It was early next morning that Cameron's cart with its slowly moving,
heavy grey horse drew up before Steve's, and Mrs. Cameron herself got
down from it.
The Schoolmaster was pacing the long kitchen. He had not been still a
moment since Pete M'Coll brought his news. Pete had gone back to the
Wirree to see if anything more had been heard of Davey, whether he was
to be brought back to the district for trial, or was being held in
Melbourne. The story of his arrest had come through on the vessel that
brought stores to Port Southern, but it was very vague. A rumour had
reached the _Albatross_ an hour or two before she was sailing that a
young man saying he was David Cameron--Young Davey--Cameron of Ayrmuir's
son, had been arrested for cattle-stealing, and that he and a nigger
were being detained on the charge. Pete had not returned, but the
Schoolmaster set about making preparations for a journey. Deirdre had
packed his tucker bag; his blanket was rolled up to strap on his saddle.
"Which way are you going?" Deirdre asked.
She knew that the schooner would probably be gone before he could reach
the Port, and that it would continue its passage along the coast to Rane
before turning back and making for Port Phillip. He had thought of all
that too.
"I'll ride," he said.
"What are you going to do," she asked anxiously.
"I don't know!"
Out of the chaos of his thoughts no plan of action had yet formed.
Then Mrs. Cameron came. Deirdre brought her into the kitchen.
"It's Mrs. Cameron, father," she said, and left them.
Farrel turned in the direction of her voice. He made a movement towards
Mrs. Cameron, who was standing just within the doorway. His hand went
out with a seeking motion.
"I ... I can't see you," he said, a little querulously.
Her hand met his.
She knew from his face the desperate and troubled state of mind he was
in, and he, hers, from her fluttered breath and the sob that went with
it.
"I've come to ask you to keep a promise," she said.
"Yes?"
"You remember the promise?"
For a moment he did not remember any words--any formal undertaking; but
he knew to what she referred.
"You said ... long ago," her voice was scarcely audible, "that if ever
you could do anything for me or mine--"
"Yes," he said. "If ever I can do anything, I want to."
She sank into a chair. Her hands flew to her bonnet strings. She untied
them.
"You know what it is I want you to do?" she asked.
"Yes."
He felt for his chair. It was near the one she had taken. He sat down
and turned his face towards her. He could just see a dim outline of her
against the morning brightness. To him she was a grey figure with a
heavy black shadow about her. He strained to meet her eyes again. The
very magic of them seemed to illumine her face for him, show him its
beautiful outlines. And yet perhaps, he did not see them at all. It was
all memory and vivid imagining that gave him the illusion. He did not
see her face, thin and lined with pain and loneliness, the patience and
vague disappointment that had come to dwell in her eyes.
"I want you to get the boy off for me ... to have this charge removed,"
she said, tremulously.
The Schoolmaster knew that this was what he had meant to try to do; but
now that she had asked him, he told himself that it must be done. The
means employed to lift the burden of blame from Davey's shoulders he
knew--would have to be very sure ones. Davey, himself, would not say
anything to implicate Conal or anyone else. Evidently the story of his
droving for Donald Cameron had not carried much weight.
"Yes," the Schoolmaster said, "I will."
He had no doubt of himself now that she had appealed to him.
"Oh," she cried, after a few moments. "I knew that it was some mischief
to us McNab was planning. I can see it all now. I thought it was you, or
Conal, he was trying to get at. McNab told Donald that cattle were being
moonlighted--most of them Ayrmuir breakaways and wild cattle--at the
back of our hills. But he did not know that Davey was droving for Conal,
not till he asked me this morning, and I told him. I didn't know myself
till a few days ago, when Davey came to me after church. Then he said
he'd been working with Conal, and I begged him not to any more, and told
him what his father and McNab were trying to do. He promised to come
home, but he never came. I was afraid to tell his father for fear he'd
never forgive him, and every day I thought Davey'd be coming in the
gate. McNab knew, of course. Everybody else in the Wirree seems to have
known, but us, that Davey was with Conal. It was to bring our pride in
the dust, to make Davey's father the shamed and disgraced man he is, he
did it. But Where's Conal? How is it he's not there with Davey? Why did
Davey ever go in for this business? Why are you in it? I thought that
you would never be doing anything again that would bring you under the
law."
The distress and reproach in her voice hurt him.
"I thought so too," he said bitterly.
He did not attempt to excuse himself; and the sightless eyes that gazed
at her did not accuse.
His mind was back to the subject between them.
"This is the concern of two men, I and another," he said. "Davey was no
more than a hired drover. Besides--"
"Where is Conal?" Mrs. Cameron asked.
"Away."
His tone forbade further inquiry.
There was silence a moment.
"How does Mr. Cameron take it?"
"He's broken altogether."
"Would he"--the Schoolmaster hesitated--"would he consent to say that
Davey was droving for him. There were D.C. cows in the mob."
Mrs. Cameron hesitated.
"I think he would do anything--anything in the world to get the boy
off," she said.
"I don't know that it would do ... whether it would work," the
Schoolmaster said a little wearily. "Probably Davey has said that he was
putting the mob through for his father. He said he would if anything
happened. If inquiries are made, will you tell Mr. Cameron to back up
the story ... it's the only chance. Davey may have been only detained
until it could be ascertained whether he is Donald Cameron's son and
whether Cameron authorised him to sell the cattle. It would be a
splendid opportunity to spoil McNab's game, if it could be done.... But
if, for some reason I don't know of yet, it can't be worked, there's
another way."
"You mean you'll say you were responsible. Davey was only a drover with
you," Mrs. Cameron asked.
"Yes."
She uttered a little cry.
"It was what I meant you to do, but I can't bear to think of it," she
said.
She covered her face with her hands.
The Schoolmaster was thinking deeply too; the iron of despair had
entered his soul.
"What will it mean?" she asked, looking up at him.
"Three years hard labour on the roads of the Colony or other place as
the judge may direct," he quoted, his voice a little uncertain.
"Tell me," she said, rising, a tide of feeling carrying fire to her
eyes, dignity to her figure and a subtle timbre to her voice, "would you
rather I had not come? Would you rather I had let Davey take his
punishment? I'm not sure that he does not deserve it in spite of what
you say."
"No!" Farrel cried, passionately.
He grasped her hand. His face fell over it.
"It is the best thing in the world ... for me ... to do something for
you," he said.
Mrs. Cameron caught her breath when for a moment he carried her fingers
to his lips.
"You'll look after Deirdre," he said, "if--"
"Yes."
She stood uncertainly looking at him, a pitiful, quivering emotion in
her eyes; then she moved away.
"Good-bye," he said, mechanically, hearing the brush of her garments as
she left the room.
"Good-bye," she said.
Deirdre saw that Mrs. Cameron's cheeks were wet with tears when she
climbed into the buggy again. She did not speak, but drove silently
away.
Deirdre had been rubbing Bess's nose and feeding her with handfuls of
grass. When she went back to the kitchen her father was sitting with his
arms over the side of his chair, his head on them. She flew to him; her
arms entwined him. But he pushed her away, with unconscious roughness.
"Go away!" he whispered.
An angry pain at his grief, at Mrs. Cameron who in some way had been the
cause of it, surged through Deirdre.
Pete M'Coll rode into the yard. He threw his bridle over the hitching
post.
"Any news?" Deirdre asked.
He shook his head and went into the kitchen.
Later the Schoolmaster called Steve in. She heard Steve's voice raised
complainingly, her father's, with settled determination, against it. Her
heart was sore. Why was he not telling her his plans as he was telling
Steve?
She heard him arranging to take Pete with him to Melbourne.
"I'm going too, father," she cried, flashing into the kitchen. "What
have I done that you shouldn't tell me what you are going to do. You're
talking to every one else, and my heart's breaking."
The Schoolmaster drew her into his arms. "You're not coming, dear," he
said. "You're best out of this. I want you to wait here with Steve till
Davey comes back."
"And you too, father?"
He held her close in his arms.
"Yes, me too, of course, darling."
He crushed her face against his.
"It's great times we've had together, my darling, isn't it?" he asked.
"I don't like going without you, but it's better. It's great times we've
had together ... and now I'm an old blind devil that wouldn't be able to
look after you properly in the town. It's not a nice place for a girl to
be going about in, and I'd be no good to look after you--no more than a
burden. Pete here'll be my guide and take me by the track round the
swamp to Melbourne. He says he couldn't do the short cut across the
swamp, but he knows the roundabout track all right. We'll have to be
busy on Davey's account then. You'll be a good wife to Davey, won't you,
darling? And happy as the day's long when he gets back. But you do love
me, too, don't you, darling black head? For God's sake say you love me."
His voice broke.
Deirdre flung her arms about him, reckless of all but that some trouble
within had forced that cry. There was a bitter undertone in his words
that she did not understand, although she associated them in some way
with Davey's mother and the disturbance and mental turmoil into which
Davey's arrest had put him.
"I love you," she cried, "more than all the world--more than Davey, more
than anyone or anything in it!"
He stooped and kissed her.
"What a jealous brute I am," he murmured, "to have taken that from you."
"There's nothing you haven't told me?" she asked, searching his face.
"No," he replied, turning his face from her and burying it in her hair.
"You haven't told me anything at all of what you're going to do to get
Davey off," she said sharply.
"Oh, well," he parried. "I don't know ...I haven't decided ... it will
depend upon circumstances."
He recognised the anxiety of her voice.
"You aren't going to try and get him off by putting yourself in his
place, are you?" she asked, doubtfully. "You've really been less in the
thing than he has, and he's young and strong and--"
"Oh no," the Schoolmaster laughed lightly. "I wouldn't try to do that!"
He went out to the stable-yard. When the Kangaroo was saddled, he took
Deirdre in his arms again.
She watched him cantering down the road on the great raking grey,
towards the inland plains, Pete M'Coll, on one of Steve's horses, a few
yards behind him. The thought of that cry of his troubled her. Why had
he said: "For God's sake, say you love me!"
The flood of her love for him rose and filled her, the love of all those
early years, when he had been mother, brother and playfellow. Little
pictures of his tenderness, of his gay good-fellowship, of his care,
flitted before her. Because for years it had moved so tranquilly, she
had scarcely realised the depth and power of that passionate affection,
but now that he had called for it, showed his need of it, as he had
never done even in the old days, it surged tempestuously.