It took Mrs. Cameron some time to make her round of visits. But she was
very pleased with the result of them. On the afternoon of the third day,
she drove in a high spring-cart, up the steep hillside, on the top of
which a shanty had been built only a few months before.
It was a stopping place for stockmen and travellers on the overland
track, the only one between the scattered settlements on the other side
of the ranges and the Wirree River. From the head of the ranges it
looked down on the falling slopes of lesser hillsides and on the wide
sweep of the inland plains. It was not more than five or six miles from
Ayrmuir, but she had made it the last place to visit, thinking that she
might not have time to get to it before her husband was due to return
from the Clearwater. She had settled in her own mind to make a separate
journey some afternoon if she could not include it in this one. But her
plans had gone well and briskly.
All the women she had seen thought the school a good idea and were
anxious to have it; the men had promised to help in the building, and to
pay the share that she had mentioned as likely to be asked of them for
the Schoolmaster's services.
Davey had enjoyed the first part of the excursion as much as she had. He
had romped and run wild with boys and girls on the homesteads they had
been to. It was only when they were leaving Ross's that morning he had
been disturbed. After his mother and Mrs. Ross had kissed good-bye, Mrs.
Cameron had shaken hands with Ted and Mick Ross and kissed little
Jessie, and he had shaken hands with Mrs. Ross and grinned at the boys,
Mrs. Ross exclaimed:
"Why Davey hasn't said good-bye to Jess!"
She had lifted the child up to his face. Jess's soft skin against his
and her wet baby mouth overwhelmed him with confusion. He brushed his
coat sleeve across his cheek.
"Oh Davey!" his mother laughed.
Mrs. Ross laughed too, and Ted and Mick giggled hilariously.
Davey had climbed into the cart and taken his seat by his mother, angry
and offended. He had no idea why they were laughing at him; and he sat
stolid and sullen, brooding over it all the morning.
When they came to the ramshackle house of grey palings, with a roof of
corrugated iron, on the top of the hill, two or three dogs flew out,
barking furiously. A bullock-wagon was drawn up on the side of the road,
and a lean stock horse, hitched to a post, stood twitching his tail to
keep the flies away. Half a dozen scraggy fowls scratched and pecked
about the water-butt.
A bare-legged little girl with wind-tossed dark hair ran out and stood
staring at them. She had a little white, freckled face, and eyes as shy
and bright as a startled wild creature.
Mrs. Cameron got down from the cart, leaving Davey in it holding the
reins.
"Good-day," she said to the child. "I want to see Mr. Stevens."
The child stared at her.
Then a man came to the dark doorway of the house, a lean, lithe man,
with bearded chin and quick restless eyes.
She went towards him and explained in a few eager words why she had
come.
"Will you come in and take a seat, ma'am," he asked, his voice vibrating
strangely.
She went into the house; its very shadow exhaled a stale smell of crude
spirits and tobacco.
"You'd better give Lass a drink, Davey," she called. "I'll be back
presently."
The room she stepped into was kept with an attempt at orderliness. It
was bare and cleanly. The dull afternoon sunshine garnished its bare
walls, the rough chairs and the bunks against the wall. The man had
followed her into the room and now faced her. There was a suspension of
the breath in his nostrils as this quiet, grey-clad woman lifted her
eyes to his.
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes.
People passed and repassed the room, feet dragged, curious glances
strayed into it.
"If you recognise us--give us away--the game's up," he muttered.
"I understand," Mrs. Cameron said.
"Steve made some money on the fields," he said. "He bought this place
and Deirdre and I came with him to see him settled. Deirdre--the child
you saw outside--belongs to me."
"It's about her I came," Mrs. Cameron explained hurriedly, glad to leave
the ground of troubled memory.
She described the scheme for getting a school in the district, building
a room somewhere on the roadside, at a point where it could be reached
by children of the scattered clearings.
"Who's to be the teacher?" he asked.
Sitting on a low form, he leaned across the table and gazed at her.
Through the open window she could see Davey sitting up very stiff and
straight in the spring-cart. He had taken his red history book from his
pocket and was pretending to read. The child whom the man before her had
called Deirdre was standing staring at him. A smile flitted across Mrs.
Cameron's face. She thought that Davey had not forgiven her sex for the
discomfiture it had put upon him that morning, and was determined to
have nothing to do with little girls.
"That's our difficulty, the teacher," she said. "The only persons who
have the education, who are able to be teachers, are--"
"Transports--convicts," he interrupted harshly. "Beg your pardon,
ma'am"--his voice dropped contritely as he continued--"You were saying
the only persons in the colony who could be school teachers are persons
of evil character who could not be depended on not to corrupt the
children. What are you going to do then?"
"We thought if we could get a young man with the education, who seemed
reformed, we would give him a chance," she said. "For a while the
mothers would go to the school and sit there during some of the
lesson-times to see--"
"That the children did not learn more than their reading, writing and
arithmetic."
"Yes," she smiled. "Do you think you would be willing to let your little
girl come to the school if we can get a teacher?"
He flung off his seat and strode restlessly up and down the room.
"She's a wild cat. She wouldn't go unless--"
He threw back his head looking at her, a blithe defiance creeping into
his eyes and voice.
"Unless you made me the teacher," he said. "What would you say if I
applied for the post?"
"You!"
Her eyes were wide with amazement.
"Oh I thought so!" he laughed. "But your reformed young man would have
something of a past too, you know, and it might not be as clean even as
mine. It's a pity you won't consider me as a likely person. I've got
what you call the 'education.'"
"Have you?" she asked eagerly. "The grammar, geography, all the--the
learning that is--'essential to a liberal education'?"
"All that, and letters after my name for it," he said, bitterly. "But
I'm an Irishman ... I called myself a patriot--and any stick is good
enough to beat a dog with. I don't know exactly what they called my
offence--'inciting to revolt,' or 'using seditious language,' perhaps;
but I have earned my sentence since I got here. It was that I was doing
all the time in New South Wales and the Island--'inciting to revolt' and
'using seditious language' ... but the fire's gone out of me now. I want
a quiet life."
In his eyes she read a passionate impatience and weariness.
"If you were willing that I should be the Schoolmaster, the other people
would be likely to have me, perhaps," he continued. "They would not know
what you know, and I can play the part of the broken-down fool who has
lost every penny he had on the fields."
"It does not rest with me, naming the Schoolmaster, of course," she
said, a little troubled. "But if the others are willing to have you I
shall be glad."
She had a native grace that took for granted in others her own sincerity
and purity of motive.
"I am grateful, Mrs. Cameron," he said.
She smiled to think that he knew her name.
"You are--"
"Daniel Farrel," he said.
When they went out of doors Lass was standing deserted, with her nose
over the water-butt. There was no sight or sound of Davey or Deirdre.
Her father called; and presently she came racing round the corner of the
house, hair flying, and eyes bright with mischief and laughter.
Davey followed at a breakneck pace. His collar was twisted and a jagged
three-cornered tear showed in his grey trousers. The girl flew to her
father. Davey came to a standstill sheepishly, a few yards from his
mother.
"What have you been doing, Deirdre?" Farrel asked.
"Showing him the ring-tail 'possum's nest in the tree at the back of the
cow-yard," she said eagerly. "He couldn't climb because his trousers
were too tight, and I raced him up the hill."
"She's a wild thing--has never had anybody but me to look after her," he
said to Mrs. Cameron, the black head under his hand.
"Her mother's dead?" Mrs. Cameron asked gently.
"Yes," he said.
Davey and Mrs. Cameron drove away. Davey craned his neck, looking back
along the road several times, and the last time he looked Deirdre was
standing alone, an elfish figure outlined against the sunset.
"She _can_ run, mother!" he cried, his eyes alight. "She can run and
climb quicker than anybody I ever saw. P'raps--I believe she's a
Pelling, mother! She's got the bright eyes and black hair."
"Maybe"--Mary Cameron said, smiling at his eagerness and belief in the
old story, "maybe there's fairy blood in her veins."