“Indeed, I would. And now it is no use my going, is it?”
“Not a bit, Lizzie. You hear what Fraser says—'He is getting on splendidly, and the left eye is saved.' Let me read it all over again; shall I?”
“Do,” and her pale, clear-cut features flushed; “it makes me feel as if I were there and saw the whole dreadful sight. Don't cry any more, Mary dear. Uncle Tom is getting better.”
“If Jim had been with him, it wouldn't have happened,” said the child, suppressing her sobs, and wiping her streaming eyes; “Jim would have been sure to have seen the alligator coming before any one else, and done something. I am quite sure that even if he met a bunyip he would not be afraid; but would fight it.”
“I'm dead certain of it, Mary,” said Westonley, as he put his big hand upon the child's head, and then taking up Fraser's letter, he again read it aloud. It described in simple language Gerrard's desperate struggle with the alligator, then went on about his courage and fortitude under agonising pain, for the wounds caused by alligators' claws invariably set up an intense and poisonous inflammation, and take a long time to heal, and concluded by saying, “as long as life lasts, I shall never forget that only for his heroic conduct I should now be a childless man, and my daughter have died a death too fearful to contemplate.”
Gerrard's letter was in his usual laconic style.
“Dear Ted,—I have bought a little station here called
Kaburie—good cattle country with about 2500 head on it. In
getting a mob across a creek I was mauled by an alligator'
and if it had not been for my friend Fraser—in whose house
I am now staying for a week or so—shooting the beast, it
would have had me. It is nothing serious, so don't worry
over me—some deep cuts on my face, that is all, and Mr
Fraser and his daughter (a charming girl) are coddling me
up. Jim is with me. I left him with your old friend Lacey at
Port Denison, but the young beggar wouldn't stay when he
heard that I had had an accident. He is making great running
with pretty Miss Fraser. Give my love to Lizzie and Mary,
and tell the latter that I trust her bear is now thoroughly
convalescent Jim will write to Mary by next mail. He went
out early this morning fishing with Miss F———, and did
not know that the mailman was calling to-day.—Yours ever,
Tom.”
Mary's face brightened at the prospect of a letter from her dearly-beloved Jim, and Mrs Westonley smiled. Ever since Gerrard's visit to Marumbah Downs, her once icy and austere manner to the child had, bit by bit, relaxed, until at last she had thawed altogether, and had been amply repaid by such a warm response of affection that she now made a companion of the little one, and found herself a much happier woman now that the sweet sunlight of childish love had penetrated and melted her former frigid reserve. Westonley had noted the change with unalloyed delight, but, like a wise man, had pretended not to notice; but one day, soon after Gerrard's letter had arrived, he could not suppress himself. He had been away on a business visit to his squatter neighbour Brooke, to whom he had sold his cattle station in Central Queensland at a very satisfactory figure, and as he rode up to the slip-rails of the home-paddock, he saw the one time “incubus” coming flying towards him, her sun-tanned face wreathed in smiles.
“Oh, Uncle Ted, Uncle Ted!” she panted, as she took down the slip-rails, and let Westonley pass through, “just fancy, Uncle Ted!”—and as she spoke, she lifted the slip-rails in place again and turned to him with a beaming face, out of breath, and so wildly excited that she could scarcely speak.
“What is the matter, young 'un?” and the big man bent down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him.