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Plumstead, "Hammerville, "Clayton, "New South Wales, "Australia." "What letter is it?" asked Rupert in a shocked voice. He was standing close to Nealie now, and looking to the full as amazed as she did herself. "It is the letter that Mr. Runciman wrote to tell Father that we were to be sent out to him," replied Rumple in a hollow tone.
"How shall we get the horse and wagon back from Hammerville to Sydney? Will it have to be put on the rail?" asked Rumple, who had not heard, or else had forgotten, the final instructions which had been given to his sister. "We have to hand it over to the nearest agent of the company, and he lives about twenty miles from Hammerville on the nearest point of the railway," replied Nealie.
But Fletcher told me that the Hammerville to which he went was nearly three hundred miles from Sydney." "I suppose there is a railway?" queried Nealie, knitting her brows, and wondering how they were all to be transported for three hundred miles across an unknown country, in the event of there being no railway by which they could travel.
"I know a man in Sydney who lets horses and wagons on hire, and I have ventured to give you a letter to him from myself, so that you may have no difficulty in hiring a conveyance for the journey to Hammerville if your father does not meet you." "How very kind you are!" exclaimed Nealie. He waved an impatient hand. "It is nothing, nothing.
"You might tell us which is the best place in Pomeroy to buy food, for our provision box is nearly empty, and things are so dear in these country places," said Nealie rather wistfully, for her money was running very low, and there was always present with her the dread that she would not have enough to keep them going until they reached Hammerville.
"Why, of course we shall just do as we are doing, and go straight forward, until we reach Hammerville, when we will walk in upon dear Father some fine evening, and announce our own arrival. Nothing could be simpler, and we shall give him the surprise of his life, bless his heart! There is no need to look so tragic that I can see." "But we must tell the captain, and there will be a great fuss.
It was sundown before they reached Mostyn, and then it was only to be met with disappointment, for the doctor had been sent for to cope with an outbreak of smallpox at Latimer. "That settles it!" exclaimed the doctor. "I shall drive you back to Hammerville to-morrow morning, for certainly I cannot take you to a disease-stricken town, and equally I cannot leave you here."
"I must go until I find my father, and if you will not take me I must go alone," she said, when he left off arguing because he had no more to say; but her gaze was very wistful, for Mostyn was so much rougher than Hammerville that her heart sank very low as she thought of how rough Latimer might be.
"I wonder if Father will have a garden like this at Hammerville?" he muttered to himself, with a keen pleasure in all the riot of blossom that was to be seen from his sofa, and then he lay quite still trying to make some verses about the garden, and at the same time wondering lazily what the others were doing, until he fell asleep and did not wake until milking time.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice so faint that it was hardly more than a whisper. "I am your child, dear Father; I am Nealie! We have come to Hammerville to live with you.
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