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Chapter XII
Something About Rob

"You're to go to your uncle at once. He's waiting for you in the office."

That is what Mrs. McPherson told me, and as the prospect didn't seem too fascinating I skipped lunch and went to the orchard and feasted on golden rib-stones and juicy ripe pears. After that I strolled as far as the river and lay flat in the tussocks, gazing up into the cloudless turquoise sky and listening to the roar of the waters as they rushed over the stones.

I think that sometimes it is good, to be quite, quite alone. You can't harbour silly little thoughts outside in the big, open world. Soon I forgot that I was tired, hot and angry, and felt really quite at peace with everybody. Somewhere a cricket hummed drowsily, not a breath stirred the air, and gradually my thoughts went wandering, wandering, slipping here and there, stopping nowhere.

Later I opened my eyes, wakened perhaps by the touch of the mist against my face. The sun had disappeared; a heavy pall of grey shut out the mountains on the farther side of the river; all around the mist was creeping over the tussocks, enclosing the world page 159in mystery; the golden gorse and the tangley manuka shrub showed ghostly and dim in the growing darkness.

Away over the tussocks lay the comfortable lights and fires of Kamahi, but here on the river bed everything seemed strange and unreal. It was all so dreary and so big and so lonely that it made me sad, with a sadness that you cannot explain. All around the creeping mist, the sound of the river, and the dank, drooping tussocks with ghost-like sheep moving somewhere about among the scrub and boulders of the river bed.

Then, breaking into the silence and the desolation, another figure—a tall, thin, boyish figure, strangely distorted in the greyness, stooping under the weight of a heavy swag, striding over the tussocks about twenty feet away from me. But not walking as Rob usually walked, head erect, facing the world, whistling defiantly on his way. Rob was always whistling; indeed, Uncle John sometimes growled at him because he invariably heralded his approach by a bar or two from an opera, a line of Kathie's latest song, or even the "Joyful Peasant," as hammered by Pipi on the much-enduring schoolroom piano.

But now, though he walked with head erect, his lips were closed, and every now and again he paused, as if listening. Listening for what? Rob!

He did not see me as I stood among the tussocks, page 160partly screened by the low-growing manuka bush, but went along the river bank—walking away from Kamahi, the uncles, from us all. Oh, I knew! I knew! And I stood watching him so long that I nearly let him drift out of my sight before I flew after him, panting over the tussocks.

"Rob! Rob!"

Rob turned when he heard me coming, and looked at me with a surprise which was hardly all joy.

"Rob! Don't go!"

I clung to him desperately, just as a drowning man will cling to a straw of hope, striving to hold him back, to keep him by force, hardly realising for the moment anything more than the one terrible fact.

Rob looked uncertain and sorry, but when he spoke his voice had the old reassuring gruffness.

"Don't be an idiot!" he said.

But I looked at his swag and his bulging pockets, at the thick winter overcoat which he had donned, and, above all, I looked deep into his eyes, which could not hide the truth. Rob was going away— running away. The vague fear which had haunted me all through the summer crystallised into truth; nothing that I could say, nothing that I could do in the whole wide world would hold him back. If only I had been older, more like Kathie or Uncle Dan, I might have made him listen and understand all page 161that I felt about it. But I am only thirteen, and suddenly I seemed to realise it.

"Have the uncles been rowing you, Rob?" I asked, hardly daring to put my fear into words, yet striving somehow to find a reason for it all, though deep in my heart I knew that no explanation was needed. I understood now why Rob and Alan McLennan had sent me away when I joined them in the plantation a week ago; I knew why they had ridden into the township last Thursday; why they had spent hours in close and secret confabulation.

Rob dug his heel into the ground, surprised, perhaps, because I had plumbed the truth so easily, deep in his heart ashamed of the part he was playing though he gloried in the adventure of it.

"No, it's not that. He's decent enough; they all are. You wouldn't understand if I told you; you're only a girl. I'm sick of it all, and Alan has a jolly fine idea. He wants a change instead of sticking all his life at The Point. But what's the good? Of course you don't understand."

But I did. Oh, yes I did. Rob had grown tired of farming; he longed for adventure, and that hateful, hateful Alan McLennan had fired him with a desire to see the world. Suddenly I seemed to see things with uncles' eyes. What would they think of the boy who ran away from the care and hospitality which had been offered so freely and so willingly. page 162Boys in books ran away because they were unjustly suspected and because their hearts were breaking, but Rob hadn't even a cruel uncle or a harsh parent. There really wasn't any excuse for him, and yet— he was Rob, and because he was Rob, and I loved him better than anyone else in the world, I could not be too hard upon him even in my thoughts. I knew that Alan had fired his imagination and his love of adventure, and I could only hope that Alan would stick to Rob as assuredly as Rob would stick through thick and thin to Alan.

"How did you find out? How did you get here?" asked Rob. "No one knows we're going."

"I didn't, either." So Rob had meant to go without saying "Good-bye." "Only—I was hiding—from Uncle John, you know."

Rob buckled his strap, turning away his head. I could see how the damp had gathered on his sleeves and on the brim of his slouch hat. It is strange how such insignificant details cling to your mind when you have forgotten all the things you wanted to remember.

"Rob—"

But Rob was straining his eyes into the mist, and he was greeting Alan with a cautious cooee before I realised that another person had made an appearance upon the scene.

Alan was dressed, like Rob, ready for a journey, page 163with swag and oilskins all complete. He eyed me with anything but favour; somehow or other I do not think that Alan was at any time over fond of me, and he certainly resented my presence now.

"She'll split," he said warningly.

"I won't! True 's death, I won't, Rob."

"Ngaire's not that sort," said Rob, rushing to my defence. "Don't you worry yourself over that. Goodbye, Kid."

"She'd better not," remarked Alan threateningly.

"Good-bye, Kid," said Rob again in an over-casual voice which didn't deceive me, but just made my heart ache.

"Mind you don't split," added Alan, looking so fierce that suddenly all my dislike and distrust of him surged to the surface, and I turned on him very suddenly and more fiercely than he had rounded on me.

"You be quiet and go away. You've done harm enough now. Rob wouldn't ever have thought of going if it hadn't have been for you. I just hate you. Hate you! Do you know what I mean? I won't split—you needn't be afraid. That's the sort of thing you'd do if you got the chance. You beast!"

"What a little cat!"

"I'd sooner be a cat than—than all the things you are. Why don't you go back to school and get expelled again?"

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"Hold hard, Ngaire," cried Rob, while Alan turned and went away over the tussocks. "That's not sporting."

"It's true," I said miserably, feeling the greyness again. "Rob, don't go with him. He's a beast. He is a beast."

"Alan's not a bad sort," said Rob uncomfortably.

From across the tussocks came the sound of Alan's voice cooeeing impatiently.

Rob turned.

"Good-bye, Kid."

"Rob—I love you—I do love you, Rob."

Oh, I did! I did! I did!

I stood and waved to them as they went across the tussocks, trying to keep my lips steady while a great hard lump in my throat rose and threatened to choke me—waved till they disappeared like phantom swaggers into the mist and the growing darkness.

Then I threw myself down in the tussocks again and hid my face in my hands.