“Not a kinder woman in the districk,” said the storekeeper, producing a fragment of black and ancient tobacco, and proceeding to cut up some. “Pity she’s gone a bit queer. I was tellin’ your Pa last night how rummy she’s got since their youngster died, an’ I believe I fair worried him about you. But, of course, Mrs. Archdale’s all right—she’s only a bit queer on that point.”
“I don’t call her queer,” Jean burst out, indignantly. “She can’t help thinking about her little girl, of course.”
“But she’s just awfully nice!” Norah seconded. “And she was as good to us as ever she could be.”
“There, now, I told your Pa she would be,” said the storekeeper, quite unmoved. “Keeps that little home of hers like a new pin, too, don’t she? Of course, Mrs. Archdale’s a cut above the ordinary—had a bit of education, and all that. And, as you say, no one could blame her for frettin’ about that poor little kid. Such a jolly little youngster she was—always had a laugh for you. I can tell you the whole districk was cut up over that youngster’s loss—an’ it wasn’t for want of huntin’ that the poor little body was never found. Of course, that’s what’s on her mother’s nerves.”
“One can’t wonder at that,” said Mr. Linton.
“No, of course you can’t. Bad enough for a child to die; but not to be able to give it decent burial makes it mighty rough—especially on a woman. Not the first, by a long way, that has never been found in these ranges, they’re that thick an’ full of gullies; but the wonder was we didn’t get little Babs Archdale. All the districk was out. There wasn’t a yard of scrub unbeaten for ten mile, I don’t think.”
“Poor little baby!” said Norah, very low.
“Ay. An’ the mother—my word, I don’t reckon any of us as were huntin’ ’ll ever forget Mrs. Archdale’s face. She’s not the kind as shows her feelin’s very ready; an’ that made it all the worse. Poor soul! Poor soul! An’ after we’d had to give up, and the black trackers had gone back, an’ every one knew it was hopeless, she an’ Jack kept on looking, night an’ day I dunno at last what old Jack was most afraid of—not findin’ her or findin’ her. Twas a relief to every one when we heard the mother had gone down with fever. She was ravin’ for weeks.”
The storekeeper dropped his voice, looking round.
“An’ there’s a yarn,” he said. “I dunno if it’s true. Some people say it is. Half her time Mrs. Archdale’s off in the scrub alone; an’ the yarn is that she’s got a little cross stuck up in the ground in some gully, an’ ‘Babs’ carved on it; an’ she keeps flowers there, like as if it was really her little kiddie’s grave. An’ they say she goes down there an’ just sits still an’ looks at it. I dunno. Old Jack can’t know anything about it, or he’d never leave her; but it ain’t the kind of thing you like to think of a woman doin’—not a woman you like. An’ all this districk thinks the world of Mrs. Archdale.”