It was not long before a barn-like building of slatted shingles appeared
in a clearing off the road, two or three miles below Steve's. It stood
on log foundations, as if on account of its importance, and had a door
at one end of its road-facing wall instead of in the middle, as ordinary
houses had, and two windows with small square panes of glass stared out
on the road.
Drovers and teamsters on the roads, as they passed, halted-up to listen
to the children singing, and went on their way with oaths of admiration,
throats and eyes aching sometimes at the memories and vivid pictures the
sound brought them.
Behind the school was the bark-thatched hut which had been run up for
the Schoolmaster to live in. Donald Cameron had given the plot of land
for the school and he had promised to sell the Schoolmaster a few acres
beside it, if he wanted to make use of his spare time to clear the land,
put in a crop, or make a garden. Mr Farrel soon intimated that he did,
and came to terms with Donald Cameron.
At first no more than a dozen children went to school. Some walked,
others came tumbling into the clearing, two or three a-back of a stolid,
jog-trotting, old horse, others arrived packed together in a
spring-cart. At the back of the clearing was a fenced paddock into which
the horses were turned during school hours.
They were a merry company of young warrigals, these children of the
hills, when they poured out of the school doorway, played in the
clearing at midday, munching their crusty lunches, or chased in the
horses, as a preliminary to scrambling on to them and racing each other
helter-skelter down the bush tracks, spreading and straggling in every
direction to their homes.
The Schoolmaster governed them all with an easy familiarity. He had an
eager, boyish way of talking when he explained a peculiarity of
spelling, or grammar, or a story from history--a light reckless humour
that made Mrs. Cameron, if she were sitting by the window, sewing, look
up uneasily, her serene face disturbed, her eyes mildly reproving. But
the children laughed and loved the flippancies. They scratched and
scraped the better for being on good terms with the Schoolmaster,
although Mrs. Cameron was afraid that they had not a proper respect for
him and that he was not dignified enough with them.
She was not the only woman who sat on the seat by the window. Sometimes
Mrs. Ross or Mrs. Morrison took a turn there and knitted or stitched as
they watched to see that the Schoolmaster's behaviour was all that might
be expected. They knew nothing of Mr. Farrel's history or antecedents.
As far as they were concerned he was a broken-down Irishman who had come
to make his fortune on the goldfields and lost any money he had. That
was his story; and that he wanted to live a quiet life for awhile, away
from the temptations and risks of the scramble for gold. His manner and
air were decorous enough to make them believe it; and after the first
few visits of inspection they were satisfied not to make any more. Only
Mary Cameron was concerned as to the nature of some of the seeds he was
sowing in the minds of the young generation. She had heard him
describing the state of Ireland under His Most Gracious Majesty George
III. to the older boys and girls, and on another occasion had heard him
telling them that the exports of Great Britain were cotton and woollen
goods, coal and iron, and convicts to New South Wales and Van Diemen's
Land.
"Did you have good lessons to-day, Davey," she asked one evening when
her son was poring over his books.
"Not half as good as yesterday, when you were there, mother," he said.
"Why, how was that?" she asked.
"Oh, Mr. Farrel says more things to make us laugh when you're there," he
said, going on with his writing, painstakingly. "He made me do sums all
this morning, and I'd never have got them right if Deirdre hadn't helped
me. He lets her sit next me, now."
When school was out, a day or two later, Mrs. Cameron rose from her seat
by the window. She tied her bonnet strings.
The Schoolmaster hummed the tune the children had been singing before
they clattered out for the day; it was an old English folk song that he
had taught them. As he put away his books and pencils, his eyes wandered
towards Mrs. Cameron once or twice. Her back was to him; she was looking
out of the window.
He strode over to her. He knew she was displeased. His eyes had the
guilty look of awaiting reproof, the glad light of the miscreant who
knows that he has done wrong but has enjoyed doing it. He had not
admitted to himself even that his reason for talking to make the
children laugh and pointing a story from history with a radical or
cynical moral, was that her anxiety about the instruction they were
getting might not be quite lulled. He did not want her to give up coming
to the school and cease to occupy the seat by the window occasionally.
But there was something in her face this afternoon that he had not seen
there before.
"It was a pity to talk to the children the way you did to-day," she said
simply.
"Facts, Mrs. Cameron!" he cried gaily. "The facts of life presented in
an interesting form are far more important to boys and girls than a
knowledge of--let us say--geography."
"It was geography, among other things, we asked you to teach them," she
replied.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am."
His pride was cut to the quick; he bowed, awkwardly.
"I shan't be coming to the school any more, Mr. Farrel," she said after
a few moments. There was an odd mixture of dignity and humility in her
bearing.
"We're all grateful to you for what you have done in teaching the
children. I knew from the first that you were to be trusted--that no
harm would come of your schooling--and Davey has told me that it is only
when I am here that you talk as you have done to-day. You know I've been
coming for my own learning and not to see that you taught properly. I
came often because I wanted to learn, and keep up with Davey ... so that
I could help him by-and-by, perhaps."
There was an unmistakable break in her voice.
"It was not very kind ... to laugh at me."
She took the wild flowers from the jar of water on her table by the
window, as she always did, and went to the door.
It had been very pleasant for her to sit on the bench under the window,
hearing the children sing old country songs, and listening to the
Schoolmaster telling them of other parts of the world, of rules of
speech and calculation, of the nature of the earth, the heavens, the
stars and the sea, of kingdoms, strange peoples, and their histories and
occupations. The sunlight had come through the open window; and a
breeze, bearing the honey fragrance of the white-gum blossoms fleecing
the trees on the edge of the clearing, had fanned her face. She was so
sorry to be giving up those days in the school-room that a mist of tears
stood in her eyes as she glanced about it. She had felt an innocent,
almost childish pleasure in them, and in learning with the children.
"Mrs. Cameron--"
The Schoolmaster sprang after her. The trouble in his face surprised
her.
"Don't say that I--that I--that you think I could--"
He was not able to say "laugh at you." But she had gone.
He dropped into her chair by the window and threw his arms across the
table.