章节正文
his address. It was a beautiful morning, though rather warm,
and just after the break-up of the drought. The grass was knee-high
all over the run. It was a lonely place; there wasn't much bush cleared
round the homestead, just a hundred yards or so, and the great awful scrubs
ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles --
fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break;
didn't they, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie.'
`I was alone at the house except for Mary, a half-caste girl we had,
who used to help me with the housework and the children.
Andy was out on the run with the men, mustering sheep; weren't you, Andy?'
`Yes, Mrs Head.'
`I used to watch the children close as they got to run about,
because if they once got into the edge of the scrub they'd be lost;
but this morning little Wally begged hard to be let take his little sister
down under a clump of blue-gums in a corner of the home paddock
to gather buttercups. You remember that clump of gums, Walter?'
`I remember, Maggie.'
`"I won't go through the fence a step, mumma," little Wally said.
I could see Old Peter -- an old shepherd and station-hand we had --
I could see him working on a dam we were making across a creek
that ran down there. You remember Old Peter, Walter?'
`Of course I do, Maggie.'
`I knew that Old Peter would keep an eye to the children;
so I told little Wally to keep tight hold of his sister's hand
and go straight down to Old Peter and tell him I sent them.'
She was leaning forward with her hands clasping her knee,
and telling me all this with a strange sort of eagerness.
`The little ones toddled off hand in hand, with their other hands holding fast
their straw hats. "In case a bad wind blowed," as little Maggie said.
I saw them stoop under the first fence, and that was the last
that any one saw of them.'
`Except the fairies, Maggie,' said the Boss quickly.
`Of course, Walter, except the fairies.'
She pressed her fingers to her temples again for a minute.
`It seems that Old Peter was going to ride out to the musterers' camp
that morning with bread for the men, and he left his work at the dam
and started into the Bush after his horse just as I turned back
into the house, and before the children got near him. They either
followed him for some distance or wandered into the Bush
after flowers or butterflies ----' She broke off, and then suddenly asked me,
`Do you think the Bush Fairies would entice children away, Mr Ellis?'
The Boss caught my eye, and frowned and shook his head slightly.
`No. I'm sure they wouldn't, Mrs Head,' I said -- `at least
not from what I know of them.'
She thought, or tried to think, again for a while, in her helpless
puzzled way. Then she went on, speaking rapidly, and rather mechanically,
it seemed to me --
`The first I knew of it was when Peter came to the house
about an hour afterwards, leading his horse, and without the children.
I said -- I said, "O my God! where's the children?"' Her fingers
fluttered up to her temples.
`Don't mind about that, Maggie,' said the Boss, hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly, stroking her head.
`Tell Jack about the fairies.'
`You were away at the time, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie.'
`And we couldn't find you, Walter?'
`No, Maggie,' very gently. He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin
on his hand, and looked into the fire.
`It wasn't your fault, Walter; but if you had been at home
do you think the fairies would have taken the children?'
`Of course they would, Maggie. They had to: the children were lost.'
`And they're bringing the children home next year?'
`Yes, Maggie -- next year.'
She lifted her hands to her head in a startled way, and it was some time
before she went on again. There was no need to tell me
about the lost children. I could see it all. She and the half-caste
rushing towards where the children were seen last, with Old Peter after them.
The hurried search in the nearer scrub. The mother calling all the time
for Maggie and Wally, and growing wilder as the minutes flew past.
Old Peter's ride to the musterers' camp. Horsemen seeming to turn up
in no time and from nowhere, as they do in a case like this,
and no matter how lonely the district. Bushmen galloping through the scrub
in all directions. The hurried search the first day, and the mother
mad with anxiety as night came on. Her long, hopeless, wild-eyed watch
through the night; starting up at every sound of a horse's hoof,
and reading the worst in one glance at the rider's face.
The systematic work of the search-parties next day and the days following.
How those days do fly past. The women from the next run or selection,
and some from the town, driving from ten or twenty miles, perhaps,
to stay with and try to comfort the mother. (`Put the horse to the cart, Jim:
I must go to that poor woman!') Comforting her with improbable stories
of children who had been lost for days, and were none the worse for it
when they were found. The mounted policemen out with the black trackers.
Search-parties cooeeing to each other about the Bush,
and lighting signal-fires. The reckless break-neck rides
for news or more help. And the Boss himself, wild-eyed and haggard,
riding about the Bush with Andy and one or two others perhaps,
and searching hopelessly, days after the rest had given up
all hope of finding the children alive. All this passed before me
as Mrs Head talked, her voice sounding the while as if she were
in another room; and when I roused myself to listen,
she was on to the fairies again.
`It was very foolish of me, Mr Ellis. Weeks after -- months after, I think --
I'd insist on going out on the verandah at dusk and calling for the children.
I'd stand there and call "Maggie!" and "Wally!" until Walter took me inside;
sometimes he had to force me inside. Poor Walter! But of course
I didn't know about the fairies then, Mr Ellis. I was really out of my mind
for a time.'
`No wonder you were, Mrs Head,' I said. `It was terrible trouble.'
`Yes, and I made it worse. I was so selfish in my trouble.
But it's all right now, Walter,' she said, rumpling the Boss's hair.
`I'll never be so foolish again.'
`Of course you won't, Maggie.'
`We're very happy now, aren't we, Walter?'
`Of course we are, Maggie.'
`And the children are coming back next year.'
`Next year, Maggie.'
He leaned over the fire and stirred it up.
`You mustn't take any notice of us, Mr Ellis,' she went on.
`Poor Walter is away so much that I'm afraid I make a little too much of him
when he does come home.'
She paused and pressed her fingers to her temples again.
Then she said quickly --
`They used to tell me that it was all nonsense about the fairies,
but they were no friends of mine. I shouldn't have listened to them, Walter.
You told me not to. But then I was really not in my right mind.'
`Who used to tell you that, Mrs Head?' I asked.
`The Voices,' she said; `you know about the Voices, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie. But you don't hear the Voices now, Maggie?' he asked anxiously.
`You haven't heard them since I've been away this time, have you, Maggie?'
`No, Walter. They've gone away a long time. I hear voices now sometimes,
but they're the Bush Fairies' voices. I hear them calling Maggie and Wally
to come with them.' She paused again. `And sometimes I think
I hear them call me. But of course I couldn't go away without you, Walter.
But I'm foolish again. I was going to ask you about the other voices,
Mr Ellis. They used to say that it was madness about the fairies;
but then, if the fairies hadn't taken the children, Black Jimmy,
or the black trackers with the police, could have tracked and found them
at once.'
`Of course they could, Mrs Head,' I said.
`They said that the trackers couldn't track them because there was rain
a few hours after the children were lost. But that was ridiculous.
It was only a thunderstorm.'
`Why!' I said, `I've known the blacks to track a man
after a week's heavy rain.'
She had her head between her fingers again, and when she looked up
it was in a scared way.
`Oh, Walter!' she said, clutching the Boss's arm; `whatever have I been
talking about? What must Mr Ellis think of me? Oh! why did you let me
talk like that?'
He put his arm round her. Andy nudged me and got up.
`Where are you going, Mr Ellis?' she asked hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly.
`You're not going to-night. Auntie's made a bed for you in Andy's room.
You mustn't mind me.'
`Jack and Andy are going out for a little while,' said the Boss.
`They'll be in to supper. We'll have a yarn, Maggie.'
`Be sure you come back to supper, Mr Ellis,' she said. `I really don't know
what you must think of me, -- I've been talking all the time.'
`Oh, I've enjoyed myself, Mrs Head,' I said; and Andy hooked me out.
`She'll have a good cry and be better now,' said Andy when we got away
from the house. `She might be better for months. She has been
fairly reasonable for over a year, but the Boss found her pretty bad
when he came back this time. It upset him a lot, I can tell you.
She has turns now and again, and always ends up like she did just now.
She gets a longing to talk about it to a Bushman and a stranger;
it seems to do her good. The doctor's against it, but doctors
don't know everything.'
`It's all true about the children, then?' I asked.
`It's cruel true,' said Andy.
`And were the bodies never found?'
`Yes;' then, after a long pause, `I found them.'
`You did!'
`Yes; in the scrub, and not so very far from home either --
and in a fairly clear space. It's a wonder the search-parties missed it;
but it often happens that way. Perhaps the little ones
wandered a long way and came round in a circle. I found them
about two months after they were lost. They had to be found,
if only for the Boss's sake. You see, in a case like this,
and when the bodies aren't found, the parents never quite lose the idea
that the little ones are wandering about the Bush to-night
(it might be years after) and perishing from hunger, thirst, or cold.
That mad idea haunts 'em all their lives. It's the same, I believe,
with friends drowned at sea. Friends ashore are haunted for a long while
with the idea of the white sodden corpse tossing about and drifting round
in the water.'
`And you never told Mrs Head about the children being found?'
`Not for a long time. It wouldn't have done any good.
She was raving mad for months. He took her to Sydney and then to Melbourne --
to the best doctors he could find in Australia. They could do no good,
so he sold the station -- sacrificed everything, and took her to England.'
`To England?'
`Yes; and then to Germany to a big German doctor there.
He'd offer a thousand pounds where they only wanted fifty. It was no good.
She got worse in England, and raved to go back to Australia
and find the children. The doctors advised him to take her back, and he did.
He spent all his money, travelling saloon, and with reserved cabins,
and a nurse, and trying to get her cured; that's why he's droving now.
She was restless in Sydney. She wanted to go back to the station
and wait there till the fairies brought the children home.
She'd been getting the fairy idea into her head slowly all the time.
The Boss encouraged it. But the station was sold, and he couldn't
have lived there anyway without going mad himself. He'd married her
from Bathurst. Both of them have got friends and relations here,
so he thought best to bring her here. He persuaded her that the fairies
were going to bring the children here. Everybody's very kind to them.
I think it's a mistake to run away from a town where you're known,
in a case like this, though most people do it. It was years before
he gave up hope. I think he has hopes yet -- after she's been fairly well
for a longish time.'
`And you never tried telling her that the children were found?'
and just after the break-up of the drought. The grass was knee-high
all over the run. It was a lonely place; there wasn't much bush cleared
round the homestead, just a hundred yards or so, and the great awful scrubs
ran back from the edges of the clearing all round for miles and miles --
fifty or a hundred miles in some directions without a break;
didn't they, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie.'
`I was alone at the house except for Mary, a half-caste girl we had,
who used to help me with the housework and the children.
Andy was out on the run with the men, mustering sheep; weren't you, Andy?'
`Yes, Mrs Head.'
`I used to watch the children close as they got to run about,
because if they once got into the edge of the scrub they'd be lost;
but this morning little Wally begged hard to be let take his little sister
down under a clump of blue-gums in a corner of the home paddock
to gather buttercups. You remember that clump of gums, Walter?'
`I remember, Maggie.'
`"I won't go through the fence a step, mumma," little Wally said.
I could see Old Peter -- an old shepherd and station-hand we had --
I could see him working on a dam we were making across a creek
that ran down there. You remember Old Peter, Walter?'
`Of course I do, Maggie.'
`I knew that Old Peter would keep an eye to the children;
so I told little Wally to keep tight hold of his sister's hand
and go straight down to Old Peter and tell him I sent them.'
She was leaning forward with her hands clasping her knee,
and telling me all this with a strange sort of eagerness.
`The little ones toddled off hand in hand, with their other hands holding fast
their straw hats. "In case a bad wind blowed," as little Maggie said.
I saw them stoop under the first fence, and that was the last
that any one saw of them.'
`Except the fairies, Maggie,' said the Boss quickly.
`Of course, Walter, except the fairies.'
She pressed her fingers to her temples again for a minute.
`It seems that Old Peter was going to ride out to the musterers' camp
that morning with bread for the men, and he left his work at the dam
and started into the Bush after his horse just as I turned back
into the house, and before the children got near him. They either
followed him for some distance or wandered into the Bush
after flowers or butterflies ----' She broke off, and then suddenly asked me,
`Do you think the Bush Fairies would entice children away, Mr Ellis?'
The Boss caught my eye, and frowned and shook his head slightly.
`No. I'm sure they wouldn't, Mrs Head,' I said -- `at least
not from what I know of them.'
She thought, or tried to think, again for a while, in her helpless
puzzled way. Then she went on, speaking rapidly, and rather mechanically,
it seemed to me --
`The first I knew of it was when Peter came to the house
about an hour afterwards, leading his horse, and without the children.
I said -- I said, "O my God! where's the children?"' Her fingers
fluttered up to her temples.
`Don't mind about that, Maggie,' said the Boss, hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly, stroking her head.
`Tell Jack about the fairies.'
`You were away at the time, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie.'
`And we couldn't find you, Walter?'
`No, Maggie,' very gently. He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin
on his hand, and looked into the fire.
`It wasn't your fault, Walter; but if you had been at home
do you think the fairies would have taken the children?'
`Of course they would, Maggie. They had to: the children were lost.'
`And they're bringing the children home next year?'
`Yes, Maggie -- next year.'
She lifted her hands to her head in a startled way, and it was some time
before she went on again. There was no need to tell me
about the lost children. I could see it all. She and the half-caste
rushing towards where the children were seen last, with Old Peter after them.
The hurried search in the nearer scrub. The mother calling all the time
for Maggie and Wally, and growing wilder as the minutes flew past.
Old Peter's ride to the musterers' camp. Horsemen seeming to turn up
in no time and from nowhere, as they do in a case like this,
and no matter how lonely the district. Bushmen galloping through the scrub
in all directions. The hurried search the first day, and the mother
mad with anxiety as night came on. Her long, hopeless, wild-eyed watch
through the night; starting up at every sound of a horse's hoof,
and reading the worst in one glance at the rider's face.
The systematic work of the search-parties next day and the days following.
How those days do fly past. The women from the next run or selection,
and some from the town, driving from ten or twenty miles, perhaps,
to stay with and try to comfort the mother. (`Put the horse to the cart, Jim:
I must go to that poor woman!') Comforting her with improbable stories
of children who had been lost for days, and were none the worse for it
when they were found. The mounted policemen out with the black trackers.
Search-parties cooeeing to each other about the Bush,
and lighting signal-fires. The reckless break-neck rides
for news or more help. And the Boss himself, wild-eyed and haggard,
riding about the Bush with Andy and one or two others perhaps,
and searching hopelessly, days after the rest had given up
all hope of finding the children alive. All this passed before me
as Mrs Head talked, her voice sounding the while as if she were
in another room; and when I roused myself to listen,
she was on to the fairies again.
`It was very foolish of me, Mr Ellis. Weeks after -- months after, I think --
I'd insist on going out on the verandah at dusk and calling for the children.
I'd stand there and call "Maggie!" and "Wally!" until Walter took me inside;
sometimes he had to force me inside. Poor Walter! But of course
I didn't know about the fairies then, Mr Ellis. I was really out of my mind
for a time.'
`No wonder you were, Mrs Head,' I said. `It was terrible trouble.'
`Yes, and I made it worse. I was so selfish in my trouble.
But it's all right now, Walter,' she said, rumpling the Boss's hair.
`I'll never be so foolish again.'
`Of course you won't, Maggie.'
`We're very happy now, aren't we, Walter?'
`Of course we are, Maggie.'
`And the children are coming back next year.'
`Next year, Maggie.'
He leaned over the fire and stirred it up.
`You mustn't take any notice of us, Mr Ellis,' she went on.
`Poor Walter is away so much that I'm afraid I make a little too much of him
when he does come home.'
She paused and pressed her fingers to her temples again.
Then she said quickly --
`They used to tell me that it was all nonsense about the fairies,
but they were no friends of mine. I shouldn't have listened to them, Walter.
You told me not to. But then I was really not in my right mind.'
`Who used to tell you that, Mrs Head?' I asked.
`The Voices,' she said; `you know about the Voices, Walter?'
`Yes, Maggie. But you don't hear the Voices now, Maggie?' he asked anxiously.
`You haven't heard them since I've been away this time, have you, Maggie?'
`No, Walter. They've gone away a long time. I hear voices now sometimes,
but they're the Bush Fairies' voices. I hear them calling Maggie and Wally
to come with them.' She paused again. `And sometimes I think
I hear them call me. But of course I couldn't go away without you, Walter.
But I'm foolish again. I was going to ask you about the other voices,
Mr Ellis. They used to say that it was madness about the fairies;
but then, if the fairies hadn't taken the children, Black Jimmy,
or the black trackers with the police, could have tracked and found them
at once.'
`Of course they could, Mrs Head,' I said.
`They said that the trackers couldn't track them because there was rain
a few hours after the children were lost. But that was ridiculous.
It was only a thunderstorm.'
`Why!' I said, `I've known the blacks to track a man
after a week's heavy rain.'
She had her head between her fingers again, and when she looked up
it was in a scared way.
`Oh, Walter!' she said, clutching the Boss's arm; `whatever have I been
talking about? What must Mr Ellis think of me? Oh! why did you let me
talk like that?'
He put his arm round her. Andy nudged me and got up.
`Where are you going, Mr Ellis?' she asked hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地，忙乱地">hurriedly.
`You're not going to-night. Auntie's made a bed for you in Andy's room.
You mustn't mind me.'
`Jack and Andy are going out for a little while,' said the Boss.
`They'll be in to supper. We'll have a yarn, Maggie.'
`Be sure you come back to supper, Mr Ellis,' she said. `I really don't know
what you must think of me, -- I've been talking all the time.'
`Oh, I've enjoyed myself, Mrs Head,' I said; and Andy hooked me out.
`She'll have a good cry and be better now,' said Andy when we got away
from the house. `She might be better for months. She has been
fairly reasonable for over a year, but the Boss found her pretty bad
when he came back this time. It upset him a lot, I can tell you.
She has turns now and again, and always ends up like she did just now.
She gets a longing to talk about it to a Bushman and a stranger;
it seems to do her good. The doctor's against it, but doctors
don't know everything.'
`It's all true about the children, then?' I asked.
`It's cruel true,' said Andy.
`And were the bodies never found?'
`Yes;' then, after a long pause, `I found them.'
`You did!'
`Yes; in the scrub, and not so very far from home either --
and in a fairly clear space. It's a wonder the search-parties missed it;
but it often happens that way. Perhaps the little ones
wandered a long way and came round in a circle. I found them
about two months after they were lost. They had to be found,
if only for the Boss's sake. You see, in a case like this,
and when the bodies aren't found, the parents never quite lose the idea
that the little ones are wandering about the Bush to-night
(it might be years after) and perishing from hunger, thirst, or cold.
That mad idea haunts 'em all their lives. It's the same, I believe,
with friends drowned at sea. Friends ashore are haunted for a long while
with the idea of the white sodden corpse tossing about and drifting round
in the water.'
`And you never told Mrs Head about the children being found?'
`Not for a long time. It wouldn't have done any good.
She was raving mad for months. He took her to Sydney and then to Melbourne --
to the best doctors he could find in Australia. They could do no good,
so he sold the station -- sacrificed everything, and took her to England.'
`To England?'
`Yes; and then to Germany to a big German doctor there.
He'd offer a thousand pounds where they only wanted fifty. It was no good.
She got worse in England, and raved to go back to Australia
and find the children. The doctors advised him to take her back, and he did.
He spent all his money, travelling saloon, and with reserved cabins,
and a nurse, and trying to get her cured; that's why he's droving now.
She was restless in Sydney. She wanted to go back to the station
and wait there till the fairies brought the children home.
She'd been getting the fairy idea into her head slowly all the time.
The Boss encouraged it. But the station was sold, and he couldn't
have lived there anyway without going mad himself. He'd married her
from Bathurst. Both of them have got friends and relations here,
so he thought best to bring her here. He persuaded her that the fairies
were going to bring the children here. Everybody's very kind to them.
I think it's a mistake to run away from a town where you're known,
in a case like this, though most people do it. It was years before
he gave up hope. I think he has hopes yet -- after she's been fairly well
for a longish time.'
`And you never tried telling her that the children were found?'
- lonely [´ləunli]
a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词) - shepherd [´ʃepəd] n.牧羊人 vt.带领 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- selfish [´selfiʃ] a.自私的，利己的 (初中英语单词)
- hooked [hukt] a.钩状的；上瘾的 (初中英语单词)
- reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- ashore [ə´ʃɔ:] ad.向岸上 (初中英语单词)
- haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
- restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- reckless [´rekləs] a.不注意的；鲁莽的 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
- longing [´lɔŋiŋ] n.&a.渴望(的) (高中英语单词)
- saloon [sə´lu:n] n.大厅；餐车 (高中英语单词)
- drought [draut] n.旱灾；干旱 (英语四级单词)
- homestead [´həumsted] n.家宅，宅基 (英语四级单词)
- clearing [´kliəriŋ] n.(森林中的)空旷地 (英语四级单词)
- entice [in´tais] vt.诱惑；怂恿 (英语四级单词)
- hurriedly [´hʌridli] ad.仓促地，忙乱地 (英语四级单词)
- seeming [´si:miŋ] a.表面上的 n.外观 (英语四级单词)
- lighting [´laitiŋ] n.照明，发光 (英语四级单词)
- hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
- corpse [kɔ:ps] n.尸体 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- housework [´hauswə:k] n.家务劳动 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- systematic [,sisti´mætik] a.有系统的，成体系的 (英语六级单词)
- improbable [im´prɔbəbəl] a.未必有的 (英语六级单词)
- sydney [´sidni] n.悉尼 (英语六级单词)
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