CHAPTER XIV
The Arrival
Never had any of the seven seen a storm to equal the one that followed.The thunder was almost incessant, while the lightning played in blueforks and flashes round a couple of stringy barks growing by the side ofthe road a little farther on, darting in and out like live things atplay, until Nealie forgot half of her fear in the fascination ofwatching them.
Ducky had crept under the roll of mattresses at the back of the wagon,and was hiding there in the dark from the terror of the storm, whileRupert and Rumple were doing valiant service, one at either end of thewagon, in holding the curtains together, as the fierce wind kept rippingthem open, letting in sheets of rain upon the group cowering within.
Rocky had been tied by his halter to the lee side of the wagon toprevent him from wandering under the trees and courting speedydestruction there. He stood with bent head and bunched hindquarters, asif in stolid resignation, although Ducky cried because he was too big tobe taken into the shelter of the tilt--to be made comfortable, as shesaid. It was quite in vain that Don and Billykins sought to console herby saying that horses rather enjoyed being out in the rain. She wasquite positive that they knew nothing about it, and told them so withbrisk decision that left them without anything more to say on thesubject. But the interest of the argument had dried her tears and takenaway so much of her fear of the storm that everyone felt it was wellworth while to have roused her to such a pitch.
It was dark before the rain ceased, and by then Rupert and Rumple werejust about wet through from their efforts at keeping the rain from theothers. There was no question of who should sleep under the wagonto-night, for by the time sundown came they were surrounded by about twofeet of water, and although this would doubtless run off before verylong, the mud which was left behind was every bit as bad as the waterwhen considered in the light of a foundation for one's mattress.
So they all sat in chilly discomfort in the wagon, making a frugalsupper from damper left over from breakfast, eked out with biscuits.Then, leaning against each other's shoulders, they tried to forget theirdiscomfort in sleep.
Nealie had insisted that Rupert and Rumple should strip off their wetjackets and wrap themselves in blankets; but the worst of it was thatRupert was wet below his jacket, which was thin, to suit the heat of theday, and so, as might be expected, he took a violent chill, and as hehad been very unwell on the day before, his condition, when morningdawned, fairly frightened Nealie. For he was blazing with fever, andtalking all sorts of nonsense about his mother and Aunt Judith.
It was his constant harping on the people who had died which so worriedher; because, of course, she very naturally thought that he was going todie too.
The driving on this day was left to Sylvia and Rumple, who putRockefeller along at his very best pace, for they were all frightened atRupert's sad plight, which was to rob their arrival of all the delightthey had pictured when they should drive up to their father's house andpersonally announce to him the arrival of his family.
Don and Billykins trotted along the road by the side of Sylvia andRumple, all four walking to ease the load, so that the wagon might getalong faster. Ducky sat on the front seat, her small face pinched to awistful anxiety, while Nealie knelt at the back end of the wagon tryingto soothe Rupert, who lay on a mattress wildly declaring that he mustget up, because his mother and Aunt Judith were in trouble and callingout to him for help.
"Will dear Father be able to cure Rupert quick?" asked the little girl,leaning forward to let her voice reach Sylvia, who walked on one side ofthe horse while Rumple walked on the other.
Sylvia held up her hand with a warning gesture. "Sit up, Ducky darling,or you will be tumbling off your perch, and we do not want any moredisasters this trip if we can help it," she said, adding: "Of courseFather will be able to make Rupert well. The poor, dear boy is onlyrunning a temperature, you know, and the shaking of the wagon aggravatesit."
"Then it will only walk when we get home?" asked Ducky wistfully, with ascared backward glance over her shoulder as Rupert burst into a wildpeal of laughter, and told Nealie that he had taken an engagement as acircus rider.
"What will only walk when we get home?" asked Rumple, who had noticedthe noise Rupert was making, and was anxious to distract the attentionof Ducky if he could.
"Why, the temperature, of course. Didn't Sylvia say that it was runningnow?" enquired Ducky innocently, and then was highly indignant withSylvia and Rumple because they burst into a peal of laughter.
"What is the joke?" demanded Don, arriving alongside in a ratherbreathless condition, for he had been investigating a cross track, andthen had to hurry to catch up the wagon.
But by this time they were grave again, and, truth to tell, a littleashamed of having laughed so much when Rupert was so ill. Then Ducky hadto be pacified, for, frightened by the nonsense her eldest brother wastalking, she had begun to cry, until Sylvia hit on the grand idea ofmaking her the postilion, and, helping her to scramble on to the back ofRockefeller, let her sit there in state, pretending to drive, while thelast weary miles of the long journey slid by.
They reached the outskirts of Hammerville in the late afternoon, andstopped at the very first house to enquire where Dr. Plumstead lived.
The woman who opened the door to them declared that she did not know.
"I don't hold with doctors, and physic, and that sort of stuff, so Idon't know nothing about them," she said ungraciously, and then shut thedoor in their faces.
"Disagreeable old thing; I hope that she will be ill and want the doctorvery soon," said Billykins, shaking an indignant fist in the directionof the closed door.
"That is very uncharitable of you," said Sylvia, "and besides, she doesnot look as if she would be at all a good paying patient, and so itwould only be a bit more drudgery for dear Father, for, of course, adoctor must go to everyone who has need of him, whether the patient canpay or not."
"Then I shall not be a doctor, for I don't want to do things for peoplewho can't pay me," said Don; and then he ran up to a pleasant-facedgirl, who was weeding the garden of the next house, and asked her if shecould tell him where Dr. Plumstead lived.
"Why, yes, he has got a house on the Icksted Road, that is on the PigHill side of the town," she said, standing up to survey the wagon and asmany of its occupants as chanced to be visible.
"Is it far?" demanded Don anxiously.
"Oh, somewhere about a mile! You must turn to the left when you havepassed Dan Potter's saloon; that is right in the middle of the town, soyou can't miss it. What do you want the doctor for? Is anyone bad?"
"We have come to live with him; we are his children, you know,"explained Don, with the engaging frankness which he could displaysometimes, although as a rule he was more reserved with strangers thanRumple or Billykins.
"His children? I didn't know that he had got any!" exclaimed the girl,staring harder than ever at the wagon, although at present there was notmuch to see, except Ducky perched astride on the big horse that Rumplewas leading, for Sylvia had retired under shelter of the tilt to makesome sort of a toilet in honour of reaching the end of the journey, andNealie was still ministering to the wants of Rupert to the best of herability.
"That is not wonderful, because, you see, we have been living inEngland. But I must hurry on, and I will come to see you another day.There are seven of us, and we are just on the tiptoe of expectationabout what Father will say when he sees the lot of us," said Don, with afriendly nod, and then trotted away in pursuit of the wagon, which hadpassed on while the girl leaned against the fence and feebly gasped, asif her astonishment were too much for her.
Dan Potter's saloon was quite an imposing place, and very tawdry withgilt adornments and coloured glass. They turned into a road at the left,according to the direction given by the girl, and then followed a roadwhich was scarcely more than a track, and that abounded in mud puddlesof a deep and dangerous sort, where the going was so bad that Nealie wasforced to leave Rupert in the care of Sylvia, and
come herself to guideRocky from the pitfalls of that evil place.
There were newly finished buildings that looked as if they had been runup in the night; there were buildings in course of erection that lookedas if they would tumble down before they were finished; and there wereother buildings in process of being planned, but of which not much wasto be seen saving a forest of scaffold poles.
"What a big place it looks," said Nealie, as with an abrupt jerk shepulled Rocky's head round in time to save him from pitching into anunexpected hole that yawned in the path. "I had somehow got the ideathat it was only a little town, not much bigger than a village."
"It is awfully ugly though," replied Rumple, wrinkling his nose with anair of extreme dissatisfaction. "The man that built those houses at theend of the street ought to be condemned to live opposite to them."
"That might not be a hard sort of punishment at all," laughed Nealie;"because, you see, if he had no eye for beauty or artistic fitness theugliness would not trouble him, he might even take a great deal ofsatisfaction in thinking how nicely he had done them."
"There is no accounting for tastes," grumbled Rumple, who was reallymore an admirer of what was beautiful than even Sylvia, who had thereputation of being artistic.
Then he dashed off to ask a man if they were going right for Dr.Plumstead's house, and, being told that it was the next small house thatstood alone, he rushed back to the wagon with his information.
"I wonder if Father will be at home," cried Billykins, with an eagerlook on his face. "May we run forward and knock at the door, Nealie?"
"No, no; we will all go together," answered Nealie hurriedly, while aflush rose in her cheeks, and there was a nervous look in her eyes, forsuddenly she was dreading the reception they might receive.
How forlorn they really were, those seven whom no one seemed to reallywant! And yet how kind people had been to them in all that long, longjourney from Beechleigh in England. Of course, but for that bit ofabsent-mindedness on the part of Rumple, Dr. Plumstead would have knownthat his children were coming, and then he could have had a welcome of asort ready for them. As it was, it would be the naked truth which theywould have to face, and it was the fear that perhaps he would wish theyhad not come that made Nealie feel so nervous, as she led Rocky alongthe few remaining yards of that very bad stretch of road leading to thedoctor's house.
Sylvia had left Rupert for a few minutes and was hanging out of thefront of the wagon. Ducky still perched astride Rockefeller's broadback, while the three younger boys were grouped close to Nealie, wholed the horse.
There was a bit of rising ground before the house, and so of necessitythe pace was slow; but at last they halted, and then stood for a momentas if uncertain what to do next.
"Rumple, you had better knock," said Nealie in a choked tone, and thenwas instantly sorry for what she had said, remembering that but forRumple's forgetfulness there might have been no need to knock at all.
"Let me knock," pleaded Don, wondering why Nealie looked so pale, andRumple seemed so scared.
"Yes, dear, you can knock, and Billykins will go with you," she said,with a little gasp of relief.
The two small boys dashed through the gate and up the path to the door.There had once been a garden in front of the house, but it waswilderness pure and simple now, a choked jumble of weeds, and flowersstruggling for existence in the garden beds, and a wattle bush filledthe air with a sweet perfume which always afterwards reminded Nealie ofthat moment of waiting before the house.
"There is no one at home, and the door is locked," cried Don, and thenhe tried to peep in the window, but was not high enough to reach thelowest pane.
"I expect he has been called out to a case," said Sylvia from her perchin front of the wagon. "Nealie, can't you send the boys to find outwhere Father keeps the key? I am sure that we ought to get Rupert out ofthe wagon as soon as possible, for he seems to get more ill everyminute, poor dear!"
Ah, there was Rupert to be considered! Of choice Nealie would haveremained standing out in front of the house until her father's return,however long she might have to wait, but Rupert must be cared for, andbecause she feared that his life might hang on his having promptattention just now, she gave way to Sylvia's suggestion, and told Don torun to the next house to ask where Dr. Plumstead kept his key when hehad to go away.
Away sped Don, nothing loath, and, entering the gate of the next garden,rushed up to the house door and knocked loudly.
The houses in this part of Hammerville were older than those of the morecrowded streets, indeed it looked as if the place had started as avillage at the first and then on second thoughts had grown out at oneside into a busy town, while the other side remained sleepy andvillage-like, each abode having its own garden and orchard in the rear.
There was a minute of waiting, and then the door was opened to Don by asleepy-looking Irishwoman, garbed in a very dirty pinafore.
"I don't want any firewood to-day at all, at all, thank you," she saidpleasantly, her kindly face expanding into a genial smile.
"I have not brought you firewood, but I want to know where Dr. Plumsteadkeeps his key when he is called away to a patient?" asked Don, liftinghis hat with so much courtesy that the good woman was tremendouslyimpressed.
"He has only got one key, sir, and he always takes that with him, exceptwhen he leaves it at home," she said, with a sudden change of manner,because she decided that this was one of the quality, and no errand boy,as she at first imagined.
"Can you tell us how to get in?" asked Don rather desperately. "We areDr. Plumstead's children, all seven of us, and I am afraid that he wasnot expecting us at this minute, so he is not at home, you see."
"Dr. Plumstead with sivin children! The saints preserve us! What next!"cried the woman, flinging up her hands in such profound amazement thatDon could not help laughing, she looked so funny.
"The what next is that we want to get into the house as quickly aspossible, because Rupert, that is my eldest brother, is not well," heexplained, wondering why everyone should be so amazed because Dr.Plumstead had children.
"I will let you in with my key. It fits the doctor's door, which isvery convenient, because you see I do for him, and real hard work it is,for he is a dreadful particular gentleman. But sivin children, and younot the eldest! My word, what is the world coming to?"
As Don could not answer this question it had to go unanswered, andinstead he waited in silence while the Irishwoman took her key from anail in the wall, and set off across her garden, which was only onedegree less untidy than the doctor's, to open the door for the children.
"Why, the others are bigger than you, most of them!" she exclaimed instill growing amazement, as she surveyed the group standing by the headof the horse. "The saints preserve us! What is the world coming to?"
Again Don had to let the question go unanswered, although it seemed tohim rather rude. The woman unlocked the door of the little wooden house,which was plain and ugly, and did not even boast a veranda, then,dropping a curtsy to Nealie, she stood back for them to enter.