CHAPTER XVII
Davey had said good-bye to the Schoolmaster.
"Well, I'll be going now," he said, moving away clumsily.
He had said all he could, though there was not much of that. Most ofwhat he wanted to say remained deep within him. He could not dig it up.The words to express his feeling would not come. He had mutteredsomething about "passing that way" and having come in "to say good-bye,"when he entered the big, bare room at Steve's.
He had not seen Deirdre, nor the Schoolmaster, since the night of thefires. His father had kept him busy; and with all the work of the newbuildings going up at Ayrmuir there was plenty to do. He talked of itfor a while in a strained, uninterested fashion.
"Deirdre told me mother put up a great fight for the house," he said,"but of course the old man doesn't give her credit for that--thinks hecould have saved it, if he had been on the spot in time. I wish he hadbeen there. I'd like to 've seen if he could've beaten a fire--with thatwind against him. I might've been with mother a bit earlier and beenable to help her, if I'd had a decent nag--and that's what I toldhim--but I'm not likely to get one. The expense of the new buildings hasgot him down, and he's mad because Nat left a couple of hundredyearlings in one of the back paddocks. We ran in about a hundred of 'emlast week--found some burnt to cinders--the others 've got away."
Awkwardly, uncertainly, he shifted his feet. He did not want to go, tosay the final words, and yet he did not know how to stay. Farrelunderstood that and kept him talking longer. He was still wearing abandage over his left eye.
"Your eye's all right, isn't it?" Davey asked. "It isn't seriously hurt?Mother was asking me the other day if it was better. She doesn't knowhow it happened, Mr. Farrel."
"How what happened?" Farrel asked.
A spasm of pain twitched his lean, sunburnt features. He was sittingwith his back to the light on a low bench under the window.
"How you got that burn about your eyes," said Davey. "But I saw. If youhadn't tried to prevent the branch falling on mother, the way she wasstanding, it would have come down on her face."
"It might have fallen on any of us."
The Schoolmaster spoke sharply.
"I hope you're not going to have any trouble with it," Davey said.
"No, of course not."
Dan rose from his seat under the window.
"You'll be wanting to say good-bye to Deirdre, too, won't you, Davey?"
He went across to the door and called into the next room:
"Davey's going, Deirdre!"
But though a muffled sound of someone moving came from it, there was noanswer.
He called again; but still there was no reply.
"She must have gone to bring in the cows for Steve," the Schoolmastersaid. "Never mind, I'll tell her you left a message for her."
"Yes," said the boy, folding and re-folding his hat.
But it did not seem the same thing as seeing Deirdre and saying good-byeto her himself.
"Mind, if there's any books you're wanting, or any way I can help you,if you want to study more, you can always let me know, and I'll be gladto do anything I can for you," the Schoolmaster said. "Steve will pass aletter on to me. I don't know where we'll settle at first, or just whatwe're going to do, but he'll generally know our whereabouts. And there'sone other thing I'd like to say, Davey, you can always be sure of afriend in the world. If you get into a scrape, or any sort of trouble,will you remember that?"
They gripped hands.
"Thank you, Mr. Farrel," Davey muttered. "But I wish you weren't going,"he added, desperately.
"I wish we weren't too," Farrel said with a sigh, "but then you seepeople don't want to build the school again. They don't think there'sthe same need for one now. Most of the girls I've been teaching for thelast few years can teach the children coming on well enough. Andbesides, there's talk of Government schools being set up everywhere."
"Yes."
Davey's countenance was one of settled gloom.
"Good-bye."
The Schoolmaster wrung his hand.
Davey found himself lifting his rein from the docked sapling in theshanty yard.
Two other horses, with reins hung over the post, stood before Steve'sbar; a couple of cattle dogs lay at their heels nosing the dust. Thefowls scratching in the stable-yard spread their wings and cackled as heturned out of the yard to the road.
"So-long, Davey," the Schoolmaster called from the verandah.
"S'-long," Davey replied.
The loose gravel rolled under his mare's feet as she slipped and sliddown the hill, the reins hanging loose on her neck. He looked straightbefore him, trying to understand the state of his mind. He had notexpected to be so disturbed at taking leave of the Schoolmaster. Then heremembered that he had not seen Deirdre--to say good-bye to her, hethought.
For the first time he realised that she was going away--going out of hislife. Perhaps that realisation had been at the bottom of his thought allthe time; but it struck him suddenly, viciously, now.
He was looking into the distance, dazed by the tumult within him, when ablithe voice called him, and glancing up he saw Deirdre standing on thebank by the roadside.
"There you are, Davey!" she cried. "Going away without saying a word tome! I'd a good mind to let you go."
She was breathless with running across the paddocks to reach the turn inthe road. The wind had blown her dark hair into little tendrils abouther face, and there was a sparkle of anger in her eyes.
"I heard what you said to father," she went on, "and if you haven'tanything better to say to me, I'll go back."
Davey gazed at her. He gazed as though he had never seen her before. Sheseemed another creature, nothing like the ragged little urchin who hadclimbed trees with him and ridden to school straddle-legged behind him;nothing like the sedate housewife his mother had made of her, either.
Deirdre stared at him too, as though he were quite different from theDavey she had known. A shy smile quivered on her lips. She pluckednervously at trails of the scarlet-runners which overhung the bank, andput the end of a runner between her teeth and chewed the stalk.
Davey saw that her lips were as scarlet as the flowers that, likebroken-winged butterflies, hung at the end of the trail.
He slid off his horse and stood facing her. His limbs were trembling.
"What's the matter?" she asked, a little distress creeping into hervoice.
Davey's face was tense and colourless.
To the trouble which had surprised him that day, a strange soft thrillwas added when she put the runner stalk with its scarlet flowers betweenher teeth. It struck him with a strange pang that Deirdre was beautiful,that her lips were the same colour as the flowers hanging near them.
It was all translated, this emotion of his, in the shamed, shy smilethat came into his face as he stared at her.
Deirdre understood well enough.
She scrambled down the bank and went to him.
"You are sorry we're going, aren't you, Davey?" she asked.
He nodded, finding he could not speak.
The gloom of the forest was closing round them, the sunset dying. Shesighed and slipped her hand into his.
After a few moments, as he said nothing, she spoke again.
"It'll be all changed, I suppose, when father and I come back," shesaid. "We _will_ come back, by and by, sometime, you know, father says.We'll come to see Steve, perhaps. But we'll be grown up ... quite, youand I, Davey. You'll be married, and I--"
"What?"
Davey had wakened.
"I was saying, we'll be grown-up and married, perhaps by the time we seeeach other again," Deirdre murmured. "None of the times'll come againlike the ones when we went home on Lass, or in the spring-cart, orwalked, and chased wallies and went after birds' nests. I wish theycould! I wish I could be just ten when I come back and give you a racedown the road, Davey."
Her voice ran on quickly, but Davey's mind stuck on her first words.
"There's only one
girl I'll be married to," he said.
"Yes." Her eyes leapt to his. "Jess Ross!"
"Who says so?"
"She does." Deirdre laughed. "She says she's the only girl you've everkissed. And her mother says--"
"When she was a kid, they put her face up to me; but I never kissedher--or any girl," Davey said.
"I didn't believe it, of course!"
Deirdre laughed softly.
"Why?"
"Well--I thought--if there was any girl you'd be wanting to kiss, itwould be me, Davey!"
The bright shy glance that flew towards him, and the quiver of her lips,fired the boy.
His arms went out to her. He caught her shoulder and held her to him.For an instant he did not know whether it was night or day. But when hewithdrew from that moment of unconsciousness, wild, uncontrollable joyand possession, his eyes were humid. And her eyes beneath his were likepools in the forest which the fallen-leaf mould has darkened and thetwilight striking through the trees makes a dim, mysterious mirror of.
"Deirdre," he whispered, as if he had never before said her name, and tosay it were like singing in church.
He kissed her again, slowly and tenderly; the first pressure of her lipshad made a man of him.
"You're my sweetheart, aren't you, Deirdre?" he said exultingly, holdingher in his arms and gazing down at her. "When you come back we'll bemarried."
"Yes," Deirdre whispered.
Her eyes reflected the glow of her heart.
"I've always meant to marry you, Davey, though I've sometimes pretendedI liked Mick Ross, or Buddy Morrison better." She drew a little sigh."But I'm so glad it's all settled, now ... and we're really going tomarry each other."
The sunset had died out of the sky, and the forest was dark about themwhen they kissed and whispered "good-bye--for a little while." Daveycould scarcely say the words. He watched Deirdre as she fled up hill tothe shanty; then leaping on his horse he sent her clattering down hill,all his young manhood--the tumult of his love, awakened senses,rejoicing and dreams--orchestrating within him.
The Pioneers Page 17