Read Online Return to Coolami by Eleanor Dark - Free Book Online Page A

rather like flying, especially when, as now, you were swooping down a brief hill to climb the longer one opposite. A cemetery. Strange things, cemeteries; strange creatures, human beings, who made their ultimate terror as bleakly terrifying as they possibly could! How charming it would be if instead of white stones every grave had a tree – a flowering tree—
    Her mind’s eyes saw it – a wild profusion of spring blossom, a triumphant rebirth of vigour and beauty from bare winter branches. Odd that no religious sect had ever seized on that very simple and obvious allegory of resurrection—
    Down again, under a railway bridge, up another hill. Houses were almost continuous, now, and away to the left, the world opened out suddenly into blue, magnificent distance.
    Millicent said, staring:
    â€œIt’s always lovelier than you expect it to be.” And Drew slowed down so that he could glance from time to time.
    They slid into the town and stopped before closed railway gates. Over the roofs of half Katoomba they could still see that serene and luminous blue, bounded by a line of strange reddish-golden cliffs.
    Millicent said to Bret, who had got out to stretch his legs and was standing beside her door:
    â€œHow queer they must look from the air, Bret. All the little mountain towns buried away in this – this vastness. I’d like to see it from the air.”
    He nodded.
    â€œBut it’s bad flying, you know. Air pockets and what not.”
    Drew asked:
    â€œIs this where you want to stop? Shall we go down to – what’s their show place—? Echo Point, isn’t it?”
    â€œWell,” said Millicent reflectively. “I think we could find— Perhaps Bret—” and she called to her son-in-law who had gone over like a small boy to watch the train come roaring into the station: “Bret, could you guide us to a blue view without railings?”
    He came back, considering.
    â€œWithout railings? Well—”
    â€œOr seats,” Susan amended, “or notice boards.”
    â€œI see. Strictly no modern improvements. Yes, I know the place. Just go on a little way through the town and there’s a turn-off to the left. I’ll show you.”
    Susan said:
    â€œHow far is it? I’m hungry after all.”
    And a man in shirt sleeves coming at his leisure to open the gates, heard her, and announced, grinning:
    â€œEvery one’s ’ungry ’ere. It’s the hair.”
    Drew scowled a little, pressing his self-starter, but Millicent laughed. They bumped across the line and out on to the road again. The mountains were lost now, and they ran between railway and houses till Bret, with a: “This is where we turn off,” sent them lurching up a steep hill on to a red earth road shut in on either side by bush.
    He directed, leaning forward to his father-in-law:
    â€œJust go a bit slower here – we have to turn off again on to a sort of track – I don’t want to miss it.”
    Drew asked suspiciously:
    â€œTrack?”
    â€œYes, just a rough cart track. I think this is it – yes, there, on your right – see it?”
    The Madison slowed ominously and stopped. Its owner stared at the track with surprise and disapproval.
    â€œDo you expect me to take a car in there?”
    Bret who had driven many cars where there was not even a track, suppressed a grin and said judicially:
    â€œIt’s not bad you know, really. Just take it slowly and it won’t hurt the springs.”
    â€œIt couldn’t,” Susan asserted tactfully. “They’re such marvellous springs. We haven’t felt a bump all the way.”
    Millicent intervened:
    â€œNo, Tom, not if you’d rather not. We could follow on to the end of this road. I can see blue through the trees. We’d find somewhere nice—”
    But the Madison was snorting contempt, lumbering its great front wheels up the gutter on the side of