Wally
uttered a shout of relief as he came to the trees. Below in the wide,
shallow pools, all the stock had taken refuge--carthorses and cows,
sheep and pigs, all huddled together, wild-eyed and panting, but safe.
They stared up at Wally, dumbly bewildered.
"Poor brutes," said Wally. "Well, you chose a good spot, anyhow. I say,
what a jolly good thing Bob let his pigs out. Poor old chap--he's
not broke yet." He leaned against the gnarled trunk of a willow for a
moment. "Well, I suppose I'd better get up to the gate and tell them--it
won't do for Tommy to come on the ruins all of a sudden."
But he realized, as he made his slow way up from the creek, that he was
too late. There was a little knot of horses beside the garden gate. His
eye caught the light linen habit coats that Tommy and Norah wore. They
were looking silently at the blackened heap of ashes, with the tottering
chimney standing gaunt in its midst, Bob's face grey under its coating
of smoky dust. Norah was holding Tommy's hand tightly. They did not hear
Wally as he came slowly across the black powder that had been grass.
"I suppose the stock have gone, too," Bob said heavily.
"No, they haven't, old man," Wally said. "I believe every head is safe;
they're in the creek."
They turned sharply, and cried out at the sight of him--blackened and
ragged, his eyes red-rimmed in his grimy face, his hands, cut by the
broken window glass, smeared with dried blood.
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