Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/65

‘’Ook, mammy, ’ook, the pretty sing man div me!’

Mrs. Andersen clutched the money as a drowning person clutches an oar, and for the same reason. ‘There,’ she said, as the child began to whimper, ‘don’t cry. Mammy will get you some jam for tea. Run in, kids, and tell Lena to stir up the fire.’ She turned on the threshold and waved her hand to the unconscious form of Geoffrey, whose back was just disappearing into the bush. There was a silent benediction in the act.

‘I will ask Mrs. Gird’s advice,’ Geoffrey was saying to himself at that moment; ‘and whatever she advises I will agree to.’

Many and very dissimilar people went to Mrs. Gird for advice, and she gave it to all with equal candour. Probably if it suited them they acted on it; but whether it suited them or no, she took care that they got what they came for. She was no witch whose elixirs were potent in the troubles of true love, yet the loves of the settlement were mostly confided to her. She rarely left her home on the section, yet everything that occurred for miles around was known to her almost on its happening. She knew when M‘Clusky’s bull had broken Finnerty’s fence and eaten the tops off his apple trees, and she had a spirited account of the meeting of Finnerty and M‘Clusky ready the same day for the amusement of her husband, who sat all day long in his invalid’s chair following her with adoring eyes, but incapable either of speech or motion. She knew when Sven Andersen was in the lock-up for drunkenness, and whether or no Mrs. Andersen had gone into the township to pay his fine, and she called