“You’re good kids,” said Mr. Weston, laughing. “I must say I’d like to have seen that muster. Billy, my son, have you any idea how dirty your face is?”
“No, really, is it?” Billy asked, greatly surprised. He caught sight of his blackened hands. “Why—look!” He held them out for his family’s benefit. The family shouted with laughter.
“Your face matches them, sonnie,” said his mother. “Go and look at yourself; and then be off to the bathroom as fast as you can. Dinner will be ready as soon as you are.”
At dinner it transpired that Mrs. Weston would like to see the scene of the fire, and that the boys were much aggrieved at the idea of not going out: so it was decided to give the ponies a rest, and Jo drove the whole party out in the big express-waggon, leaving Mr. Weston to sleep in the silent house, in charge of Sarah. They offered to take Sarah too, but the gaunt handmaiden received the invitation with a snort.
“What ’ud I do, picnickin’ on a burnt log? An’ no one to look after the master if he wanted anything. No, thanks. You’d better boil the billy out there; if there’s men workin’ they’d be glad of a drink of tea. I’ll fix it—you go on an’ get ready.” And when the iron-greys were harnessed, she came out with a huge billy and a package of food almost as huge. She held the gate open as they drove through—tall, erect, and bony, in her stiffly-starched print dress, her hair screwed back from her knobby forehead.
“Good-bye, Sarah, old girl!” sang out Billy. “Wish you were coming!”
“I know when I’m well orf!” responded Sarah, loftily. But her eyes were very tender.
There was no buggy track across the paddock: the express-waggon bumped and rattled over the bare, uneven ground, and the water splashed from under the lid of the billy with such persistence that it seemed as if there would be very little left to boil by the time they reached their journey’s end. The cattle were all back in their feeding-ground—the gate into the next paddock tied back, in case a fire should spring up. They looked sleepily at the rattling buggy, failing to recognize, in the small boys sitting in the back, with dangling legs, the two demons who, only yesterday, had chased them through the timber with horrid yells.