"I shouldn"t mind in the least," answered Mollie, giggling worse than ever. "You don"t understand. I"ll go away, and I"ll explain when I am better."
She seized her sunbonnet, tucked her book under her arm, climbed up the side of the ferny dell, crossed the track, and ran into the wood on the farther side, leaving Prue and Grizzel to finish the squabble between themselves.
"We have eaten too much, that"s what"s the matter," she said to herself, as she slowed down to a walk and the giggle became less severe. "This hot sun all the time makes one feel crossish."
She came to a halt at the foot of a hollow gum tree, and stooping a little she peered within. It looked shady and cool, its floor powdered with decayed bark mixed with dead leaves--quite clean enough, she decided, to sit upon and rest until her giggles had finally subsided. She crept in, snuggled down comfortably, opened her book, and soon was deep in the adventures of Professor Arrownax, Ned Land, Captain Nemo, and the rest.
The shadows swung slowly round, the sun climbed higher and higher, and the day grew hotter and hotter, but Mollie, skimming along the bottom of the sea in the _Nautilus_ was oblivious of heat. She was walking in the submarine forest of the Island of Crespo, treading on sand "sown with the impalpable dust of sh.e.l.ls", when the sudden cracking of a sun-dried branch near at hand startled her and reminded her that time was pa.s.sing. She closed her book, crept out of her tree, and set off towards the Dell.
"I wish," she said impatiently to herself, "that Time would find something new to do. His one idea seems to be to pa.s.s. He may fly or he may crawl, but he is _incessantly_ pa.s.sing."
She stood still as she spoke and looked before her. Surely the trees were growing more closely together than they had seemed to do; their tall grey-white trunks repeated themselves in a most bewildering way, and right in her path lay a fallen giant which she was perfectly certain she had not pa.s.sed before.
"Bother! I have come the wrong way," she said, turning round and retracing her steps. "I remember now, there were some trees with rings cut round their trunks--there they are."
She reached the ringed trees, turned her back upon them, and walked straight on. But she came to a dried-up creek which she had not seen before. She could not have missed seeing it, for it was too wide to jump. And there were more ringed trees.
"I can"t be far from the Dell, that"s one thing certain. I"ll coo- ee."
She coo-eed her best and shrillest, but no answer came. There was no sound but the occasional scamper of some small furry animal or the unhomely call of an Australian parrot or magpie. All around her the monotonous grey trunks stood, as much alike as the pillars of a town-hall, and overhead the blue-green leaves stirred languidly in the warm wind. Mollie was standing, though she did not know it, on primeval forest land.
What she did begin to realize was that she was lost.
"I _can"t_ be far away," she repeated to herself. "I wasn"t running for five minutes. The point is, how am I to find the way back.
Everything is so difficult in this upside-down place; I haven"t the least idea which is north and which is south; nor which way the wind blows, nor how the shadows fall, nor _anything_; and if I go the wrong way I will only get farther and farther from the Dell. The best plan really is to sit down and wait till someone comes. Someone is sure to look for me sooner or later; d.i.c.k and Jerry will, anyhow." She looked about her again in search of inspiration.
Sitting down and waiting was not a cheerful prospect. d.i.c.k and Jerry might whisk away home and leave her behind. Or she might merely wake up suddenly and find herself in the Chauncery morning-room, safe but dull, or--just supposing she didn"t! Supposing that she couldn"t get back without Prue, and that she turned into an interesting case for the What"s-its-name Society, to be read about in learned books!
"I might try climbing a tree," she thought, gazing round in search of something climbable. But the tall, smooth trunks were discouraging; there were few with boughs within her reach, and the few there were were too low to be of any use as observation posts.
She sat down and resolutely opened her book. "Never say die till you are dead," she repeated, firmly fastening the Guide"s smile on to her face. "I"ll read, and coo-ee every third page."
But she no longer walked in the submarine forest; she only sat in a wood and read about other people doing it, lifting her eyes from the page every now and then, and turning her head uneasily from side to side, feeling very lonely in that great, still place!
What was that? A magpie or a human whistle? "--two-three, _one_-two- three, _one_--". Someone was whistling the air from _Faust_. Mollie sprang to her feet and coo-eed with all her might and main. The whistling stopped short, and there was an answering shout in a man"s voice. Mollie coo-eed again.
"Hi! You"ll have to come to me," the man shouted; "I can"t come to you. Tied here by the leg."
It is not an easy thing to locate a sound in the open air, and though Mollie had had some practice in the course of her Guide work, it was only after several shouts on the man"s part and experiments on hers that she at last found herself standing beside Mr. John Smith, who was sitting on the ground with one bootless leg stretched out before him.
"I am glad to see you," he said to Mollie. "I have sprained my ankle rather badly, and was just wondering what to do next. There seemed to be nothing for it but to crawl all the way home, and the prospect was not pleasing."
"I am glad to see you too," said Mollie. "I am lost."
"Lost!" exclaimed the young man. "Oh no, you aren"t. I have a compa.s.s, and it is not more than a couple of miles or so to Silver Fields, von Greusen"s place. I"ll show you how to use a compa.s.s, and you will be my good angel and go to Silver Fields and ask them to send a horse along, and I will be grateful to you for ever."
"I know how to use a compa.s.s, thank you," said Mollie, feeling greatly relieved, "and I will go to Mr. von Greusen"s place if you tell me where it is; but first I will bandage up your foot and make it feel easier. I have learnt First Aid. May I take that thing off your hat for a bandage?"--as she noticed the pith helmet and pugaree lying on the ground.
"My pugaree? Good idea! I don"t know what First Aid is precisely, but it sounds appropriate. Do you mean you can fix a bandage?"
"Rather," said Mollie, comfortably conscious that she was a First- cla.s.s Guide and a bright and shining light in this particular line.
"How did you sprain your ankle? I suppose you--" she stopped short.
She had almost said that she supposed he had tripped over an obstacle in a fit of loverishness. "I suppose your foot just went.
That"s what mine did."
"I caught it in a rabbit-hole," he answered, "the floor of Australia seems to be perforated with them. Why didn"t you coo-ee sooner?"
"I did," Mollie answered, as she unwound the pugaree and took off her patient"s sock, "I coo-eed ever so often--oh, dear me! that _is_ a bad foot! I"m afraid you"ll be laid up for ever so long. Why didn"t _you_ coo-ee?"
"I did," answered Mr. Smith, eyeing the badly swollen and discoloured ankle ruefully. "I coo-eed ever so often too. I suppose we mistook each other for magpies. Next time I"ll try a good English shout. Now, what"s to happen? D"ye mean to say that I"m to be stuck up in Silver Fields for goodness knows how long with only my own thoughts for company and nothing to do? Oh, ye G.o.ds and little fishes!" he groaned disconsolately.
"I"m afraid so," Mollie replied sympathetically. "I sprained my ankle--" she was going to say "the other day" but remembered in time--"once in the holidays, and I had to lie on a sofa all day. It wasn"t nearly so dull as I expected though," she ended with a little laugh. As they talked she had been skilfully bandaging the swollen ankle in her best style, which was a style not to be despised by anybody. "Now," she said, as she tucked in the end and fastened it firmly with her Tenderfoot brooch, "now you will be more comfortable. But you must keep quite still. I do wish you were not so far from home; you should not ride. If you do anything foolish now you may be lame all your life; that"s what the doctor told me; he was most frightfully firm about it. Your wrist is bleeding--you have cut it."
The young man turned back his shirt sleeve. "It is nothing. A handkerchief twisted round will do. You have done the bandage beautifully."
Mollie arranged the handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover"s knot. It was an ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie for _she had seen it before_. The odd impression of last night, which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation, came rushing back into her mind. Who _did_ he remind her of? How could she possibly have seen that little mark before?
"My name is John Smith," he said, looking up and finding her eyes fixed questioningly upon him. "I don"t think we have met before?"
"I saw you last night at the Campbell"s," Mollie replied aloud (while to herself she added, "And where I saw you before that is what I should like to know more than anything else at this present moment"). "I am staying there. It was dark on the balcony and there were a lot of us children; you wouldn"t notice me. My name is Mollie--oh, you simply must _not_ twist your leg about like that!
Your ankle _may_ be broken; you don"t know."
He smiled; his eyes crinkled up and there was a something in the tilt of his mouth. Why was that smile so familiar? Was it the Prince of Wales? No, it was someone she knew much better than she knew the Prince of Wales. (Which wasn"t saying very much after all.)
"You are very cheery! So you were there, were you? I never heard such heavenly singing in my life. Von Greusen says that Mrs.
Campbell has one of the most beautiful voices in South Australia, and I should say that he has the other. But it isn"t only their voices, it"s the way they sing, making you think of all the might- have-beens and ought-to-have-beens and never-will-bes--" he stopped, and sighed in a melancholy way, leaning his back against the tree behind him. "I think you had better be starting, Miss Polly. Neither of us will be the worse of getting home."
"Mollie, not Polly. I wish you had not to be left alone. I will be as quick as I can. How shall I describe this place? I think I had better come back with the men."
"No need for that. Tell them I"m by the creek on the way to the olive plantation. They"ll know. I have a sister called Polly. I was thinking of her at that moment," he added, with another sigh. "I had a letter from her yesterday and she wants me to go back. The point is, shall I go or shall I not?"
"I don"t know, but I think I had better hurry," Mollie said. It had occurred to her that if _she_ "went back" with her usual abruptness, before she delivered her message, Mr. John Smith might be left in an awkward predicament.
He handed over the compa.s.s with careful directions. She nodded her head, waved her hand at her distractingly perplexing new acquaintance, and set off. Soon her entire attention was absorbed in finding her way, for, although she had used a compa.s.s often enough when Guiding, an Australian forest was something quite new, and to her it seemed as trackless as the ocean, every part of it looked so precisely the same as every other part. Eventually, however, she found herself safely back on the cart-track, though nowhere within sight of the Fairy Dell. She decided to go straight home to the Campbell"s house and ask there for help for Mr. John Smith. Mr. von Greusen would probably be out at this hour, and she felt shy of the big bearded men working about the place.
Mamma was in, and heard her story with concern.
"Of course he must come here," she exclaimed, with true Australian hospitality, unquestioning and ungrudging. "He must be properly nursed and fed." Mollie thought that Mamma looked rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of nursing and feeding a good-looking young man newly out from home. Bridget was called, and between them all a room was got ready and made to look as homelike as possible.
"Flowers and books," said Mrs. Campbell, "always make a room look pleasant. I wish I had some photographs. I wonder who his people are. We"ll put up a picture of St. Paul"s Cathedral, and this little water-colour of a Suss.e.x village; they are not quite the same thing as his mother or sweetheart, but they will be better than nothing."
She sighed as she looked at the water-colour. They were great people for sighing, Mollie thought. It must be rather miserable to be homesick so very, very far away from home!
When Prudence and Grizzel, accompanied by the boys, all not a little anxious about Mollie, arrived at home for dinner they found not only the missing Mollie but also Mr. John Smith on the balcony. Mollie ran down the steps to meet them, and gave a highly coloured account of her adventures. Past differences were forgiven and forgotten, and after dinner they all a.s.sembled on the balcony again with the benevolent intention of devoting themselves to the entertainment of the interesting invalid.
But Mrs. Campbell did not approve of this plan. "We are too many,"
she said in her decided way. "Prudence and Mollie may stay; the rest of you must run away for the present. Grizzel can go for a walk with Bridget and Baby; I want a few things from the Store, and they can be brought up in the perambulator. The boys had better go up to Mr.
von Greusen"s and see about getting Mr. Smith"s belongings brought here."
"You might call at the Fairy Dell and get the Gordello," Prudence suggested--for after all she and Grizzel had made the new drink in a fit of remorse--"Mr. Smith will perhaps like to taste it."
The family melted away, and Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma"s kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circ.u.mstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one"s very door--by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, once she had ascertained the fact that Mr. Smith belonged to the Campbell"s Time, and that therefore she could not possibly have met himself before; it must have been somebody extraordinarily like him. And yet--the number of her friends was not so very great that one could be totally forgotten. She tried not to think about it, but it stuck in the back of her brain in an irritating sort of way and refused to be forgotten.