs aren’t what they were before I had measles. Mother all right?”

“Oh, yes—it is not a severe sprain. We came off uncommonly well.”

“I expect she’s pining for home,” said Barry. “Is the farm very awful? I can’t imagine Mother in a farm-house.”

“Wait until you see it,” Dr. Lane chuckled. “We fell on our feet, Barry—you’ll have to mind your manners.”

Barry sniffed.

“I expect my manners are good enough for this part of the world,” he said, loftily. “The hotel people were very decent: they said a car with our things would be out pretty soon. Gee, I could do with a cup of tea! I found a bit of a pool and washed my face, but the water didn’t look good enough to drink. Have we far to go?”

“We’re nearly there.” They came in sight of Hill Farm as Dr. Lane spoke. Above them, in the little paddock near the house, could be seen Robin, carrying in each hand a kerosene-tin bucket, and surrounded by an excited retinue of little pigs and a Jersey calf.

“There’s the ginger-haired girl,” said Barry, indifferently. “Regular farm-hand, isn’t she?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if she could teach you a thing or two, old man,” said his father.

“_Me!_” There was ineffable scorn in the boy’s tone as he climbed out to open the gate. “I don’t think I’ll worry any of the wild natives for lessons, thanks!”