“Don’t speak of it. It is nothing. In the bush everybody, of course, does anything for everybody.” When the words were spoken she felt that they were not as complimentary as she would have wished. “You were to have come today, you know, but we did not think you’d come like this, did we?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t go home instead of coming here.”
“The doctor will reach Gangoil sooner than he could the mill. You are better here, and we will send for Mrs. Medlicot as soon as the men have had a rest. How was it all, Mr. Medlicot? Harry says that there was a fight, and that you came in just at the nick of time, and that but for you all the run would have been burned.”
“Not that at all.”
“He said so; only he went off so quickly, and was so busy with things, that we hardly understood him. Is it not dreadful that there should be such fighting? And then these horrid fires! You were in the middle of the fire, were you not?” It suited Kate’s feelings that Medlicot should be the hero of this occasion.
“We were lighting them in front to put them out behind.”
“And then, while you were at work, these men from Boolabong came upon you. Oh, Mr. Medlicot, we shall be so very, very wretched if you are much hurt! My sister is so unhappy about it.”
“It’s only my collarbone, Miss Daly.”
“But that is so dreadful.”
She was still thinking of the one word he had spoken when he had—well, not asked her for her love, but said that which between a young man and a young woman ought to mean the same thing. Perhaps it had meant nothing? She had heard that young men do say things which mean nothing. But to her, living in the solitude of Gangoil, the one word had been so much! Her heart had melted with absolute acknowledged love when the man had been brought through into the house with all the added attraction of a broken bone. While her sister had watched, she had retired—to rest, as Mary had said, but in truth to think of the chance which had brought her in this guise into familiar contact with the man she loved. And then, when she had crept up to take her place in watching him, she had almost felt that shame should restrain her. But was her duty; and, of course, a man with a collarbone broken would not speak of love.
“It will make your Christmas so sad for you,” he said.
“Oh, as for that, we mind nothing about it—for ourselves. We are never very gay here.”
“But you are happy?”
“Oh yes, quite happy—except when Harry is disturbed by these troubles. I don’t think anybody has so many troubles as a squatter. It sometimes seems that all the world is against him.”
“We shall be allies now, at any rate.”
“Oh, I do so hope we shall!” said Kate, putting her hands together in her energy, and then retreating from her energy with sad awkwardness when she remembered the personal application of her wish. “That is, I mean you and Harry,” she added, in a whisper.
“Why not I and others besides Harry?”
“It is so much to him to have a real friend. Things concern us, of course, only just as they concern him. Women are never of very much account, I think. Harry has to do everything, and everything ought to be done for him.”
“I think you spoil Harry among you.”
“Don’t you say so to Mary, or she will be fierce.”
“I wonder whether I shall ever have a wife to stand up for me in that way?” Kate had no answer to make, but she thought that it would be his own fault if he did not have a wife to stand up for him thoroughly. “He has been very lucky in his wife?”
“I think he has, Mr. Medlicot; but you are moving about, and you ought to lie still. There! I hear the horses; that’s the doctor. I do so hope he won’t say that anything very bad is the matter.” She jumped up from her chair, which was close to his bed, and as she did so just touched his hand with hers. It was involuntary on her part, having come of instinct rather than will, and she withdrew herself instantly. The hand she had touched belonged to the arm that was not hurt, and he put it out after her, and caught her by the sleeve as she was retreating. “Oh, Mr. Medlicot, you must not do that; you will hurt yourself if you move in that way.” And so she escaped, and left the room, and did not see him again till the doctor had gone from Gangoil.
The bone had been broken simply as other bones are broken; it was now set, and the sufferer was, of course, told that he must rest. He had suggested that he should be taken home, and the Heathcotes had concurred with the doctor in asserting that no proposition could be more absurd. He had intended to eat his Christmas dinner at Gangoil, and he must now pass his entire Christmas there.
“The sugar can go on very well for ten days,” Harry had said. “I’ll go over myself and see about the men, and I’ll fetch your mother over.”
To this, however, Mrs. Heathcote had demurred successfully. “You’ll kill yourself, Harry, if you go on like this,” she said. Bender, therefore, was sent in the buggy for the old lady, and at last Harry Heathcote consented to go to bed.
“My belief is, I shall sleep for a week,” he said, as he turned in. But he didn’t begin his sleep quite at once. “I am very glad I went into
