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Chapter X
The Story of The Morrisons

We had often heard the story of the Morrisons. Still, it was always interesting, and delicious little shivers would run up our spines and down again when Mrs. McPherson started.

"Why have ye lit the fire?"

She always began like that. She used to join us on wet evenings when Kathie and Rob and the uncles were at late dinner, and if it was the least bit chilly we would build a roaring, glowing fire. If it was too hot for even a tiny blaze—and in the summer it mostly was—we used to sit under the trees where the shadows fell thickest. Then Mrs. McPherson would say:

"Go and put on your hats. Ye'll catch a chill."

But we never did. I mean, we didn't put on our hats. We didn't take a chill either.

Having thus relieved her conscience, Mrs. McPherson was ready to begin.

"I mind it was twenty—no, nearer two-and-twenty years back. It was just after the poor young lady from Ngapapa had been drowned in the great page 133autumn rising of the river, and your Uncle Stephen had left for England,"

"What had it got to do with him?"

Mrs. McPherson didn't hear—or didn't want to hear, perhaps.

"Well, as you know, at that time Kamahi—"

We knew; we knew how, at one time, a strip of land about six thousand acres in extent had cut across the uncles' estate, running from the river to the eastern boundary. It belonged to an Englishman named Morrison, and he lived there alone waiting for his wife and children, who were to join him when he had made a home for them. He was a queer, morose man, Mrs. McPherson said, and had few friends, but sometimes in the evenings he would ride over to Kamahi and talk with Uncle Dan, and bring tops and carve funny little playthings for Uncle Dan who was just a bit of a boy, almost a baby, at that time.

One day Mrs. Morrison and the children arrived.

"Did you ever see them, Mrs. McPherson?"

We always asked her that; it set her on the right track again. She was apt to wander from the really important part, and describe the cow which Uncle John had sent over to the cottage. Fresh milk is very good for children, Mrs. McPherson says.

"It was a Jersey, and your uncle—"

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"Never mind uncle and the cow. Tell about the children. You saw them driving past, you were standing by the big white gate, you remember."

Mrs. McPherson had only seen them twice, and she had never spoken to them at all. She had been standing by the big white gate when they drove past on their way from the station. Mrs. Morrison had a little boy in her arms; another child leaned against her side. They seemed tired and ill, but Mr. Morrison's face was brighter than it had ever been before, and a little girl who was seated beside him waved her hand to Mrs. McPherson.

"How old was she?"

I always asked that, and Mrs. McPherson always answered:

"About twelve, maybe." You see, I am twelve and a bit, and because she was my age and about my height I used to play that she was a particular and very, very dear friend of mine, and 'pretend' her into my games till really I felt that I knew her, and could picture her to myself far better than Mrs. McPherson could ever have drawn her for me.

Three days after the arrival Mr. Morrison came riding over to Kamahi. His wife and three children had been ill ever since he had brought them home. He had nursed them himself, but they had taken a change for the worse. Would Uncle John bring the doctor from the township?

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Uncle John sent one man galloping furiously for the doctor, fifty miles off, and another for a nurse who was staying in the district. That is the tragedy of the back blocks, uncle says—help is always so far away. Then he harnessed up the horse, Mrs. Mc-Pherson "put a few things together," and they drove off together to Mr. Morrison's home.

They came too late. The mother and the two little boys were dead; the little girl had crept to the door, and stood up to smile at her father when he came in again. That was all. Mrs. McPherson said the sun was shining right on her. I know just how she looked. She swayed a little as if touched by an imperceptible breeze; her eyes were shining and looked out right, right beyond. So she died.

And that, as Mrs. McPherson says, is the end of the story. Mr. Morrison sold the place to the uncles and went back to England. They never heard of him again. So, Mrs. McPherson declares, that finishes it all.

But does it?

She will never speak of the stories which are told of the old house; she scorns the swaggers who will not use it for a night's camp. "Reediculous nonsense!" she calls it. But the swaggers have heard of the children who, when the nights are still, come out and play on the veranda and through the deserted rooms, calling aloud in laughter, chasing each other page 136till the air echoes with the sound of their little, running feet.

The uncles smile and speak of "ignorant superstition" which "never dies," and at ordinary times we smile too. You see, in broad daylight, in the comfortable safety of Kamahi, we are far too sensible to believe any of the tales that are told. But when Jan and I stood before the eerie, creeper-covered house, and felt the silence deep around us, then we didn't laugh any more. Jan touched my sleeve nervously.

"Don't stop, Ngaire," she whispered. "C-come-a-long, we really must be getting home."

Somehow the house held me. I had thought so much of the little golden-haired girl that if, at that very moment, she had appeared in the doorway and smiled at me I do not think I should have been very much surprised. Almost I could hear the children's voices calling me to join them.

"Oh, do come, Ngaire. Don't stand staring." Jan clutched my arm again, and it was black and blue and yellow and green for days after.

"Oh! Ow! O-o-o-oh! What's that?"

Now, wasn't that a stupid thing to say?

We didn't stop running till we were a good three hundred yards down the road, and when we drew up we found that it was raining hard.

"Just as if everything wasn't as bad as it could possibly be without that," Jan said.

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It was fortunate that I had come driving this way with Uncle Dan a month before, as I have a good "bump of locality, and the memory of the place was still fresh in my mind.

"We might take shelter," I suggested, not too eagerly. "There's a shed at the end of the paddock near—

Jan interrupted me, speaking slowly, but with emphasis.

"If — you — think — I — am — going — past — that — horrible — hateful — ghostly — house — again—"

"It's a long way from the cottage. You can get to it—"

"It helongs—I tell you, Ngaire, I won't! Of course, I don't believe in ghosts or—or silly stories or anything so stupid, but there might be rats. And— you can, if you like."

But I didn't like, and we stood, melting slowly, till even the sight of Uncle John in the most raging of warpath tempers would have been more than welcome. It was really dreadful. I can't convey the fearsome, ghostly feeling of it, but think how you would have felt if you had been as we were, wandering hopelessly astray on a wet, dark night over the lonely countryside, with a sad old house near by, haunted by the memories of the past, with the wind murmuring eerily around and the ceaseless patter of page 138the rain on the road at your feet. Away in the distance lay Kamahi, somewhere to the right or left, tucked in its comfortable plantations, with the light streaming hospitably from windows and doors. But Jan and I stood, wet, miserable, nervous and unhappy, fearful of ghosts, of swaggers, and of rheumatic fever, which certainly appeared the most probable foe of all.

"What are we going to do?" asked Jan at last. "Ngaire, we've got to do something."

"Yes," I repeated. "What shall we do? What shall we do?"

We were too dazed and frightened and miserable to walk much longer, and it wasn't till we had been washed two-thirds away that we decided to make for the shed and shelter. It stood alone, right out of the trees, a good three hundred yards from the house, just inside the fence close to where we had been standing. Jan said we might as well die there as anywhere else.

"If you'd only told me it wasn't anywhere near the house we needn't have wasted all this time and got soaked," she said despondently.

"I said it was at the end of the paddock."

"You didn't say which end. I thought you meant the part under the trees near the house. Wet wriggle on now, at any rate. Go quietly! Oh!"

We crept through the broken rails, and with beat-page 139ing hearts and shaky knees made our way into the ramshackle old building. We hardly dared to breathe, and once Jan cried aloud in sudden fear. But as the minutes passed and nothing happened our courage returned a little.

"It's better than the rain. It's a little shelter," I said. "And perhaps uncle will be along soon with a search-party."

"We'd be better dead," Jan answered gloomily. "Oh! what was that?"

We listened steadily, but only the falling of the rain broke the awful stillness.

"Don't be silly," I said, because I was so frightened that my knees rattled against each other.

"I'm not—sit still!" Jan snapped quite naturally. The adventure was having a bad effect upon our tempers, already disorganised by baked apple and a long tramp. I growled at Jan and she snapped back at me; it made things seem less terrible and more bearable for us both.

Now that I look back I think that we must have been very cowardly and more than a little silly. But oh! that long, dreary, terrible night, with a menace in every creak and a vague fear chilling us more than the wind and the rain had done. I think we would really have stolen out into the night again, but once outside we were afraid to move. We sat huddled page 140together in a corner, shaking at every sound, white enough for ghosts ourselves.

Suddenly Jan began to cry—and Jan never cries.

"It's all my fault," she whispered brokenly. "I dragged you into it."

it isn t.

"It is," Jan insisted, finding a melancholy comfort in her own deficiencies. "If only I'd been tidy-why wasn't I born tidy? If I'd been like Kathie or you, or even Pipi, we wouldn't be here now, waiting to die. We'd be safe at home. If I'd mended my dress we shouldn't have changed blouses, and if we hadn't changed blouses we shouldn't have laughed, and if we hadn't laughed we shouldn't have run away, and if we hadn't run away we wouldn't have got lost, and if we hadn't got lost we——"

It sounded so funny, something like the nail in the shoe which was responsible for the loss of a kingdom, that somewhere back in my mind I felt the creases of a smile. But Jan couldn't see any joke about it, and in trying to comfort her I lost my own fears, and in losing them I wondered why I had ever been afraid. Not that the place was less cold or damp or miserable, but the patter of the rain carried no more dread meanings, each creek of the rotten boards was no longer fraught with hidden terror. Together Jan and I knelt, feeling that God was very near to us, page 141and soon cuddled close I could tell by Jan's regular breathing that she was asleep.

And I, too, closed my eyes.

That night I dreamed strange dreams. I seemed to see the little golden-haired girl standing at the door of her home and smiling at me as she had smiled at her father years before. But when I went to her—for now I felt no fear—it was Rob instead, Rob, moaning, holding out his hands to me, talking wildly disconnectedly. Such a strange Rob, calling to me, raising wild, fever-haunted eyes. Always the little girl with the sun on her hair, smiling, beckoning, and then Rob again—

Till I awoke.

And it was morning.