Hermie received Miss Browne's contribution on her knee, and fell to drying its dejected feathers.
'We didn't know before that each of them was worth two thousand five hundred pounds,' she said. 'Please, papa, will you hold Bartie's fowls, so that he can light the fire. We are going to give them something hot to drink.'
CHAPTER VII
Come Home! Come Home
.
'Oh, that 'twere possible,
After long grief and pain,
To find the arms of my true love
Around me once again!'
Five years dragged on. Sometimes word came that the travellers were at last coming home, and Cameron's heart grew warm, only to grow cold again, as he realised he dare not let them come to this. Then, while the agony of dread still was crushing him, the next mail would bring the bitter relief that the time was not yet—the agent or the music masters or some one else had found another year was necessary, or the great career would be spoiled. Not one word all this time of the selection, else had the 'career' been in instant danger of the ruin predicted, the mother would have journeyed at the greatest possible number of knots an hour back to them. Her dreamer of dreams depending on a selection, her children depending on her dreamer, become his own master!
Yet surely the man had had his lesson, and toiled now marvellously, piteously.
Five years, and not one idle day.
Five years of bewildered struggling with unknown enemies—drought, hurricanes of wind, bush fires, devastating rains, a soil that the farmer born and bred could hardly have made pay. Never a complaining word. Hermie, growing to womanhood, broke her heart over his life at times.