The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

by an empty cart, the driver of which pulled up and invited them all to jump in. It was a relief to sit down, though the floor of the cart was far from clean, and they were rattled and bumped like dried peas in a basket. Mollie thought the road would never end, and began to wonder at what stage of thirst delirium came on. But the longest lane has a turning, and at last they came in sight of a white house standing in the middle of an untidy sort of garden. The usual balcony ran round it, but this time it was approached by a wide flight of steps leading up from the drive in front. The cart stopped before a wooden gate, and without a word Prue led the way to the back veranda, where a row of canvas bags hung swinging from the roof. There were taps in the bags, but Prue ignored them. She climbed on to the veranda railing, dipped a tumbler into a bag, and handed it down to Mollie.

Oh, the exquisite joy of that drink! The water was deliciously cold; it trickled over Mollie’s parched tongue, irrigated her dried-up throat, washed away the dust she had been inhaling, and in half a minute made her feel like a newly-made-over girl.

“It is worth while being thirsty,” she said, as she watched the others revive under the same treatment. “I never knew before what a delicious thing water is. I’d like some more, please.”

“I wish we were all giraffes,” Grizzel said, with a sigh. “I’d like to have a throat a yard long and just sit here for ever letting cold water bubble down its hotness.”

“What about Hugh?” asked Jerry, his conscience smiting him now that the irritating effect of heat and thirst had departed, and he reflected that his slighting remarks were probably the cause of Hugh’s absence from this refreshing entertainment. “I expect he is the thirstiest of the lot, seeing he is the only one who did any work.”

“He had his billy-can of cold tea with him this morning,” Prue answered, “and if he is thirsty it is his own fault for being so huffy. Anyhow, he likes to practise enduring things; he says it is a useful habit. The worst of it is he thinks everyone else should endure too. I don’t see the slightest use in making disagreeable things happen ten times just in case they should have to happen once.”

Hugh seemed to have forgotten his grievance when he got home. He arrived along with Mr. von Greusen, who came to supper and talked to Papa about vintages and vines, the prospects of the wine industry, the possibilities of olive culture, and other subjects interesting to Australians but a trifle dull for the English listeners. Presently, however, the name of John Smith was introduced, and the boys pricked up their ears.

“He asks many questions,” said Mr. von Greusen, “but I do not think that his heart is in the vineyard, as the heart of a man must be if he wishes to make his wine world-famous. In your work, that is where your heart must be, my children,” he added, looking solemnly at the boys.

“And where do you think that the heart of Mr. John Smith is?” Papa asked, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Ah!” said Mr. von Greusen, shaking his head, “that know I not. The heart of a young man who brings himself to Australia and whose feet tread the vineyard while his eyes look far away, so that he repeatedly trips over obstacles—where is it?” He shook his head again and hummed in a melodious baritone:

“M�dchen mit dem rothen M�ndchen Mit den �uglein s�ss und klar.”

“Aha!” laughed the professor, “I have seen more than one young man come to Australia to cure that disease. But I don’t recommend the vineyard.”

“I also not. Mr. John Smith should squat,” said Mr. von Greusen.

Mollie laughed so suddenly that she choked, and brought a look of disapproval upon herself from her hostess.

“You may go, children. Mr. von Greusen wishes to hear you play, Prudence. Wait in the drawing-room till we come.”

“Why did you go and laugh?” Hugh asked Mollie, as they trooped off to the drawing-room and thence to the balcony to enjoy the cool breeze which had sprung up. “I wanted to hear more about Mr. John Smith. I don’t understand German. Do you? Why did Papa laugh?”

“I don’t know much German, but I think M�dchen means girl,” Mollie answered. “I couldn’t help laughing. Squatting sounds such a funny cure for being in love.” She giggled again.

“Girl!” Hugh exclaimed.”Girl! I didn’t think he was that sort of an idiot! He talked quite all right to me. No wonder Papa laughed. It’s much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There’s nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They’re as rich as What’s-his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter—but he would be no use on a sheep-run; you’ve got to be in the saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the night. John Smith looked the very chap for it. Girl!”

“You needn’t go on saying girl in that voice,” said Grizzel. “It isn’t the girl who is tumbling about with loverishness; it’s Mr. Smith.”

“What happened to the diamond-mine?” Mollie interrupted, feeling that another squabble was in the air. “Did you make a fortune, and is this house it?”

“Oh no—this house belongs to the Bertram Fitzherberts; they are fruit-farmers. They have gone home for a trip, and they told Papa to come here for the holidays, if he liked. Mr. von Greusen looks after the farm for them. His vineyard begins a little farther up the hill. The diamond-mine hasn’t begun to pay yet, but it soon will.”

“Do you like—is Mr. von Greusen a nice man?” Mollie asked hesitatingly; it felt a little queer to be such friends with the late (or the future, Mollie was a trifle mixed) enemy.

“Nice! Of course he is. Jolly nice, and jolly clever too. Why do you ask?”

“Oh—I don’t know—he is a foreigner, and sometimes foreigners are— they’re different.”

“I don’t know what you mean by different. Everybody is different from everybody else. Anyhow, he isn’t a foreigner here; he is an Australian.”

“What happens if you go to war?” asked Dick.

“We don’t go to war. We are too far away to fight against other countries, and we will never fight each other, like America, and France, and the Wars of the Roses. There’s nothing to fight about and there never will be. Of course—if we wanted to we could. We’d be first-class fighters if we weren’t so peaceful. In fact,” Hugh continued, in a somewhat dreamy tone, “I have invented, or at least thought about, several rather good things for fighting with— but they will never be wanted in Australia. Papa says that if ever there was a sweet and blessed country on earth it is Australia; it is full of peace and goodwill towards all men.”

The English children were silent. It was a good thing, they thought, that people could not see into the future. Time-travelling was certainly best done backwards. And yet—who would want to wipe out the record of the Anzacs? Life was a fairly puzzling job, when you saw too far ahead.

“Papa says,” Grizzel repeated, “that Australian people ought to be the goodest people in the world, because there is a beautiful Cross always shining in the sky to remind us of the Beloved Son, like the rainbow, so that we should never forget. But I do. Nothing in the world seems to keep me from forgetting to be good just when I most want to remember.” Grizzel heaved a sigh from the very bottom of her sinful little heart.

Everyone’s eyes turned towards the Southern Cross, conspicuous even amongst the myriad stars shining and throbbing with tropical brilliance in the velvety blackness of the sky. Mollie remembered that it decorated the Australian flag, and she wondered if the sight of it had made the soldiers homesick sometimes. They were real Australians, she thought to herself, born and bred in this sunny land. She could remember a day when she had been walking with her mother in the Pimlico Road—a dark, foggy, raw day in late autumn. They had come upon a group of Australian soldiers standing round the door of a little green-grocer’s shop, and chaffing the good-natured shop-woman about the quality of her fruit. Mother had stopped to speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed, but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had groused about the English climate they had some cause, she thought, considering the climate they had come from; and they were cheerful about the war—she could remember that, for their voices had followed them through the fog singing “Australia will be there!” to what she had thought was a very lively and pleasant tune—and yet Mother had tears in her eyes. It was a good idea, she reflected, having that device on the flag, for it really was a bit of home—for them. Poor men! Suddenly a new thought came into her mind.

“Look!” she whispered, laying a hand on Jerry’s arm and pointing to the Cross, “look! how brightly it shines! Their name liveth for evermore!”

Prue had slipped indoors and was playing a grave prelude and fugue of Bach’s. The three older people joined the children in the balcony, and sat quietly listening till she had finished.

“That was very good, my child,” said Mr. von Greusen, patting her approvingly on the shoulder, “very good indeed. Next winter we shall study together some piano and violin duets. And now perhaps your verehrte Frau Mutter will make some of her beautiful music for us. Some Schubert songs, yes?”

So Mamma went in, and she and Mr. von Greusen both made beautiful music, separately and together, which the audience in the balcony enjoyed without troubling to understand, Prue being the only one among them who loved music with her head as well as with her heart.

A sound of footsteps on the path below attracted the children’s attention. Someone was walking slowly backwards and forwards, obviously listening to the music. As he passed through the long beam of light sent out by the lamp into the darkness, he turned up his face for a moment.

“It is Mr. John Smith,” Hugh said in a low voice. “Shall I ask him to come up, Papa? He looks lonely out there all by himself.”

“By all means ask him to come up,” Papa whispered cordially; “but go quietly, my son, or Mamma will be out to know who is there, and our concert will be over.”

Hugh departed on his errand, returning in a few moments with a tall figure in his wake, which he led to one of the long cane chairs scattered about, and left to its own meditations.

The children looked curiously at Mr. John Smith, He appeared to be a dark-haired young man, with a considerable amount of nose and chin and a good many inches of leg. He sat very still, his eyes fixed on the starry sky before him. There was, in his general outline in the semi-darkness of the balcony, something vaguely familiar to Mollie— one of those tantalizing impressions that come and go and refuse to be laid hold of.

“But I can’t have seen him before,” she said to herself; “it is quite impossible.” She looked away and tried to get to where she had been before Mr. Smith came up—to that fairyland which the musician summons up with a wave of his magic wand, especially perhaps for those