“Rather—just now,” Jim rejoined. “Some day, I suppose, I'll be glad to go back to London, and look at it all again. But just now there doesn't seem to be anything to touch a fellow's own country—and that team of old sloggers there is just a bit of it. Isn't it, old Nor?” She nodded up at him; there was no need of words.
The morning was drawing towards noon when they came in sight of their own little station: Cunjee, looking just as they had left it years ago, its corrugated iron roofs gleaming in the sunlight, its one street green with feathery pepper trees along each side. The train pulled up, and they all tumbled out hastily; presumably the express wasted no more time upon Cunjee than in days gone by, when it was necessary to hustle out of the carriage, and to race along to the van, lest the whistle should sound and your trunks be whisked away somewhere down the line.
There were many people on the platform, and, wonderful to relate, a band was playing—Home Sweet Home; a little band, some of its musicians still in the aprons in which they had rushed from their shop duties; with instruments few and poor, and with not much training, so that the cornet was apt to be half a bar ahead of the euphonium. The Lintons had heard many bands since they had been away, and some had played before the King himself; but no music had ever gripped at their heartstrings like the music of the little backblocks band that stood on the gravelled platform of Cunjee and played to welcome them home.
Suddenly, as they stood bewildered, there seemed people all round them; kindly, homely faces, gripping their hands, shouting greetings. Evans, the manager of Billabong, showed a delighted face for a moment, said, “Luggage in the van. I'll see to it; don't you bother,” and was gone. Little Dr. Anderson and his wife, friends of long years, were trying to shake hands with all four at once. They were the centre of an excited little crowd—and found it hard to believe that it was really for them. The train roared away, unnoticed, and the station-master and the porter ran up to add their voices to the chorus. Somehow they were outside the station, gently propelled; and there was a great arch of gum leaves, with a huge WELCOME in red letters, and beneath it were the shire president and his councillors, and other weighty men, all with speeches ready. But the speeches did not come to much, for the shire president had lads himself who had gone to the war, and a lump came in his throat as he looked at the tall boys from Billabong, whom he had known as little children; so that half the fine things he had prepared were never said—which did not matter, since he had it all written out and gave it to the reporter of the local paper afterwards! Something of speech-making there undoubtedly was, but no one could have told you much about it—and suddenly it ended in some one calling for “Three cheers!” which every one gave with a will, while the band played that they were Jolly Good Fellows—and some of the band cheered while they played, with very curious results. Then David Linton tried to speak, and that was a failure also, as far as eloquence went; but nobody seemed to mind. So, between hand grips and cheers, they made their way through the welcome of Cunjee to where the big double buggy of Billabong stood, with three fidgeting brown horses, each held by a volunteer. Beyond that was the carry-all of the bush; an express wagon, with a grinning black boy at the horses' heads—and Norah went to him with outstretched hands.
“Why, Billy!” she said.
Billy's grin expanded in a perfectly reckless fashion.
“Plenty glad!” he stammered—and thereby doubled his usual output of words.
Willing hands were tossing their luggage into the wagon—unfamiliar luggage to Cunjee, with its jumble of ship labels, Continental hotel brands, and the names of towns all over England, Ireland and Scotland. There were battered tin uniform cases of Jim and Wally's, bearing their rank and regiment in half effaced letters: “Major J. Linton”; “Captain W. Meadows”—it was hard to realize that they belonged to the two merry-faced boys, who did not seem much changed from the days when Cunjee had seen them arrive light-heartedly from school. Mr. Linton ran his eye over the pile, pronouncing it complete. Then Evans was at his side.
“The motor you sent is ready at the garage in the township if you want it,” he said. “But you wired that I was to bring the buggy.”
“I did,” said David Linton, with a slow smile. “I suppose for convenience sake we'll have to shake down to using the motor. But I drove the old buggy away from Billabong, and I'll drive home now. Jump in, children.”