tom did not propose to spend his four or five weeks of holiday in idleness. whilst making his sister's house his headquarters, he determined to revisit such places as lay within reach, and would start off with his knapsack on his back, taking a two or three days' tour at a time.
"why can't i walk with you?" jack asked one day, wistfully. "i'm ever so strong on my legs!"
"not strong enough for that," said tom, but it set him thinking what to do to brighten jack's holiday. the boy was manfully doing his best; had reinstated himself in eva's good graces by a renewal of friendship and a demand for her companionship, but having tasted the strong drink of the fellowship of boys there was no question that to go back to a girl playmate was a little like sipping milk and water. his manner to aunt betty changed from the confiding affection of infancy to an obedient deference that she found distinctly attractive, for uncle tom was constantly impressing upon him by precept and example, that all women should command gentleness and respect from the masculine sex, so that not again had betty to complain of rude answers or disobedience. what had passed between jack and tom she could only dimly guess, but the result of tom's treatment was entirely satisfactory.
one morning tom presented himself at the farm quite early in the day.
"i've a plan to unfold, and i want your consent before i speak to jack about it," he said. he had followed betty to the dairy where she was busy among her milk pans, and stood leaning against the door-post.
"your treatment of him proves so entirely salutary that you have my consent before i even guess what your plan may be," she said, looking up at him with smiling eyes.
"that's good hearing. i have hired a horse for a week, and am going to take a riding tour to various townships and outlying farms that are beyond my reach on foot, and i should like to take jack with me. is there any pony on the farm that he could borrow?"
"father has let him ride tim lately. tim has quieted with age, and though still full of spirit, seldom indulges in tricks. i don't know if the pony could be spared for so long, but it would be so big a joy to jack that i feel as if father is certain to consent."
"where may your father be found? i'll go and ask him. i want to get off quickly while the day is fairly cool. meanwhile, will you put up in jack's school knapsack such things as are absolutely needful for a few days' bush riding? make it as light as you can."
"you are accepting father's consent as a foregone conclusion."
"i think so; it's his own fault that i do so. he never yet has refused me anything i've asked."
jack was nearly wild with joy when, half-an-hour later, he and tom were trotting down the green lane side by side. he turned in his saddle to wave his cap to eva and her mother who stood watching their departure from the gate, then settled himself in his seat with a quivering sigh of enjoyment.
"it's just splendid of you to have thought of it. just think of riding with you for a whole week. i wish it were for ever and ever."
tom laughed over jack's enthusiasm. "i expect we should both get pretty tired of it and of each other then, jack."
"i shouldn't," declared jack, stoutly, putting tim into a canter. "i'd never be tired of being with you. you're the jolliest grown-up i've ever seen except father. i'd like to stay with you until i can go to him. it's queer he doesn't want me now. i keep on telling him in every letter how big i am. where are we going to first?"
"i propose to ride first to jessie's home. we shall drop in there just about dinner-time."
"how jolly! we've seen her several times since we saw you. she comes down here about once a year. she's left wylmington school ever so long, and has gone as second teacher in a girls' school in launceston, so i don't expect we'll find her."
"you forget it will be her holiday time too. i often hear from her, and she seems to have grown quite strong."
"yes, and aunt betty says she's pretty," said jack, who had no opinion of his own about girls' looks at present.
the ride for the first eight miles was entirely normal, along beautifully engineered roads which climbed ever up and up by zig-zag courses through the hill forests to wylmington. beyond were the falls which in summer-time were a favourite resort for picnic parties, but, leaving them to the right, tom followed one of the bush roads bearing to the left, which was nothing more than a cart track, in some places almost overgrown, and in others, where more clearing had been done, opened out into a glorious view of surrounding hills. as they rode along tom told jack of his experience the last time he had passed that way in a gale of wind and rain, and how he had been weather-bound for the night at woodlands, jessie's home.
"we won't stop there to-night, will we?" asked jack, whose one idea was to put as great a distance between himself and home as possible.
"oh, no, i want to get on to the next homestead, about ten miles further on, but it will be slow going, as there is little more than a bridle-track to travel by, and we could easily lose our way."
"what fun! i hope we shall."
"i don't," said tom. "it's no laughing matter to be lost in the bush. it's a very lonesome spot we are going to, and we shall probably sleep in a shakedown in the barn."
jack gave a joyous laugh of anticipation, but here they were in sight of woodlands, and he sprang from his pony to open the gate which separated the home clearing from the bush. before they rode up to the door jessie had caught a glimpse of them and came running towards them with a radiant face. she had changed from a girl to a young woman and a pretty young woman too, tom thought, as he dismounted and one of the boys came forward to take his horse.
"we'll off-saddle them for an hour or two if we may," he said, "and we've counted on woodlands hospitality to give us something to eat."
"but of course," cried jessie joyously. "i told mother that the feeling in my bones meant something good was to happen to-day, but i never thought of anything half so good as this."
then came the farmer and his wife to welcome their guests. the family dinner was over and the boys dispersed about the farm, but a meal of sorts should be ready in a brace of shakes, and the "nipper" looked ready for it, which the nipper was, for the ride had given him a hearty appetite. and whilst jessie flitted to and fro in hospitable preparation, tom noticed the stamp of refinement which illness had left upon her, but there was something more than refinement written on her face—a certain radiance which he accepted as the outward manifestation of an inward grace, a heart at peace with god and all the world.
"you found the right work for the girl," said the farmer, following the direction of tom's eyes. "she just dotes on her teaching, and gets on well with it. we shall have her up here some day, i expect, setting us all to rights as school-teacher at wylmington."
"not yet, father," laughed jessie, shaking her finger at him. "i want to know ever so much more before i try for a school of my own."
"and will it be a school in the bush when that time comes?" tom asked. "time was when you did not like the bush much."
"i don't know; being away from them all makes you long to be back, though a town school, where i am now, teaches you a lot about discipline and such things, but sometimes now i think i'll get back to the country, where you can get to know all your children and love them and have care of them out of school as well as in it. and one can do something for the church in these country places. i'm learning to play the harmonium, and i could play perhaps on sundays when we have service. there's no one to do it now, not even anyone who can lead the singing. don't you remember how you said once that it was a clergyman's work to set the machinery in a place going, the spiritual machinery, and the work of the people to keep it alive and active?"
"did i say that? you can't expect me to remember all i said four years ago."
"but i remember, because you were the first one to talk to me about the church's order. you said most people left their religion to chance and odd times, and we ought to be as careful over it as over our other work."
"you were an attentive pupil, it seems," said tom, smiling at her.
"because you put things clearly so that i could understand them," said jessie simply. "when you went away and i could not talk to you any more, i wrote down a good many things you said, so as to teach them to my class in the sunday school."
"then you are a sunday school teacher?"
"oh, yes, for over three years now. i love it best of any of my teaching, and the sunday school is all alive where i am now. here i found it very difficult to get the children to care."
jack had slipped away with jessie's father to see a fresh brood of chickens, which gave tom an opportunity of some talk with jessie about her work, but presently he looked at his watch and said they must be moving on, but, before the horses were re-saddled, mrs. butler insisted upon a cup of tea, and sent them on their way with a well-filled wallet of provisions in case they got detained upon the road.
"is jessie pretty?" jack inquired, as they rode upon their way.
"yes, i think she is, but she's more than pretty: she's good."
"how d'you know?" jack asked.
"by her look—goodness, like evil, writes itself upon people's faces, jack—by her ways and by her words," said tom.
the saying did not altogether please jack.
"it's rather horrid people can tell whether you are good or bad by looking at you," he said.
"then you must take care only to do and think such things as will give you a good face," said tom, with a little laugh, and then he began talking about other things.
how the week sped, a week which jack was old enough now to look back upon with pleasure all his days! it was an unusually hot and dry year for tasmania, and the sun, beating upon the forests and rich undergrowth through which they rode day after day, brought out a pungent fragrance that acted like a tonic, preventing any consciousness of fatigue. there was a sense of adventure, too, in travelling by these unknown and little trodden tracks that was quite delightful to a boy, and delightful also was tom's companionship, and in fuller measure came back his old ascendancy over jack. before it had been the affection of a little child, but now it took the form of a boy's hero-worship, the wish to grow into a man something like uncle tom or father. the mere fact that tom could turn his hand to almost anything was a deep source of admiration, from lighting a fire to shoeing a horse. and tom on his side grew deeply attached to the little boy, whose pluck and courage might have belonged to a boy twice his age, whose interest in all he saw or heard was so singularly alive, and quite unconsciously his influence for good over the boy almost every hour of the day was making itself felt. it was more from what he did than what he said, although with a man like tom, whose first object and aim in life was to serve god himself and to teach others to serve, it was scarcely possible to live with him many days without some mention of higher things. the mention of such things might pass unnoticed, but the fact that when they passed one or two nights in a shed together, jack saw tom kneel down and say his prayers with absorbing earnestness before he crept into his bed of straw, was an object-lesson jack could not well forget. and again, when they woke in the morning, tom's hand searched in the knapsack which had served as his pillow for the testament he always carried about with him, and he would read aloud to jack some parable, or miracle, said or worked by our lord, and invest it with an entirely new character, making jack feel it a reality instead of something written in an old book that might or might not be true. on the last morning of their tour, as they sat together on the bole of a huge forest tree that had been felled and left lying along the ground until such time as it was carted away, tom chose for the morning reading the account in the acts of the churches that had not yet received any open manifestation of the spirit, and of how the apostles were sent for to bestow the great gift.
"and that is what we now call confirmation, jack, that is the bible teaching about it. i wonder if anyone ever showed dick chambers that passage, or tried to make it clear to him. he might change his mind about its being all stuff and nonsense."
jack coloured a little.
"but everyone who is confirmed isn't good, uncle tom."
"i don't say they are, jack; i only tell you it is a great help, a gift of god that i want every boy and girl baptised in our church to look forward to and get ready for. if you use a gift it may help you immensely; if you neglect it or throw it away that is not god's fault: it's yours."
jack did not make any answer; tom did not know if he even understood, but from that day forward jack renewed his determination to be confirmed some day, when he was old enough, "same as jessie was." perhaps it was jessie's confirmation that helped to give her a "good face," in which conjecture there was more truth than little jack was aware of.
and that evening found the companions at home again, jack very bronzed and voluble about all his experiences of the different places they had stayed at, and of the almost wild children they had come across, of the snakes they had killed in the bush, of their picnic meals, etc.; but, of the things that had gone deepest, of his talks with uncle tom and of the way uncle tom said his prayers, he never spoke at all. they had sunk too deep to come up to the surface. but eva, as he talked to her, bemoaned the fate that, in making her a girl, cut her off from all these delightful pleasures.
"uncle tom, we ought to have a blow-up for eva before you go," jack said one day soon after their return. "it is rather dull being a girl, you know. could not we have a picnic a long way off on thursday? it's my birthday; i shall be twelve years old, but we could pretend it was eva's."
uncle tom was rather pleased at this budding thoughtfulness for jack's chum, and caught readily at the notion.
"we'll talk to my sister and aunt betty and see what can be done," he said. "has eva ever been to wylmington falls? if not, we could hire a brake, get some of the neighbours to join us, and we'll call it eva's party."
the notion caught on like wildfire, and eva herself was in ecstasies of delight. she watched every cloudlet that flecked the sky with grave forebodings lest the longed-for day should prove wet.
"not a chance of it," said uncle tom. "the farmers are all longing for rain to save their crops, which bush fires are constantly destroying," but that rain should fall on thursday was more than he or any of the others could wish. and it did not rain! never was a more perfect day for a picnic. the families at the farm and the cottage were early astir, for everybody was coming except mr. treherne, who had to stay behind for the task of looking after the animals, for it was to be a real long summer holiday, beginning with dinner directly they arrived, and closing with tea before their return, which would give the horses a nice long rest. so soon after eleven the brake started off with mrs. kenyon, mrs. treherne, betty, and all the provisions packed in hampers, and behind came the pony cart from the farm driven by tom, with jack and eva tucked in by the side of him, and various other vehicles joined them on the way, carrying invited guests, so that it was quite a cavalcade that wound its way along the circuitous road, and there was much laughter and rivalry as to who should take the lead, and who could keep it, and for one proud triumphant moment tom and the pony led the way, to be superseded very quickly by the brake with its stout pair of horses. but for the long, long climb at the end, all were reduced to walking, and many of the passengers got out, amongst them the children, who plunged into the bush below and above them, bringing back handfuls of flowers and berries.
"and this afternoon, eva, whilst the others are lazing about, you and i will go blackberrying in the bush. we'll make a surprise for aunt betty, who'll be awfully pleased when we bring back a lot of berries ready for jam," said jack magnanimously, determined to make the day altogether delightful for eva.
"how lovely!" said eva. "don't forget we're to keep it a secret. no one shall guess what we mean to do."
but now the carriages had turned into the rough track which led to the famous falls, whose nearness proclaimed itself by a distant roar of falling water, a sound which mingled with the swirl of the river under the bridge they had just driven over.
a quarter of a mile through the green overgrown track brought them to a large clearing, where open sheds had been built for the special benefit of picnicers, where a general halt was called, and whilst the men busied themselves in taking out their horses and giving them a rub down before securing them in the sheds, the women and children collected fuel for the fire, but jack and eva, fascinated by the sound of the falling water, stole off hand in hand to obtain a nearer view of the falls. arched over their heads was a long avenue of tree ferns, under their feet the rocks and stones which the winter floods brought with them, but now the river had withdrawn to its natural bed, and an exquisite undergrowth of flowers and maidenhair fern concealed the roughness of the way. more than once eva would have lost her footing but for jack's hand, but at last they reached the point where they could obtain their first full view of the falls, three separate cascades of foaming, sparkling water growing greater and stronger in its fall, until it lost itself in the turbulent river below.
"one would not have much chance if one fell in," said jack.
"no, it's lovely, but it frightens me and makes me giddy to look at it. take me back to the others," eva answered.
jack longed to linger, longed to scale the rough ladders set against the hill, which would lead him up to the higher falls, but the day was eva's, and he turned and gave her his hand.
"it's a dreadful pity you're not a boy," was all he said.
