Norah rode beside her father, and they were silent long after they had bidden the storekeeper good-bye and left the roofs of Atholton low among the timber as they mounted into the hills. She looked up at him at last.
“Oh, Dad,” she said; “if only any one could help her!”
“Ay,” said David Linton. “But that’s beyond human power, my little girl.”
“I think she liked having us, Dad,” Norah said, half shyly. “That’s nothing, of course, unless it kept her from thinking. Can we go back there for another night on our way home?”
“If you like, dear,” he said. “But you’d rather camp, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t think so—not if she’d like us. She asked me if she could kiss me, Dad.”
“Did she?” Mr. Linton said. “Poor lonely soul! It would really be better if Archdale took her out of the district altogether—if she’d go. But that would be the difficulty, I expect. I could give him a good billet on Billabong if he’d take it. I’ll be looking for a storekeeper next month.”
“Oh, I wish he would,” Norah exclaimed. “But I don’t think Mrs. Archdale would ever leave here She feels she’s a bit nearer that poor dead baby, perhaps.”
Above them they could catch glimpses of the track as it rose spirally into the hills. Atholton nestled back into the very foot of the ranges. Scarcely half a mile from its last house the flat country ended, and the hills, tier on tier, rose ahead. Indeed, only for a little while was there any real track. A few isolated mountain farms were perched on tiny flats among the ridges, but as soon as the last of these was passed the wheel track, rough as it was, ended abruptly, and there was only a rough Bush path. Sheep had made it originally, and it had been widened by drovers bringing down stock; but at best it was narrow and uneven, and often the scrub grew so closely on either side, that it was only possible for two to ride abreast.
It was too exquisite a day to be sad. Later the sun would be hot, but now the jewels of last night’s rain still hung, trembling, on leaf and bough, and caught the sunlight in liquid flashes. As they rode brushing the dewy branches, they seemed to shake loose the hundred scents of the Bush, and the sharp fragrance was like a refreshing draught. There were not many wild flowers left, but there was no sameness in the scrub, that showed varying shades of colour—tender green of young branches; grey-green and blue-grey of the gum trees, shading to bronze in the distance; on the topmost boughs of young saplings translucent leaves that showed against the sunlight, yellow and red, and glowing crimson. Overhead a sky of perfect blue, deep and pure, wherein sailed piled masses of white cloud, flushed with pink where the rays fell. And all about them birds that sang and chirped and whistled, flitting busily in the green recesses of the scrub; such tame birds that it was evident that few humans came this way to break into the peace and safety of their hills.