A sou'wester was tearing across the plains, threatening to sweep the
whole Wirree township off its foundations and dash the fragments of the
mud houses against the hills. It broke round the Black Bull with the
noise of great guns, and in the pauses of its blowing the booming of the
sea on the beaches five miles away could be heard.
When Davey burst open the door he brought a gust of wind into the
tap-room that set the lights sputtering and flaring. Two of them went
out. The glasses on McNab's bench danced as he hammered it with his
fists.
"For two pins I'd thrash you," he yelled. "You got me into borrowing
money from you. I was a blamed young fool! But what's your game? What do
you mean playing fair to me and then giving me away to the old man. A
neat way of bleeding him, that's what it was. Getting me in here drunk
and then--"
The Schoolmaster was playing cards with a couple of men on an upturned
box behind the door. He threw down his cards and took Davey's arm.
The boy threw it off.
"Leave me alone, Mr. Farrel," he cried. "I'd sweep the floor with
the--the damned swine, if he were worth sweeping the floor with. You're
all afraid of him. Well, I'm not! You see here, Mister McNab," he leant
across the bar and his eyes burnt their way into the pale shifty eyes of
Thad McNab. "I'll break every bone in your body if you ever interfere
between me and mine again. D'you hear that? I don't know what you've got
up your sleeve, and I don't care! You just keep it there, see, or it'll
be the worse for you."
McNab had blenched at the boy's headlong passion. The quivering long
arms seemed scarcely able to keep themselves off his miserable
shoulders.
His skin was the gingery colour of his hair, and though he grinned
feebly, looking everywhere but at Davey, there was not a man who did not
see he was trembling. Thad McNab was a coward, everybody knew that.
There was nothing in the world he feared more than the vengeance which
might wreak itself on his miserable body. As Young Davey stamped out of
the bar there was a rustle of movement, smothered oaths of surprise and
amusement, a swinging of eyes after him with something of admiration and
applause in them; but McNab was recovering himself. He gazed
speechlessly after the boy too; there was a ghost of a smile on his
face. His mind was working; his lips moved though no words came. The men
who had wanted to cheer Young Davey shifted their opinions uneasily.
There would be more to score to McNab's account yet, they imagined.
The Schoolmaster did not follow Davey out of the bar as he felt inclined
to; but when the boy had gone McNab looked across at him.
"That's what comes of interferin', Farrel," he said.
"You'll know better another time, won't you, McNab," the Schoolmaster
drawled, looking up from the cards he was holding. "It's a bad business
getting between father and son."
McNab's smile changed.
"I was alludin' to your interferin' when I had a bit of business on
hand, Mr. Farrel," he snarled.
"Had you a bit of business on, Thad?" the Schoolmaster asked. "Who with?
Davey? And did I interfere? Well, now you beat me! Out with it! Let's
hear all about it. We're all old friends here."
McNab's wrath surged so that he could not speak.
"There now!" Farrel cried. "He won't tell! Never mind, McNab, you came
off very well! When Young Davey came in I thought he'd have you out on
the road for a certainty, and he's a pretty bruiser. Showed him how to
put up his fists myself a couple of years ago."
It was Dan's way of saying things, with a whimsicality, an inimitable
geniality, tinged with sarcasm, that brought the house down.
When the men in the bar threw back their heads and stretched their lungs
that night, Thad did not laugh. He stood, shivering, with gimlet flames
in his eyes, his fingers twitching restlessly. There were drinks all
round and the Schoolmaster played another rubber before he swung out of
the shanty and into the wind that roared and beat over the plains.
Davey was waiting in the lee of the garden fence round Farrel's cottage,
his little red mare set with her haunches against the wind.
"What is it, Davey?" the Schoolmaster asked when he saw him.
"It's this, Mr. Farrel," Davey said, on a short breath, "I've quarrelled
with the old man. I want a job."
The cottage was in darkness. But after he had taken Davey to the stable
and they had turned Red into it, they went indoors, and a light gleamed
from the small square windows until the sky was waning on the edge of
the plains. Then Davey came to the door and the Schoolmaster with him.
"It's not advice--as I told you--but a job I'm wanting," the boy said.
His voice carried against the wind, hoarse with anger and
disappointment.
"But this job, Davey, you know what it is."
The Schoolmaster's voice was troubled.
"Yes, I know--haven't I told you. As a matter of fact I haven't the
price of food or a bed on me, and I'm not going back for it. You said
these cattle of Maitland's in the yards would have to be taken to the
hills. Maitland's got fattening paddocks up beyond Steve's, hasn't he?
Tim and Pat Kearney have cleared off to the new rush, and you said you'd
have to get somebody to take them for Conal."
"You can have what money--" the Schoolmaster began.
"It wasn't what I asked for," Davey said curtly.
None knew better than Farrel what the difficulties of his getting work
of any sort would be in the Wirree with McNab's mark against him. In the
hills no one would employ him for fear of offending Donald Cameron. But
it was neither McNab, nor Donald Cameron, the Schoolmaster was thinking
of when he tried to persuade the boy to go home. Not a word moved Davey
from his purpose to be independent.
"If you take this mob to-morrow, you will clear out then and look for
another job on the other side of the ranges?"
"Yes," Davey said eagerly.
"Right," the Schoolmaster replied, "but I don't want you in this
business with Conal, Davey."
The boy gripped his hand.
"You said if ever I was hard-up for a friend," he said, "to come to you.
And this job with those beasts of Maitland's is the only thing sticking
out for me just now."
Farrel turned away wearily.
"I'd be glad enough to stand by you always, Davey," he said. "But this
is different! I'd never forgive myself if I got you into a mess.
However, it can't do any harm your taking these beasts to Steve's.
Deirdre and I'll be going up in a day or two. I'll tell Conal about it.
Then you can go on over the ranges. There's always work on Middleton's
or Yaraan. Come in now and I'll make you a cup of tea."
Davey glanced at the lightening dome of the sky.
"It's a couple of hours to dawn yet," he said, with a sigh. "Then I'll
be going."