Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/58

54 tree, and smoking like two steam-engines. Scott and Hall did the amiable to the ladies, and I helped Mrs. Creek. Miss Blount was good enough to come and assist after a little, and took me in charge, telling me where the things were to be placed, making me trot about under her orders, so I was kept tolerably busy; but I did not forget to keep a bright look-out on the road that led towards Quondong.

No sign yet of the Drummonds. When we were all assembled and the luncheon arranged, there was some faint opposition on the hostess's part to our beginning before the arrival of the missing guests; but her husband pooh-poohed the notion of waiting.

'Nonsense, my dear; they could be in time if they chose; and if they do come, they won't starve.'

I was not quite so sure of that, for I didn't think much of Mrs. Creek as a caterer, and I certainly did not like the idea of the Drummonds finding lunch half over when they came—when they came? Suppose they did not come at all! Perhaps the sky clouded over just then,—I know the place looked as dull as ditch-water for a few minutes,—and the view over the dry bed of the river, where the air quivered in the heat, and the flat beyond, sparsely scattered with gum trees, whose scanty greyish-green foliage hardly showed, had the dreariest air imaginable.

'Mr. Verner, you may sit down here,' called out Miss Blount. But before I could take advantage of her invitation, or rather permission, I heard the sound of a horse's hoof, and caught a glimpse of Folly's