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No answer came. Again he shouted, "This is Her Majesty's ship `Ranger." All was silent. "Surely I cannot have been deceived," he remarked; "my hail would have been answered if it had been heard." Willy declared that he heard shouts and laughter, but Harry told him that was nonsense, and that undoubtedly the stranger was much further off than he had supposed her to be.
"What I told you was but too true. Look! There she is now." The young man sprung around, and stood before the woman, a few paces distant. "Mother! oh, mother! what HAS brought you here?" he exclaimed, in an under tone, as he caught her arm, and moved away. He spoke not roughly, nor angrily but with respect half reproachfulness and an unmistakable tenderness. "Oh, Willy! Willy!" I heard her answer.
Then she really sank into a chair and began to cry. There were exclamations and questions and finally they arrived at the solution of the mystery. Poor little Willy had not done anything with Grandpa's coat. Mrs. Perry had not given it to him. She had given it to another boy. "Last night about seven o'clock," said uncle Frank. "Mr. Gilbert Hammond brought it into the store.
She went wherever she could and saw all that it was possible for her to see; but in the midst of the sights and attractions of the metropolis she was still Willy Croup. One afternoon as she and Miss Barbara were passing along one of the side streets on their return from an attempt to see how the poorer people lived, Willy stopped in front of a blacksmith's shop where a man was shoeing a horse.
Cliff's bedroom, where that lady had been taking a surreptitious glance at her Californian blankets, to tell her that there were three ladies down in the parlor who wished to see her. "It's the minister's wife, and Mrs. Hembold, and old Miss Shott," said Willy. "They are all dressed up, and I suppose they have come for something particular, so you'd better fix up a little afore you go down."
"Ho, ho, ho!" exclaimed Hippy Wingate. "That's a horse of another color. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you Chief Willy Horse, and believe me he is some horse to stand the punishment those lumberjacks gave him and still be able to talk horse sense." The Overlanders acknowledged the introduction laughingly, and shook hands with the Indian, at the same time giving him their names.
"I am afraid, however, that we shall have to be put on short allowance unless we get along faster than we have lately been doing." The last remark was made in a whisper to Willy. As most of the soldiers could row, the men on board were divided into watches, so that they might relieve each other at the oars, and thus the two boats continued their course during the night. Two days had passed away.
It was on the interest of this L1,500 that Willy lived, having spent the rest of his little capital in settling his son as a clerk in a first-rate commercial house.
All this talk about the nation, now " He settled himself on the edge of the pine table where old Anthony Cardew's granddaughter had been figuring up her week's accounts, and lighted his pipe, "the nation's too big for us to understand. But what is the nation, but a bunch of homes?" "Willy dear," said Lily Cardew, "did you take any money out of the cigar box for anything this week?"
But she did not say anything, for it was quite clear in her little mind that Blackfellows, kangaroos, and willy wagtails had a very poor opinion of white people. She felt that they must all be wrong; but, all the same, she sometimes wished she could be a noble kangaroo, and not a despised human being. "I wish I were not a little white girl," she whispered to the Kangaroo.
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