第57章 Part II.(21)

But it's all right now,Walter,'she said,rumpling the Boss's hair.

`I'll never be so foolish again.'

`Of course you won't,Maggie.'

`We're very happy now,aren't we,Walter?'

`Of course we are,Maggie.'

`And the children are coming back next year.'

`Next year,Maggie.'

He leaned over the fire and stirred it up.

`You mustn't take any notice of us,Mr Ellis,'she went on.

`Poor Walter is away so much that I'm afraid I make a little too much of him when he does come home.'

She paused and pressed her fingers to her temples again.

Then she said quickly --

`They used to tell me that it was all nonsense about the fairies,but they were no friends of mine.I shouldn't have listened to them,Walter.

You told me not to.But then I was really not in my right mind.'

`Who used to tell you that,Mrs Head?'I asked.

`The Voices,'she said;`you know about the Voices,Walter?'

`Yes,Maggie.But you don't hear the Voices now,Maggie?'he asked anxiously.

`You haven't heard them since I've been away this time,have you,Maggie?'

`No,Walter.They've gone away a long time.I hear voices now sometimes,but they're the Bush Fairies'voices.I hear them calling Maggie and Wally to come with them.'She paused again.`And sometimes I think I hear them call me.But of course I couldn't go away without you,Walter.

But I'm foolish again.I was going to ask you about the other voices,Mr Ellis.They used to say that it was madness about the fairies;but then,if the fairies hadn't taken the children,Black Jimmy,or the black trackers with the police,could have tracked and found them at once.'

`Of course they could,Mrs Head,'I said.

`They said that the trackers couldn't track them because there was rain a few hours after the children were lost.But that was ridiculous.

It was only a thunderstorm.'

`Why!'I said,`I've known the blacks to track a man after a week's heavy rain.'

She had her head between her fingers again,and when she looked up it was in a scared way.

`Oh,Walter!'she said,clutching the Boss's arm;`whatever have I been talking about?What must Mr Ellis think of me?Oh!why did you let me talk like that?'

He put his arm round her.Andy nudged me and got up.

`Where are you going,Mr Ellis?'she asked hurriedly.

`You're not going to-night.Auntie's made a bed for you in Andy's room.

You mustn't mind me.'

`Jack and Andy are going out for a little while,'said the Boss.

`They'll be in to supper.We'll have a yarn,Maggie.'

`Be sure you come back to supper,Mr Ellis,'she said.`I really don't know what you must think of me,--I've been talking all the time.'

`Oh,I've enjoyed myself,Mrs Head,'I said;and Andy hooked me out.

`She'll have a good cry and be better now,'said Andy when we got away from the house.`She might be better for months.She has been fairly reasonable for over a year,but the Boss found her pretty bad when he came back this time.It upset him a lot,I can tell you.

She has turns now and again,and always ends up like she did just now.

She gets a longing to talk about it to a Bushman and a stranger;it seems to do her good.The doctor's against it,but doctors don't know everything.'

`It's all true about the children,then?'I asked.

`It's cruel true,'said Andy.

`And were the bodies never found?'

`Yes;'then,after a long pause,`I found them.'

`You did!'

`Yes;in the scrub,and not so very far from home either --and in a fairly clear space.It's a wonder the search-parties missed it;but it often happens that way.Perhaps the little ones wandered a long way and came round in a circle.I found them about two months after they were lost.They had to be found,if only for the Boss's sake.You see,in a case like this,and when the bodies aren't found,the parents never quite lose the idea that the little ones are wandering about the Bush to-night (it might be years after)and perishing from hunger,thirst,or cold.

That mad idea haunts 'em all their lives.It's the same,I believe,with friends drowned at sea.Friends ashore are haunted for a long while with the idea of the white sodden corpse tossing about and drifting round in the water.'

`And you never told Mrs Head about the children being found?'

`Not for a long time.It wouldn't have done any good.

She was raving mad for months.He took her to Sydney and then to Melbourne --to the best doctors he could find in Australia.They could do no good,so he sold the station --sacrificed everything,and took her to England.'

`To England?'

`Yes;and then to Germany to a big German doctor there.

He'd offer a thousand pounds where they only wanted fifty.It was no good.

She got worse in England,and raved to go back to Australia and find the children.The doctors advised him to take her back,and he did.

He spent all his money,travelling saloon,and with reserved cabins,and a nurse,and trying to get her cured;that's why he's droving now.

She was restless in Sydney.She wanted to go back to the station and wait there till the fairies brought the children home.

She'd been getting the fairy idea into her head slowly all the time.

The Boss encouraged it.But the station was sold,and he couldn't have lived there anyway without going mad himself.He'd married her from Bathurst.Both of them have got friends and relations here,so he thought best to bring her here.He persuaded her that the fairies were going to bring the children here.Everybody's very kind to them.

I think it's a mistake to run away from a town where you're known,in a case like this,though most people do it.It was years before he gave up hope.I think he has hopes yet --after she's been fairly well for a longish time.'

`And you never tried telling her that the children were found?'

`Yes;the Boss did.The little ones were buried on the Lachlan river at first;but the Boss got a horror of having them buried in the Bush,so he had them brought to Sydney and buried in the Waverley Cemetery near the sea.He bought the ground,and room for himself and Maggie when they go out.It's all the ground he owns in wide Australia,and once he had thousands of acres.He took her to the grave one day.