CHAPTER IV.—A MATTER OF TWENTY POUNDS.

This is jolly!" exclaimed Missy, settling herself comfortably at the old man's side as she handed him back the reins¹. They had just jogged out of the lowest paddock, and Mr. Teesdale had been down to remove the slip-rails and to replace them after Missy had driven through.

"Very nicely done," the farmer said, in his playful, kindly² fashion. "I see you've handled the ribbons before."

"Never in my life!"

"Indeed? I should have thought that with all them horses and carriages every one of you would have learnt to ride and drive."

"Yes, you would think so," Missy said, after a pause; "but in my case you'd think wrong. I can't bear horses, so I tell you straight. One flew at me when I was a little girl, and I've never gone near 'em since."

"Flew at you!" exclaimed Mr. Teesdale. "Nay³, come!"

"Well, you know what I mean. I'd show you the bite——"

"Oh, it bit you? Now I see, now I see."

"You saw all along!"

"No, it was such a funny way of putting it."

"You knew what I meant," persisted Missy. "If you're going to make game of me, I'll get down and walk. Shall we be back in Melbourne by seven?"

Mr. Teesdale drew out his watch with a proud smile and a tender hand. He loved consulting it before anybody, but Missy's presence gave the act a special charm. He shook his head, however, in answer to her question.

"We'll not do it," said he; "it's ten past six already."

"Then how long is it going to take us?"

"Well, not much under the hour; you see——"

A groan⁴ at his side made Mr. Teesdale look quickly round; and there was trouble under the heavy fringe.

"I must be there soon after seven!" cried the girl petulantly⁵.

"Ay, but where, Missy? I'll do my best," said David, snatching up the whip, "if you'll tell me where it is you want to be."

"It's the Bijou Theatre—I'm supposed to be there by seven—to meet the people I'm staying with, you know."

David had begun to use the whip vigorously, but now he hesitated and looked pained. "I am sorry to hear it's a theatre you want to get to," said he gravely.

"Why, do you think them such sinks of iniquity—is that it?" asked the girl, laughing.

"I never was in a theatre in my life, Missy; I don't approve of them, my dear."

"No more do I—no more do I! But when you're staying with people you can't always be your own boss, now can you?"

"You could with us, Missy."

"Well, that's bully⁶; but I can't with these folks. They're regular terrors for the theatre, the folks I'm staying with now, and I don't know what they'll say if I keep 'em waiting long. Think you can do it?"

"Not by seven; but I think we might get there between five and ten minutes past."

"Thank God!"

Mr. Teesdale wrinkled his forehead, but said nothing. Evidently it was of the first importance that Missy should not keep her friends waiting. Of these people, however, she had already spoken so lightly that David was pleased to fancy her as not caring very much about them. He was pleased, not only because they took her to the theatre, but because he wanted no rival Australian friends for his old friend's child; the farm, if possible, must be her only home so long as she remained in the Colony. When, therefore, the girl herself confirmed his hopes the very next time she opened her mouth, the old man beamed with satisfaction.

"These folks I'm staying with," said Missy—"I'm not what you call dead nuts on 'em, as I said before."

"I'm glad to hear it," chuckled⁸ David, "because we want you all to ourselves, my dear."

"So you think! Some day you'll be sorry you spoke⁷."

"Nonsense, child. What makes you talk such rubbish? You've got to come and make your home with us until you're tired of us, as I've told you already. Where is it they live, these friends of yours?"

"Where do they live?" repeated Missy. "Oh, in Kew."

"Ah—Kew."

The name was spoken in a queer, noticeable tone, as of philosophic⁹ reflection. Then the farmer smiled and went on driving in silence; they were progressing at a good speed now. But Missy had looked up anxiously.

"What do you know about Kew?" said she.

"Not much," replied David, with a laugh; "only once upon a time I had a chance of buying it—and had the money too!"

"You had the money to buy Kew?"

"Yes, I had it. There was a man who took me on to a hill and showed me a hollow full of scrub and offered to get me the refusal of it for an old song. I had the money and all, as it happened, but I wasn't going to throw it away. The place looked a howling wilderness¹⁰; but it is now the suburb of Kew."

"Think of that. Aren't you sorry you didn't buy it?"

"Oh, it makes no difference."

"But you'd be so rich if you had!"

"I should be a millionaire twice over," said the farmer, complacently¹¹, as he removed his ruin of a top-hat to let in the breeze upon his venerable pate¹². Missy sat aghast at him.

"It makes me sick to think of it," she exclaimed. "I don't know what I couldn't do to you! If I'd been you I'd have cut my throat years ago. To think of the high old time you could have had!"

"I never had that much desire for a high old time," said Mr. Teesdale with gentle exaltation.

"Haven't I, then, that's all!" cried his companion in considerable excitement. "It makes a poor girl feel bad to hear you go on like that."

"But you're not a poor girl."

Missy was silenced.

"Yes, I am," she said at last, with an air of resolution. It was not, however, until they were the better part of a mile nearer Melbourne.

"You are what?"

"A poor girl."

"Nonsense, my dear. I wonder what your father would say if he heard you talk like that."

"He's got nothing to do with it."

"Not when he's worth thousands, Missy?"

"Not when he's thousands of miles away, Mr. Teesdale."

Mr. Teesdale raised his wrinkled forehead and drove on. A look of mingled¹³ anxiety and pain aged¹⁴ him years in a minute. Soon the country roads were left behind, and the houses began closing up on either side of a very long and broad high road. It was ten minutes to seven by Mr. Teesdale's watch when he looked at it again. It was time for him to say the difficult thing which had occurred to him two or three miles back, and he said it in the gentlest tones imaginable from an old man of nearly seventy.

"Missy, my dear, is it possible" (so he put it) "that you have run short of the needful?"

"It's a fact," said Missy light-heartedly.

"But how, my dear, have you managed to do that?"

"How? Let's see. I gave a lot away—to a woman in the steerage—whose husband went and died at sea. He died of dropsy. I nursed him, I did. Rather! I helped lay him out when he was dead. But don't go telling anybody—please."

Mr. Teesdale had shuddered¹⁵ uncontrollably; now, however, he shifted the reins to his right hand in order to pat Missy with his left.

"You're a noble girl. You are that! Yet it's only what I should have expected of their child. I might ha' known you'd be a noble girl."

"But you won't tell anybody?"

"Not if you'd rather I didn't. That proves your nobility! About how much would you like, my dear, to go on with?"

"Oh, twenty pounds."

Mr. Teesdale drew the breeze in through the broken ranks of his teeth.

"Wouldn't—wouldn't ten do, my dear?"

"Ten? Let's think. No, I don't think I could do with a penny less than twenty. You see, a wave came into the cabin and spoilt all my things. I want everything new."

"But I understood you had such a good voyage, Missy?"

"Not from me you didn't! Besides, it was my own fault: I gone and left the window open, and in came a sea. Didn't the captain kick up a shine! But I told him it was worse for me than for him; and look at the old duds I've got to go about in all because! Why, I look quite common—I know I do. No; I must have new before I come out to stay at the farm."

"I'm sure our Arabella dresses simple," the farmer was beginning; but Missy cut him short, and there was a spot of anger on each of her pale cheeks as she broke out:

"But this ain't simple—it's common! I had to borrow the most of it. All my things were spoilt. I can't get a new rig-out for less than twenty pounds, and without everything new——"

"Nay, come!" cried old David, in some trouble. "Of course I'll let you have anything you want—I have your father's instructions to do so. But—but there are difficulties. It's difficult at this moment. You see the banks are closed, and—and—-"

"Oh, don't you be in any hurry. Send it when you can; then I'll get the things and come out afterwards. Why, here we are at Lonsdale Street!"

"But I want you to come out soon. How long would it take you to get everything?"

"To-day's Thursday. If I had it to-morrow I could come out on Monday."

"Then you shall have it to-morrow," said David, closing his lips firmly. "Though the banks are closed, there's the man we send our milk to, and he owes me a lump more than twenty pound. I'll go to him now and get the twenty from him, or I'll know the reason why! Yes, and I'll post it to you before I go back home at all! What address must I send it to, Missy?"

"What address? Oh, to the General Post Office. I don't want the folks I am staying with to know. They offered to lend me, and I wouldn't. Will you stop, please?"

"Quite right, my dear, quite right. I was the one to come to. You'll find it at the——"

"Do you mind stopping?"

"Why, we're not there yet. We're not even in Bourke Street."

"No, but please stop here."

"Very well. Here we are, then, and it's only six past. But why not drive right on to the theatre—that's what I want to know?"

Missy hesitated, and hesitated, until she saw the old man peering into her face through the darkness that seemed to have fallen during the last five minutes. Then she dropped her eyes. They had pulled up alongside the deep-cut channel between road-metal and curb¹⁶-stone, whereby you shall remember the streets of Melbourne. Nobody appeared to be taking any notice of them.

"I see," said David very gently. "And I don't wonder at it. No, Missy, it's not at all the sort of turn-out for your friends to see you in. Jump down, my dear, and I'll just drive alongside to see that nothing happens you. But I won't seem to know you, Missy—I won't seem to know you!"

Lower and lower, as the old man spoke, the girl had been hanging her head; until now he could see nothing of her face on account of her fringe; when suddenly she raised it and kissed his cheek. She was out of the buggy next moment.

She walked at a great rate, but David kept up with her by trotting¹⁷ his horse, and they exchanged signals the whole way. Close to the theatre she beckoned¹⁸ to him to pull up again. He did so, and she came to the wheel with one of her queer, inscrutable smiles.

"How do you know," said she, "that I'm Miriam Oliver at all?"

The rays from a gas-lamp cut between their faces as she looked him full in the eyes.

"Why, of course you are!"

"But how do you know?"

"Nay, come, what a question! What makes you ask it, Missy?"

"Because I've given you no proof. I brought an introduction with me and I went and forgot to give it to you. However, here it is, so you may as well put it in your pipe and smoke it."

She took some letters out of her pocket as she spoke, and shifted the top one to the bottom until she came to an envelope that had never been through the post. This she handed up to David, who recognised his old friend's writing, which indeed had caught his eye on most of the other envelopes also. And when she had put these back in her pocket she held out her dirty-gloved hand.

"So long," she said. "You won't know me when I turn up on Monday."

"Stop!" cried David. "You must let me know when to send the buggy for you, and where to. It'll never do to have you coming out in the 'bus again."

"Right you are. I'll let you know. So long again—and see here. I think you're the sweetest and trustingest old man in the world!"

She was far ahead, this time, before the buggy was under way again.

"Naturally," chuckled David, following her hair through the crowd. "I should hope so, indeed, when it's a child of John William Oliver, and one that you can love for her own sake an' all! But what made her look so sorry when she gave me the kiss? And what's this? Nay, come, I must have made a mistake!"

He had flattered himself that his eyes never left the portals where they had lost sight of the red hair, and when he got up to it what should it be but the stage door? The words were painted over it as plain as that. The mistake might be Missy's; but a little waiting by the curb convinced Mr. Teesdale that it was his own; for Missy never came back, as he argued she must have done if she really had gone in at the stage door.

1 reins   

感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带

参考例句：

• She pulled gently on the reins. 她轻轻地拉着缰绳。
• The government has imposed strict reins on the import of luxury goods. 政府对奢侈品的进口有严格的控制手段。

2 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

3 nay   

adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者

参考例句：

• He was grateful for and proud of his son's remarkable,nay,unique performance.他为儿子出色的，不，应该是独一无二的表演心怀感激和骄傲。
• Long essays,nay,whole books have been written on this.许多长篇大论的文章，不，应该说是整部整部的书都是关于这件事的。

4 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

5 petulantly   

参考例句：

• \"No; nor will she miss now,\" cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “不会的，现在也不会错过，”复仇女神气冲冲地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

6 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

9 philosophic   

adj.哲学的，贤明的

参考例句：

• It was a most philosophic and jesuitical motorman.这是个十分善辩且狡猾的司机。
• The Irish are a philosophic as well as a practical race.爱尔兰人是既重实际又善于思想的民族。

10 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

11 complacently   

adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地

参考例句：

• He complacently lived out his life as a village school teacher. 他满足于一个乡村教师的生活。
• "That was just something for evening wear," returned his wife complacently. “那套衣服是晚装，"他妻子心安理得地说道。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

12 pate   

n.头顶；光顶

参考例句：

• The few strands of white hair at the back of his gourd-like pate also quivered.他那长在半个葫芦样的头上的白发，也随着笑声一齐抖动着。
• He removed his hat to reveal a glowing bald pate.他脱下帽子，露出了发亮的光头。

13 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

14 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

15 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

17 trotting   

小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• The riders came trotting down the lane. 这骑手骑着马在小路上慢跑。
• Alan took the reins and the small horse started trotting. 艾伦抓住缰绳，小马开始慢跑起来。

18 beckoned   

v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He beckoned to the waiter to bring the bill. 他招手示意服务生把账单送过来。
• The seated figure in the corner beckoned me over. 那个坐在角落里的人向我招手让我过去。 来自《简明英汉词典》