CHAPTER X
A Fright at Night
"There he is, there he is!" squealed Ducky in the shrillest of trebles as Rumple started to run along the dusty track up which the wagon was advancing.
"Oh, you blessed boy, how could you have the heart to give us such a fright?" cried Sylvia, who had been walking at the side of the wagon and now rushed forward to fling her arms round Rumple and hug him until he was nearly smothered.
"I'm awfully sorry, truly I am, but I didn't know anything about it; and I tell you I just felt bad when I woke up in Mrs. Warner's parlour and she told me that she had picked me up in the road and thought at first that I was dead," explained Rumple, with an air of gloomy importance; for in spite of the sorrow he felt at having given the others so much anxiety there was a thrill of satisfaction at having figured in such a fashion. To be picked up for dead had a good sound with it, and might serve as quite a big incident when he wrote the story of his life.
"Oh, my dear, I will never let you sit upon the rack out of sight again unless you are tied fast to the seat!" cried Nealie, who by this time had jumped down from the wagon and was hugging him in place of Sylvia, who had been pushed aside.
"Or we might tie the frying pan and the tin billy round his neck, and then there would be such a rattle when he fell that we should be sure to hear and could pick him up at our leisure," said Rupert. There was a quiet drawl in his tone which meant that his foot was more painful than usual; but Nealie had been so occupied with her anxiety on Rumple's account that she had little time for watching her eldest brother, who never said a word about himself, however bad he might feel.
"I shall not do such a stupid thing again of course, but it might have been worse," said Rumple. "This is a jolly place: no end of cows, and a real separator; you put them in at the top, the milk I mean, not the cows, and they come out cream one side and milk the other. Mrs. Warner is jolly too, and oh! what do you think, she is cousin to that Mr. Melrose who left the ship at Cape Town, and sent the cable to Mr. Wallis."