第56章 Part II.(20)

`And we couldn't find you,Walter.You see,'she said to me,`Walter --Mr Head --was away in Sydney on business,and we couldn't find his address.It was a beautiful morning,though rather warm,and just after the break-up of the drought.The grass was knee-high all over the run.It was a lonely place;there wasn't much bush cleared round the homestead,just a hundred yards or so,and the great awful scrubs ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles --fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break;didn't they,Walter?'

`Yes,Maggie.'

`I was alone at the house except for Mary,a half-caste girl we had,who used to help me with the housework and the children.

Andy was out on the run with the men,mustering sheep;weren't you,Andy?'

`Yes,Mrs Head.'

`I used to watch the children close as they got to run about,because if they once got into the edge of the scrub they'd be lost;but this morning little Wally begged hard to be let take his little sister down under a clump of blue-gums in a corner of the home paddock to gather buttercups.You remember that clump of gums,Walter?'

`I remember,Maggie.'

`"I won't go through the fence a step,mumma,"little Wally said.

I could see Old Peter --an old shepherd and station-hand we had --I could see him working on a dam we were making across a creek that ran down there.You remember Old Peter,Walter?'

`Of course I do,Maggie.'

`I knew that Old Peter would keep an eye to the children;so I told little Wally to keep tight hold of his sister's hand and go straight down to Old Peter and tell him I sent them.'

She was leaning forward with her hands clasping her knee,and telling me all this with a strange sort of eagerness.

`The little ones toddled off hand in hand,with their other hands holding fast their straw hats."In case a bad wind blowed,"as little Maggie said.

I saw them stoop under the first fence,and that was the last that any one saw of them.'

`Except the fairies,Maggie,'said the Boss quickly.

`Of course,Walter,except the fairies.'

She pressed her fingers to her temples again for a minute.

`It seems that Old Peter was going to ride out to the musterers'camp that morning with bread for the men,and he left his work at the dam and started into the Bush after his horse just as I turned back into the house,and before the children got near him.They either followed him for some distance or wandered into the Bush after flowers or butterflies --'She broke off,and then suddenly asked me,`Do you think the Bush Fairies would entice children away,Mr Ellis?'

The Boss caught my eye,and frowned and shook his head slightly.

`No.I'm sure they wouldn't,Mrs Head,'I said --`at least not from what I know of them.'

She thought,or tried to think,again for a while,in her helpless puzzled way.Then she went on,speaking rapidly,and rather mechanically,it seemed to me --`The first I knew of it was when Peter came to the house about an hour afterwards,leading his horse,and without the children.

I said --I said,"O my God!where's the children?"'Her fingers fluttered up to her temples.

`Don't mind about that,Maggie,'said the Boss,hurriedly,stroking her head.

`Tell Jack about the fairies.'

`You were away at the time,Walter?'

`Yes,Maggie.'

`And we couldn't find you,Walter?'

`No,Maggie,'very gently.He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand,and looked into the fire.

`It wasn't your fault,Walter;but if you had been at home do you think the fairies would have taken the children?'

`Of course they would,Maggie.They had to:the children were lost.'

`And they're bringing the children home next year?'

`Yes,Maggie --next year.'

She lifted her hands to her head in a startled way,and it was some time before she went on again.There was no need to tell me about the lost children.I could see it all.She and the half-caste rushing towards where the children were seen last,with Old Peter after them.

The hurried search in the nearer scrub.The mother calling all the time for Maggie and Wally,and growing wilder as the minutes flew past.

Old Peter's ride to the musterers'camp.Horsemen seeming to turn up in no time and from nowhere,as they do in a case like this,and no matter how lonely the district.Bushmen galloping through the scrub in all directions.The hurried search the first day,and the mother mad with anxiety as night came on.Her long,hopeless,wild-eyed watch through the night;starting up at every sound of a horse's hoof,and reading the worst in one glance at the rider's face.

The systematic work of the search-parties next day and the days following.

How those days do fly past.The women from the next run or selection,and some from the town,driving from ten or twenty miles,perhaps,to stay with and try to comfort the mother.(`Put the horse to the cart,Jim:

I must go to that poor woman!')Comforting her with improbable stories of children who had been lost for days,and were none the worse for it when they were found.The mounted policemen out with the black trackers.

Search-parties cooeeing to each other about the Bush,and lighting signal-fires.The reckless break-neck rides for news or more help.And the Boss himself,wild-eyed and haggard,riding about the Bush with Andy and one or two others perhaps,and searching hopelessly,days after the rest had given up all hope of finding the children alive.All this passed before me as Mrs Head talked,her voice sounding the while as if she were in another room;and when I roused myself to listen,she was on to the fairies again.

`It was very foolish of me,Mr Ellis.Weeks after --months after,I think --I'd insist on going out on the verandah at dusk and calling for the children.

I'd stand there and call "Maggie!"and "Wally!"until Walter took me inside;sometimes he had to force me inside.Poor Walter!But of course I didn't know about the fairies then,Mr Ellis.I was really out of my mind for a time.'

`No wonder you were,Mrs Head,'I said.`It was terrible trouble.'

`Yes,and I made it worse.I was so selfish in my trouble.