Part 10 (2/2)
”My friend indeed! La, As!”
They all went in to supper after that, but Rumple, who had eaten so ry for a long time to come, sat on the step of the veranda and stared out at the darkening night, feeling a little homesick for the others
Then away in the distance he heard the slow ru out on the still air:
”Steady, Rocky, steady, old fellow, or you will upset the whole show into the ditch!”
”It is Nealie!” yelled Ru, for I can hearto the horse”
”Now that is downright good news Coet sos will be nearly starved by this time, I should think!” cried the hospitable ht
”There he is, there he is!” squealed Ducky in the shrillest of trebles as Ruon was advancing
”Oh, you blessed boy, how could you have the heart to give us such a fright?” cried Sylvia, who had been walking at the side of the wagon and now rushed forward to fling her ar him until he was nearly smothered
”I' about it; and I tell you I just felt bad when I woke up in Mrs Warner's parlour and she told ht at first that I was dead,” explained Rulooiven the others so ured in such a fashi+on To be picked up for dead had a good sound with it, andincident when he wrote the story of his life
”Oh, ht again unless you are tied fast to the seat!” cried Nealie, who by this ti him in place of Sylvia, who had been pushed aside
”Or wepan and the tin billy round his neck, and then there would be such a rattle when he fell that we should be sure to hear and could pick him up at our leisure,” said Rupert There was a quiet drawl in his tone which meant that his foot was more painful than usual; but Nealie had been so occupied with her anxiety on Ru her eldest brother, who never said a word about hiht feel
”I shall not do such a stupid thing again of course, but it ht have been worse,” said Rumple ”This is a jolly place: no end of cows, and a real separator; you put them in at the top, the milk I mean, not the cows, and they come out cream one side and milk the other Mrs Warner is jolly too, and oh! what do you think, she is cousin to that Mr
Melrose who left the shi+p at Cape Town, and sent the cable to Mr
Wallis”
By the tion had halted outside the cowyard, and Mrs Warner calad to see you; we don't get many visitors in these lonely places, you know, and so company is always a treat I am afraid that you must have been rather scared when you found your brother was , but when he was able to tell us how it all happened we sent off a notice to be stuck up at the side of the road as soon as possible”
”It was htful,” said Nealie ”Only the trouble was that we had found out Ruht past the place where the notice was posted, and we had nearly reached the cutting where they are going to make the railway We halted there, because we knew that e passed that place before Rumple ith us, and after we had been there about half an hour aup from the e had come, and he asked as the matter that ere so down on our luck; so we told hi, and then he said that he had seen a notice up at the Four-Mile Corner, that stated a boy had been found lying in the road, and had been taken to Warner's Farm, in the Holderness Valley, but he was not hurt”
”I had that bit put to keep you froorous fashi+on ”I guessed that you would be feeling pretty bad, and so I just told To black letters that the boy wasn't hurt”
”It was”I do not kno I should have had the courage to find my way up here but for those last words, and I a so kind to Ru a funny clicking noise with her tongue ”Coh where we can put seven of you to sleep is more than I can say, for we are pretty full with our own lot; but ill e somehow, don't you fret”
”Oh, but, please, we have our own supper things, and ays sleep in the wagon; that is, we girls sleep in the wagon, and the boys have two mattresses underneath, so we never have to trouble anyone,” said Nealie hastily
”What a fine idea!” cried Mrs Warner, holding up her hands in astonishment ”It ; besides, these wayside houses are notpeople to stay at But you are not going to eat your own supper when you co into the kitchen, all of you, there is plenty to eat, only you have caught us all in the rough”