“MAY?” Ruby says. “I wonder who that can be?”

She turns the card with its illuminated wreath of holly and conventional glistening snow scene this way and that. “It’s very pretty,” the little girl murmurs admiringly. “But who can ‘May’ be?”

The Christmas card under inspection has been discovered by Jenny upon the floor of the room where Mr. Jack Kirke has spent the night, dropped there probably in the hurried start of the morning. It has evidently been a very precious thing in its owner’s eyes, this card; for it is wrapped in a little piece of white tissue paper and enclosed in an unsealed envelope. Jenny has forthwith delivered this treasure over to Ruby, who, seated upon the edge of the verandah, is now busily scrutinizing it.

“Jack, from May,” is written upon the back of the card in a large girlish scrawl. That is all; there is no date, no love or good wishes sent, only those three words: “Jack, from May;” and in front of the card, beneath the glittering snow scene and intermingling with the scarlet wreath, the Christmas benediction: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

“Who’s May, I wonder,” Ruby murmurs again, almost jealously. “P’raps another little girl in Scotland he never told me about. I wonder why he didn’t speak about her.”

Ruby does not know that the “May” of the carefully cherished card is a little girl of whom Jack but rarely speaks, though she lives in his thoughts day and night. Far away in Scotland a blue-eyed maiden’s heart is going out in longing to the man who only by his absence had proved to the friend of his childhood how much she loved him. Her heart is in sunny Australia, and his in bonnie Scotland, all for love each of the other.

Having failed, even with the best intentions to discover who May is, Ruby turns her attention to the picture and the text.

“‘Glory to God in the highest,’” the little girl reads—“that’s out of the Bible—‘and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ I wonder what ‘good will’ means? I s’pose p’raps it just means to be kind.”

All around the child is the monotonous silence of the Australian noon, unbroken save by the faint silvery wash of the creek over the stones on its way to the river, and the far-away sound of old Hans’ axe as he “rings” the trees. To be “kind,” that is what the Christmas text means in Ruby’s mind, but there is no one here to be “kind” to.

“And of course that card would be made in Scotland, where there are lots of people to be kind to,” the little girl decides thoughtfully.

She is gazing out far away over the path which leads to the coast. Beyond that lies the sea, and beyond the sea Scotland. What would not Ruby give to be in bonnie Scotland just now!

The child rises and goes through the house and across the courtyard to the stables. The stables are situated on the fourth side of the quadrangle; but at present are but little used, as most of the horses are grazing at their own sweet will in the adjoining paddock just now.

Dick comes out of the coach-house pulling his forelock. This building is desolate save for a very dilapidated conveyance termed “buggy” in Australia.

“Wantin’ to go for a ride, Miss Ruby?” Dick asks. Dick is Ruby’s cavalier upon those occasions when she desires to ride abroad. “Smuttie’s out in the paddock. I’ll catch him for you if you like,” he adds.

“Bring him round to the gate,” his young mistress says. “I’ll have got on my things by the time you’ve got him ready.”

Smuttie is harnessed and ready by the time Ruby reappears. He justifies his name, being a coal-black pony, rather given over to obesity, but a good little fellow for all that. Dick has hitched his own pony to the garden-gate, and now stands holding Smuttie’s bridle, and awaiting his little mistress’s will.

The sun streams brightly down upon them as they start, Ruby riding slowly ahead. In such weather Smuttie prefers to take life easily. It is with reluctant feet that he has left the paddock at all; but now that he has, so to speak, been driven out of Eden, he is resolved in his pony heart that he will not budge one hair’s-breadth quicker than necessity requires.

Dick has fastened a handkerchief beneath his broad-brimmed hat, and his young mistress is not slow to follow his example and do the same.

“Hot enough to start a fire without a light,” Dick remarks from behind as they jog along.

“I never saw one,” Ruby returns almost humbly. She knows that Dick refers to a bush fire, and that for a dweller in the bush she ought long before this to have witnessed such a spectacle. “I suppose it’s very frightsome,” Ruby adds.

“Frightsome! I should just think so!” Dick ejaculates. He laughs to himself at the question. “Saw one the last place I was in,” the boy goes on. “My! it was grand, and no mistake. Your pa’s never had one here, Miss Ruby; but it’s not every one that’s as lucky. It’s just like”—Dick pauses for a simile—“like a steam-engine rushing along, for all the world, the fire is. Then you can see it for miles and miles away, and it’s all you can do to keep up with it and try to burn on ahead to keep it out. If you’d seen one, Miss Ruby, you’d never like to see another.”

Rounding a thicket, they come upon old Hans, the German, busy in his employment of “ringing” the trees. This ringing is the Australian method of thinning a forest, and consists in notching a ring or circle about the trunks of the trees, thus impeding the flow of sap to the branches, and causing in time their death. The trees thus “ringed” form indeed a melancholy spectacle, their long arms stretched bare and appealingly up to heaven, as if craving for the blessing of growth now for ever denied them.

The old German raises his battered hat respectfully to the little mistress.“Hot day, missie,” he mutters as salutation.

“You must be dreadfully hot,” Ruby says compassionately.

The old man’s face is hot enough in all conscience. He raises his broad-brimmed hat again, and wipes the perspiration from his damp forehead with a large blue-cotton handkerchief.

“It’s desp’rate hot,” Dick puts in as his item to the conversation.

“You ought to take a rest, Hans,” the little girl suggests with ready commiseration. “I’m sure dad wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t like me to do things when it’s so hot, and he wouldn’t like you either. Your face is just ever so red, as red as the fire, and you look dreadful tired.”

“Ach! and I am tired,” the old man ejaculates, with a broad smile. “But what of that? But a little more work, a little more tiring out, and the dear Lord will send for old Hans to be with Him for ever in that best and brightest land of all. Is it not so, missie? The work has not come to those little hands of thine yet, but the day may come when thou too wilt be glad to leave the toil behind thee, and be at rest. Ach! but what am I saying?” The smile broadens on the tired old face. “Why do I talk of death to thee, liebchen, whose life is all play? The sunlight is made for such as thee, on whom the shadows have not even begun to fall.”Ruby gives just the tiniest suspicion of a sob stifled in a sniff.

“You’re not to talk like that, Hans,” she remonstrates in rather an injured manner. “We don’t want you to die—do we, Dick?” she appeals to her faithful servitor.

“No more’n we don’t,” Dick agrees.

“So you see,” Ruby goes on with the air of a small queen, “you’re not to say things like that ever again. And I’ll tell dad you’re not to work so hard; dad always does what I want him to do—usually.”

The old man looks after the two retreating figures as they ride away.

“She’s a dear little lady, she is,” he mutters to himself. “But she can’t be expected to understand, God bless her! how the longing comes for the home-land when one is weary. Good Lord, let it not be long.” The old man’s tired eyes are uplifted to the wide expanse of blue, beyond which, to his longing vision, lies the home-land for which he yearns. Then, wiping his axe upon his shirt-sleeve, old Hans begins his “ringing” again.

“He’s a queer old boy,” Dick remarks as they ride through the sunshine. Though a servant, and obliged to ride behind, Dick sees no reason why he should be excluded from conversation. Nor does Ruby. She would have found those rides over the rough bush roads very dull work had there been no Dick to talk to.

“He’s a nice old man!” Ruby exclaims staunchly. “He’s just tired, or he wouldn’t have said that,” she goes on. She has an idea that Dick is rather inclined to laugh at German Hans.

They are riding along now by the river’s bank, where the white clouds floating across the azure sky, and the tall grasses by the margin are reflected in its cool depths. About a mile or so farther on, at the turn of the river, a ruined mill stands, while, far as eye can reach on every hand, stretch unending miles of bush. Dick’s eyes have been fixed on the mill; but now they wander to Ruby.

“We’d better turn ’fore we get there, Miss Ruby,” he recommends, indicating the tumbledown building with the willowy switch he has been whittling as they come along. “That’s the place your pa don’t like you for to pass—old Davis, you know. Your pa’s been down on him lately for stealing sheep.”

“I’m sure dad won’t mind,” cries Ruby, with a little toss of the head. “And I want to go,” she adds, looking round at Dick, her bright face flushed with exercise, and her brown hair flying behind her like a veritable little Amazon.

That settles the question. Dick knows by sore experience that when this little lady wants her own way she usually gets it.

“Your pa said,” he mutters; but it is all of no avail, and they continue their course by the river bank.

The cottage stands with its back to the river, the mill, now idle and unused, is built alongside. Once on a day this same mill was a busy enough place, now it is falling to decay for lack of use, and no sign or sound either there or at the cottage testify to the whereabouts of the lonely inhabitant. An enormous brindled cat is mewing upon the doorstep, a couple of gaunt hens and a bedraggled cock are pacing the deserted gardens, while from a lean-to outhouse comes the unmistakable grunt of a pig. Dick heaves a sigh of relief.

“He’s not at home,” he mutters. “I’m just as glad, for your pa would have been mighty angry with me. Somewhere not far off he’ll be, I reckon, and up to no good. Come along, Miss Ruby; we’d better be getting home, or the mistress’ll be wondering what’s come over you.”

They are riding homewards by the river’s bank, when they come upon a curious figure. An old, old man, bent almost double under his load of faggots, his red handkerchief tied three cornered-wise beneath his chin to protect his ancient head from the blazing sun. The face which looks out at them from beneath this strange head-gear is yellow and wizened, and the once keen blue eyes are dim and bleared, yet withal there is a sort of low cunning about the whole countenance which sends a sudden shiver to Ruby’s heart, and prompts Dick to touch up both ponies with that convenient switch of his so smartly as to cause even lethargic Smuttie to break into a canter.

“Who is he?” Ruby asks in a half-frightened whisper as they slacken pace again. She looks over her shoulder as she asks the question.

The old man is standing just as they left him, gazing after them through a flood of golden light. Dick looks too.

“He’s an old wicked one!” he mutters. “That’s him, Miss Ruby, him as we were speaking about, old Davis, as stole your pa’s sheep. Your pa would have had him put in prison, but that he was such an old one. He’s a bad lot though, so he is.”

“He’s got a horrid face. I don’t like his face one bit,” says Ruby. Her own face is very white as she speaks, and her brown eyes ablaze. “I wish we hadn’t seen him,” shivers the little girl, as they set their faces homewards.