Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

her face the moment she saw me. Now she was a grown woman, and a sweet-looking one too. I couldn’t lift her up and kiss her as I used to do, but I felt as if I should like to do it all the same. She was the only creature in the whole world, I think, that liked me better than Jim. I’d been trying to drive all thoughts of her out of my heart, seeing the tangle I’d got into in more ways than one; but now the old feeling which had been a part of me ever since I’d grown up came rushing back stronger than ever. I was surprised at myself, and looked queer I daresay.

Then Aileen laughed, and Jim comes to the rescue and says⁠—

“Dick doesn’t remember you, Gracey. You’ve grown such a swell, too. You can’t be the little girl we used to carry on our backs.”

“Dick remembers very well,” she says, and her very voice was ever so much fuller and softer, “don’t you, Dick?” and she looked into my face as innocent as a child. “I don’t think he could pull me out of the water and carry me up to the cottage now.”

“You tumble in and we’ll try,” says Jim; “first man to keep you for good⁠—eh, Gracey? It’s fine hot weather, and Aileen shall see fair play.”

“You’re just as saucy as ever, Jim,” says she, blushing and smiling. “I see George coming, so I must go and fetch in dinner. Aileen’s going to help me instead of mother. You must tell us all about your travels when we sit down.”

When George came in he began to talk to make up for lost time, and told us where he had been⁠—a long way out in some new back country, just taken up with sheep. He had got a first-rate paying price for his carriage out, and had brought back and delivered a full load of wool.

“I intend to do it every year for a bit,” he said. “I can breed and feed a good stamp of draught horse here. I pay drivers for three wagons and drive the fourth myself. It pays first-rate so far, and we had very fair feed all the way there and back.”

“Suppose you get a dry season,” I said, “how will that be?”

“We shall have to carry forage, of course; but then carriage will be higher, and it will come to the same thing. I don’t like being so long away from home; but it pays first-rate, and I think I see a way to its paying better still.”

“So you’ve ridden over to show them the way, Aileen,” he said, as the girls came in; “very good of you it was. I was afraid you’d forgotten the way.”

“I never forget the way to a friend’s place, George,” she said, “and you’ve been our best friend while these naughty boys have left mother and me so long by ourselves. But you’ve been away yourself.”

“Only four months,” he said; “and after a few more trips I shan’t want to go away any more.”

“That will be a good day for all of us,” she said. “You know, Gracey, we can’t do without George, can we? I felt quite deserted, I can tell you.”

“He wouldn’t have gone away at all if you’d held up your little finger, you know that, you hardhearted girl,” said Grace, trying to frown. “It’s all your fault.”

“Oh! I couldn’t interfere with Mr. Storefield’s business,” said Aileen, looking very grave. “What kind of a country was it you were out in?”

“Not a bad place for sheep and cattle and blacks,” said poor George, looking rather glum; “and not a bad country to make money or do anything but live in, but that hot and dry and full of flies and mosquitoes that I’d sooner live on a pound a week down here than take a good station as a present there. That is, if I was contented,” he went on to say, with a sort of a groan.

There never was a greater mistake in the world, I believe, than for a man to let a woman know how much he cares for her. It’s right enough if she’s made up her mind to take him, no odds what happens. But if there’s any half-and-half feeling in her mind about him, and she’s uncertain and doubtful whether she likes him well enough, all this down-on-your-knees business works against you, more than your worst enemy could do. I didn’t know so much about it then. I’ve found it out since, worse luck. And I really believe if George had had the savey to crack himself up a little, and say he’d met a nice girl or two in the back country and hid his hand, Aileen would have made it up with him that very Christmas, and been a happy woman all her life.

When old Mrs. Storefield came in she put us through our facings pretty brisk⁠—where we’d been, what we’d done? What took us to Melbourne⁠—how we liked it? What kind of people they were? and so on. We had to tell her a good lot, part of it truth, of course, but pretty mixed. It made rather a good yarn, and I could see Grace was listening with her heart as well as her ears. Jim said generally we met some very nice people in Melbourne named Jackson, and they were very kind to us.

“Were there any daughters in the family, Jim?” asked Grace.

“Oh! yes, three.”

“Were they good-looking?”

“No, rather homely, particularly the youngest.”

“What did they do?”

“Oh! their mother kept a boardinghouse. We stayed there.”

I don’t think I ever knew Jim do so much lying before; but after he’d begun he had to stick to it. He told me afterwards he nearly broke down about the three daughters; but was rather proud of making the youngest the ugliest.

“I can see Gracey’s as fond of you as ever she was, Dick,” says he; “that’s why she made me tell all those