"
He turned then, and they followed him. He said nothing more until after
about two miles of silent tramping they turned the corner of a high
fence threaded with wonga-vine, and saw the lights of a homestead.
Marcella felt she understood fire-and sun-worshippers. She could
cheerfully have worshipped the twinkling light.
A dog began to bark excitedly; half a dozen children, with one unsexed
garment shaped like a bathing-dress each, turned out to stare at them.
A man of fifty or thereabouts, with a thin, rather tragic face came
along the low verandah built all along the front of the Homestead, and
looked at them enquiringly.
"Were you in that storm, chum?" he asked. Louis nodded.
"Come right in! What, got a girl with you, too? Enough to finish you
off! Mother!" he added, raising his voice, "Here's a young woman come to
see us."
A little meek woman in a faded blue frock came out on to the verandah.
"Wherever have you come from?" she asked. They explained, and she seemed
to do ten things at once, while they were speaking. Louis was
irresistibly reminded of a music-hall _prestidigitateur_. She was giving
directions for more chops to be put into the frying-pan, clean water to
be fetched from the creek and put in a kerosene tin in "Jerry's room," a
cloth laid over the bare boards of the already prepared table, and a tin
of jam found from the store.
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