"An' small wonder," said Brownie, her nose uplifted. "Keepin' her out of your room, if you please—or tryin' to—till Miss Norah heard you callin' her, an' simply came in at the winder! An' callin' her 'ducksy bird.' I ask you, sir," said Brownie, indignantly, "is 'ducksy bird' the thing anybody with sense'd be likely to call Miss Norah?"
"Poor Norah!" said Mr. Linton, laughing. "She didn't tell me of that indignity."
"Many a trile Miss Norah had with that nurse as I'll dare be sworn, she'd never menshin to you, sir," Brownie answered. "She wouldn't let a breath of anything get near you that'd worry you. Why, it was three weeks and more before she'd let you be told about Bobs!"
David Linton's brow darkened.
"I couldn't have done any good, of course," he said. "But I'm sorry I couldn't have helped her at all over that bad business. Well, I hope Providence will keep that young man out of my path in future!"
"An' out of Billabong," said Brownie with fervour. "Mr. Cecil's safer away. I guess even now he'd have a rough time if the men caught him—an' serve him right!"
"He seems penitent," Mr. Linton said, "and even his mother wrote about him more in sorrow than in anger. The atmosphere of admiration in which he has always lived seems to have cooled, which should be an uncommonly good thing for Cecil. But I don't want to see him."
"Nor more don't any of us," Brownie said, wrathfully. "Billabong had enough of Mr. Cecil. Dear sakes!—when I think of him clearin' away from Miss Norah that night, an' what might have 'appened but for that blessed 'eathen, Lal Chunder, I don't feel 'ardly Christian, that I don't! Not as she ever made much of it—but—poor little lamb!"
Mr. Linton's face contracted, and Brownie left the topic hastily. It always agitated the invalid, who had indeed only been told of Norah's night adventure because of the risk of his hearing of it suddenly from outsiders or a newspaper. The district had seethed over the child's peril, and Lal Chunder had found himself in the embarrassing position of a hero—which by no means suited that usually mild-mannered Asiatic. He had developed a habit of paying Billabong frequent, if fleeting, calls; apparently for the sole purpose of looking at Norah, for he rarely spoke. There was no guest more welcome.
Presently Murty O'Toole and Dave Boone came round the corner of the verandah.