She did not move, though her eyes were half open, and he knelt down and shook her shoulder gently.
"Here"s some things, Judy--ain"t you goin" to eat them?"
She shook her head very slightly.
"Have some corned beef, or some currants; there"s some peel, too, if you"d rather."
She shook her head again. "Do take them away," she said, with a little moan.
A look of blank disappointment stole over his small, heated face.
"An" I"ve half killed myself to get them! Well, you ARE a mean girl!"
he said.
"Oh, DO go away,": Judy moaned, moving her head restlessly from side to side. "Oh, how my feet ache! no--my head, and my side--oh!
I don"t know what it is!"
"I got hit here and here," Bunty said, indicating the places, and wiping away tears of keen self-pity with his coat sleeve. "I"m scratched all over with that beastly old cactus."
"Do you suppose there are many miles more?" Judy said, in such a quick way that all the words seemed to run into each other. "I"ve walked hundreds and hundreds, and haven"t got home yet. I suppose it"s because the world"s round, and I"ll be walling in at the school gate again presently."
"Don"t be an idjut!" Bunty said gruffly.
"You"ll be sure and certain, Marian, never to breathe a word of it; I"ve trusted you, and if you keep faith I can go home and come back and no one will know. And lend me two shillings, can you? I"ve not got much left. Bunty, you selfish little pig, you might get me some milk! I"ve been begging and begging of you for hours, and my head is going to Catherine wheels for want of it."
"Have some corned beef, Judy, dear--oh, Judy, don"t be so silly and horrid after I nearly got killed for you," Bunty said, trying with trembling fingers to stuff a piece into her mouth.
The little girl rolled over and began muttering again.
"Seventy-seven miles," she said, "and I walked eleven yesterday, that makes eleven hundred and seventy-seven--and six the day before because my foot had a blister--that"s eleven hundred and eighty-three.
And if I walk ten miles a day I shall get home in eleven hundred and eighty-three times ten, that"s a thousand and--and--oh! what is it?
whatever is it? Bunty, you horrid little pig, can"t you, tell me what it is? My head aches too much to work, and a thousand and something days--that"s a year--two years--two years--three years before I get there.
Oh, Pip, Meg, three years! oh, Esther! ask him, ask him to let me come home! Three years--years--years!"
The last word was almost shrieked and the child struggled to her feet and tried to walk.
Bunty caught her arms and held her. "Let me go, can"t you?" she said hoa.r.s.ely. "I shall never get there at this rate. Three years, and all those miles!"
She pushed him aside and tried to walk across the loft, but her legs tottered under her and she fell down in a little senseless heap.
"Meg--I"ll fetch Meg," said the little boy in a trembling, alarmed voice, and he slipped down the opening and hastened up to the house.
CHAPTER XI
The Truant
He burst into Meg"s bedroom like a whirlwind. "She"s in the old shed, Meg, and I"m not sure, but I think she"s gone mad; and I"ve had the awfullest beating, and got nearly killed with the cactus for her, and never told anything. She can"t eat the corned beef, either, after all.
She"s run away--and oh, I"m sure she"s mad!"
Meg lifted a pale, startled face from the pillows. "Who on earth--what--"
"Judy," he said, and burst into excited sobs. "She"s in the shed, and I think she"s mad!"
Meg got slowly out of bed, huddled on some clothes, and even then utterly disbelieving the wild story, went downstairs with him.
In the hall they met their father, who was just going out.
"Are you better?" he said to Meg. "You should have stayed in bed all day; however, perhaps the air will do you more good."
"Yes," she said mechanically.
"I"m going out for the rest of the day; indeed, I don"t expect either Esther or myself will be back till to-morrow morning."
"Yes," repeated Meg.
"Don"t let the children blow the house up, and take care of yourself--oh! and send Bunty to bed without any tea--he"s had enough for one day, I"m sure."
"Yes," said the girl again, only taking in the import of what the last pledged her to when Bunty whispered a fierce "Sneak!" at her elbow.
Then the dogcart rattled up; and the Captain went away, to their unspeakable relief.
"Now what is this mad story?" Meg said, turning to her small brother. "I suppose it"s one of your untruths, you bad little boy."
"Come and see,"" Bunty returned, and he led the way through the paddocks. Half-way down they met Pip and Nell, returning earlier than expected from the fishing expedition. Nellie looked sad, and was walking at a respectful distance behind her brother.
"You might as well take a phonograph with you as Nellie," he said, casting a look of withering scorn on that delinquent. "She talked the whole time, and didn"t give me a chance of a bite."
"Judy"s home," said Bunty, almost bursting with the importance of his knowledge. "No one"s seen her but me; I"ve nearly got killed with climbing up cactuses and into windows and things, and I"ve had thrashings from Father and everything, but I never told a word, did I, Meg? I"ve got her up in the shed here, and I went and got corned beef and everything just you look at my legs:"
He displayed his scars proudly, but Meg hurried on, and Pip and Nell followed in blank amazement. At the shed they stopped.
"It"s a yarn of Bunty"s," Pip said contemptuously. ""Tisn"t April the first yet, my son."
"Come and see," Bunty returned, swarming up. Pip followed, and gave a low cry; then Meg and Nell, with rather more difficulty, scrambled up, and the scene was complete.
The delirium had pa.s.sed, and Judy was lying with wide-open eyes gazing in a tired way at the rafters.
She smiled up at them as they gathered round her. "If Mahomet won"t come to the mountain," she said, and then coughed for two or three minutes.
"What have you been doing, Ju, old girl?" Pip said, with an odd tremble in his voice. The sight of his favourite sister, thin, hollow-checked, exhausted, was too much for his boyish manliness.
A moisture came to his eyes.
"How d"you come, Ju?" he said, blinking it away.
And the girl gave her old bright look up at him. "Sure and they keep no pony but shank"s at school," she said; "were you afther thinkin" I should charter a balloon?"