The Pioneers
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX
It was not every day there was dancing at Mrs. Mary Ann's--only onFridays, after the cattle sales.
And it was not every Friday that Pat Glynn could be got for the music.He wandered all over the country putting the devil into folks' heels. Hewas in the Port one day, in Wirreeford the next, then on to Rane, or offwandering somewhere over the ranges. Whenever word went round that Patwas coming the couples gathered from every direction. Whether theydanced on a wooden floor or on the grass was a matter of littleimportance. There was always a merry time when Pat Glynn put up anywherefor the night.
He came trotting into Wirreeford on the day of the early November sales,about two years after Deirdre and the Schoolmaster had left the hills.The township was full of dust, cattle, and dogs; boys, yelling, draftingand beating beasts from one yard to another, men watching them, drovers,lean, sun-dried, hawk-eyed men, cattle-buyers, cattle-owners andauctioneers. Horses were hanging on loose reins about the sale-yards, orin rows with drooping heads along the hitching posts at the Black Bulland Mrs. Hegarty's. Two or three heavy family carry-alls were drawn upbefore the store where the women, with children about them, wereshopping, buying lengths of calico, dress stuffs, or groceries andironmongery, to take home to the hills.
Word that Pat Glynn was at Hegarty's went round like wildfire.
So at Mrs. Mary Ann's it was that all the miscellaneous crowd of thesale-yards foregathered. They danced until the blood boiled underweather-beaten, leathern faces, and the rising sweat left furrows in thedust of the road on them. Matted, lank, sun-bleached hair lay in wetstreaky locks on foreheads marked with the line of hats that almost grewon them--the line beyond which the sunburn never travelled. Men, women,boys and girls of all ages, children, grandfathers and grandmothers, Patdanced them all to a state of breathless exhaustion.
As he tucked his fiddle under his chin and raked it with his long bow,his eyes gleamed with mischief and merriment. His arm went backwards andforwards so dexterously, with such agility, that the gay airs he playedpossessed him as well as everyone who heard them. Old men and women lefttheir benches by the wall and skipped and trundled until the pine floorshook.
The only people who were not dancing were a young mother with a baby inher arms and a teamster too drunk to do more than hang by the doorpost.He attempted a few wild and hilarious movements, fell headlong and wasdragged feet foremost to the door and thrown out, because he cumberedthe floor. The young mother joggled her baby and sang softly in tune toPat's music, enfolding the assembled company and Pat himself in herbeaming smile.
It was incense to Pat's soul to see everybody within earshot moving. Theclatter, rhythmic lift, shuffle and thump of heavily-shod feet was asgood to his ears as any of the old airs he played.
His arm flying quicker and quicker, sent old and young along with thestrain of his music, like corks on a stream. Heads bobbed, feet stampedbusily. A catch of laughter flew out. The elderly, stout mother of afamily called breathlessly: "Stop it, Pat! Stop it, ye villain!" But Patonly laughed and his fiddle arm flew faster, till the dancers droppedexhausted against the wall, or hung there gasping with a stitch in theirsides. When he had tired them all out, he lifted his bow with a flourishand a shout of laughter.
The two that kept the floor longer than most others were Jess--Ross'sJess, as she was called--and young Davey Cameron. They were reckoned afine pair of dancers. Pat had great pride in them. When everybody elsehad left the floor he made the pace faster and faster for them, tillthey whirled to a finish, watched and cheered by the crowd against thewalls. Off-scourings and derelicts of the Wirree, whom Mrs. Hegartywould not have to dance in her parlour, had to amuse themselves bylooking in the doorway, or by jigging as best they might out of doorsunder the star-strewn sky.
It was that night of the November sales, when Pat was at Hegarty's, thatthe Schoolmaster and Deirdre came back to the Wirree.
They put up at the Black Bull, and it was not until the dance was infull swing that they appeared in Mrs. Hegarty's doorway. Pat wasspeeding up a reel, his eyes kindling.
"Faith, it's a drop of the craythur you want to waken you up, MickRoss," he called.
Catching up the air of his tune, he sang gaily, and the company joinedin breathlessly at the top of its lungs.
He broke from the song into expostulation and explanation.
"There's the darlin' boy. Buddy Morrison," he cried, tears of laughterrunning down his withered cheeks. "But he'll break Morrison's daughter'sback for her! Let you be gentle with the girl, Buddy. It's a young lady,sir, not a heifer ye have by the horns--"
It was when Davey and Jess were having their last fling against Pat'smusic, and he scraping for all he was worth to beat them in theirwhirling and turning, that Jess saw a tall, dark-eyed girl watching themon the outskirts of the people who had just stopped dancing. She knewher at once, her dark eyes, white skin, the black hair that swept backfrom her face. It was Deirdre--Deirdre grown very tall and lithe andstraight-backed--Deirdre in a dark dress with a necklace of red beadsabout her neck and a blue ribband round her waist.
Jess knew what the look in her eyes meant as she watched the dancing;she knew and her heart exulted. Deirdre would see that Davey and she hadbecome great friends while she was away. He had not seen the girl in thedoorway. He flung Jess backwards and forwards, flushed and excited,spurred on by the music and the test of keeping step, losing no movementof hers, to be even with Pat when he drew his last chords. Jess flewwith him. Davey saw no more of her than her sonsy face, surrounded withthe fair wisps of curls. Her grey eyes came to him and her lips partedand smiled as her arms went out to him. She stumbled and fellbreathlessly at the last; he had to hold her to prevent her falling.
When up at the far end of the room he recovered his breath, his eyeswere shining. His laughter rang out, a gay challenge in it:
"How's that for a finish, Pat?"
"Oh, ye're a deevil, Davey!" the old man cried, mopping his forehead.
Jess had put herself before Davey and his view of the door; but he hadmoved to call to the fiddler.
He saw the group there and stood staring for a moment. The colour ebbedfrom his face. He recognised the Schoolmaster, though he wore a shadeover one eye now, but it was the sight of the dark head, the turn of agirl's shoulder and back near him that was a shock to Davey. The greatmoment had come. Deirdre had returned.
She stood with her back to the room, men and women gathered about herand the Schoolmaster. Davey heard her voice ring out. The sound of itthrilled him and left him trembling. It seemed only yesterday that shehad gone ... and yet it was ages--three years. They had written once ortwice at first, but somehow the letters had stopped. He had not heardfrom her for a long time. What could he do? What a lot there would be totell her. He wanted to show her his new horse, a sturdy red-bay that hehad coveted on sight and had induced his father to buy. Would he ever beable to go and speak to her, he wondered, his legs shook so. Would he beable to speak? His throat ached. Did she know that he, Davey, hersweetheart, was there against the wall, so full of love for her that hecould not move, that he could only gaze at her. If only she would cometo him. If only the whole of Mrs. Mary Ann's room would fall away fromthem--leave them, just Deirdre and he, together. He did not see Jess,did not realise that she was watching him with a pain in her eyes at thespell-bound wonder and adoration of his.
"It's Deirdre," she said, as if for her the end of the world had come.
"Yes," he breathed.
He could hear Deirdre laughing and chattering with the men and girls whohad been to school with her when she and the Schoolmaster lived in thehills. The Schoolmaster had gone out of doors again; but where he hadbeen, a long, black-browed drover of Maitland's, Conal--FightingConal--was standing, leaning against the wall and smiling down on her.Beneath the inexplicable exhilaration, the tingling, thrilling joy whichpossessed Davey, a slow wrath surged, at the way Conal looked and smiledat Deirdre, and at the way she looked--her eyes leaping up to his--andsmiled at Cona
l. But she was his, his sweetheart, and had promised tomarry him, Davey told himself, and the resurgent joy at seeing herflooded him.
"Aren't you going to dance, Davey?" Jess asked anxiously, when Pat beganto fiddle again.
"No," he said.
"If you're not going to get-up, can I have this one with Jess?" askedBuddy Morrison with restrained eagerness.
"What?" Davey asked, his eyes on Deirdre.
"If you're not getting-up, can I have this one with Jess?" repeated BudMorrison. His sun-scorched face and ruddy hair was responsible for hisyouthful appearance although he was older by a couple of years thanDavey.
He was Jess's most humble adorer, but his grief was that she would neverlook at him if Davey was looking at her.
"Oh, yes," Davey replied.
He watched Jess and Buddy Morrison go out among the dancers. His eyesflew back to where Deirdre had been standing. But she was dancing withConal.
A lightning tremor of surprise flickered through him; he caught hisbreath. That anybody but himself would dance with Deirdre had notoccurred to him. He made up his mind that he would go to her after thedance. What right had Conal to dance with her? He was caught in a cloudof troubled thought and dismay.
Davey watched them dancing, this tall slender girl with her hair knottedup on the nape of her neck and the long-limbed, bearded man who had cometo the sales for Sam Maitland. He could dance. He and Deirdre weredancing as the people in Wirreeford had never seen folk dancing, andConal's dark, handsome face was turned down to the girl's. It was notthe dance he was thinking of, but her. There was a gleam in his eyes asthey covered her; every movement was tender of her.
Jess, in a fury of impatience with her partner, dragged him off thefloor. He was heavy and slow on his feet, missed the time, and muddledhis steps. In order not to disgrace her own dancing she had to fall backagainst the wall.
When Deirdre came away from the dancers with her tall partner, Daveywent round to where they were standing. Once only he had seen her flasha swift glance round the room, then her eyes had not rested on him atall, but skimmed past him like swallows in flight. He thought that shehad not recognised him.
Now that he stood near her his heart throbbed pain-fully. She laughedand chattered with the people about her. Davey caught a word or two ofher greetings to old schoolfellows. Conal bent over her appropriatingly.Deirdre flashed a smile at him as she talked.
Davey stood on the edge of the crowd. A little hurt feeling began togrow in him. Would he never catch her eye? Would she never look his way?
Pat was calling for another dance.
The little crowd shifted and drifted away from Deirdre.
Mick Ross had the temerity to ask her if she would dance with him.
Davey heard him, and he heard Long Conal drawl lazily in reply:
"The man that dances with Deirdre will have to reck'n with me to-night."
"Well, I'm not wanting to reck'n with you, Conal," Mick replied,laughing, and withdrew to find another partner.
Davey's eyes sparkled.
He walked up to where Deirdre stood in the doorway with the drover.
"Will you dance with me, Deirdre?" he said.
"Why!" she exclaimed blithely, much as he had heard her exclaim to adozen others, "It's Davey Cameron grown up! I'd never 've known you,Davey, but for the scar on your neck where the calf kicked you. Do youremember the day we were taking him up to Steve's in the spring-cart?"
"Davey and I used to have great times at the school," she explained witha glance for Conal.
"This is Conal, you know, Long Conal, Davey--Fighting Conal--they callhim, don't they?" she went on with a little mischievous inflection inher voice.
"Yes, I know," said Davey. "Will you dance with me, Deirdre?"
Few people south of the ranges did not know, or had not heard ofFighting Conal, of Sally, the yellow streak of a cattle dog, half dingo,that he swore by, and of his three parts bred mare, Ginger. "Ginger forpluck," Conal said, and that was why she got her name. Though he had histitle to live up to, Conal was a prime favourite on the roads. It wasrumoured that he had another name, but nobody ever bothered about it.Conal--Fighting Conal--was a good enough name for any man to go by, itwas reckoned.
There was talk under the breath of cattle-duffing sometimes when he wasmentioned. But it was always under the breath, for Conal was a man witha fist that could punish any reflections on his character as thoroughlyas the fist of a man had ever been known to. But he was a lightsomeswaggerer, a reckless, devil-me-care, good-natured sort of bully.
"Then if you know," said Conal coolly, "you'd better have gone home andto bed, young shaver, before havin' asked Deirdre to dance with youto-night. I don't like any interference with the partners I choose formeself."
It was all said with a lazy good-natured air. Conal was sure of himself.He reviewed with faint amusement this youngster who made claims toprivileges that he had reserved to himself for the evening.
"Will you dance with me, Deirdre?" Davey asked again.
His eyes blazed; he trembled with anger.
"Well, I'm--"
Conal straightened and swore amazedly.
But Deirdre's hand caught his sleeve.
"We're missing all this dance," she said quickly. As she turned away onhis arm, her eyes swung round to Davey. "Go and find Jess," she said,"you looked such a pretty couple dancing together when I came in."
Her laughter and light-hearted little speech stupefied Davey. He forgothis anger, forgot Conal, forgot the roomful of dancers stampedingmerrily, forgot Pat Glynn and his music. He forgot everything, but thatDeirdre was laughing at him. Her words tingled in his ears; he had heardher laughter--Deirdre, his sweetheart, was laughing at him--Deirdre whohad promised--
He stumbled out of the room.