CHAPTER XXXV
After the sales on the following Friday, when the dust of the yards washeavy in the air, and the stock horses stood in irregular, droopinglines outside the Black Bull and Mrs. Mary Ann Hegarty's, Davey made hisway to where on an open space of land the church had been built.Wirreeford had out its lights--garish oil flares and rush candles--andthe little fires lighted before the doors of the houses to keep off sandflies and mosquitoes, smouldered in the dusk, sending up wreaths of bluesmoke.
He had made up his mind as to what he was going to do. During the weekConal had been mustering and branding the cows and calves drafted fromthe scrub mob. Davey had worked with him, and many of the calves he hadscarred with Maitland's double M. were the progeny of his father'scattle. Half a dozen cows bore the D.C. brand under their thick hair.Conal had wanted to pay him off. He had told Davey that there was noneed for him to burn his fingers with this business, and that he couldrun the mob to the border, or to Melbourne, across the swamp, if thesouth-eastern rivers were down; but he was short-handed, Davey knew; asense of obligation urged him to stick to Conal until the whole of themob they had moonlighted together was disposed of.
Conal had insisted on getting the cows and calves into a half-timberedpaddock below Steve's, the day before, and had run a hundred ofMaitland's fattened beasts with them. He meant to make a start and havethe mob on the roads early next morning.
There was a race-meeting in the long paddock behind McNab's that Friday.
Conal and he had come into the Wirree to show themselves before startingoff on their overland journey. Almost every man in the countryside wasthere.
Davey wondered why the Schoolmaster had not come down to the townshipwith Conal and himself. He had been a different man since their return,very silent, scarcely stirring from his chair in the back room, whileDeirdre hovered, never very far from him, anxious and protective as amother-bird.
She had not told him what had happened while Conal and he were away--howthe Schoolmaster had said to her one day, suddenly:
"It's very dark, Deirdre. Is there going to be a storm?"
The sunshine was blank and golden out of doors.
"No," she had said, laughing. "There's not a sign of one."
"Where are you?" he asked, his voice strange and strained.
"Why, I'm here just beside you," she replied.
He put out his hands.
"I can't see you," he said. "It's the dark, Deirdre! My God ... it's thedark."
For a long time he had sat staring while she knelt beside him, crying,murmuring eagerly and tenderly, trying to soothe and to comfort him. Butfrom that time the dimming and obliterating of the whole world had begunfor him.
The heavy darkness had passed. It was not all night yet, but a mistytwilight. He had forbidden her to speak of it, so that Davey did notknow. Conal and Steve had guessed, but Davey's mind, busy with its ownproblems, was slower to realise what was going on about him. It hadroused every loyal and fighting instinct in him to see his mother withthat look of suffering on her face; his father in the way of becomingMcNab's prey--losing all that he had gained through years of toil andharsh integrity by falling into the pigs' trough McNab had set for him.
It was that stern righteousness of his, his sober, stolid virtue, whichhad given Cameron the place in the respect and grudging homage of thecountryside that his wealth and property alone would not have won forhim; they had cloaked even his meanness with a sombre dignity andbrought him the half-jesting title of the Laird of Ayrmuir.
Davey led his horse into the paddock beside the church where thevehicles which had brought the hill folk to the township were standing.The horses out of the shafts, their heavy harness still on their backs,were feeding, tethered to the fence, or to the wheels of the carts andbuggies.
He stood beside the high, old-fashioned buggy that had brought Mary andDonald Cameron to Wirreeford. He rubbed his hand along Bessie's longcoffin-box of a nose, and told her on a drifting stream of thought thathe had decided to go home, to ask his father to forgive him, and that hemeant to try to get on with him again. Her attitude of attention andaffection comforted him.
The people began to come from the church. They stood in groups by thedoorway talking to each other. One or two men came into the paddock toharness-up for the home journey. Davey put the mare into her shafts. Hewas fastening the traces when Mary Cameron came round the back of thebuggy. A catch of her breath told that she had seen him.
"Davey!" she cried.
He saw her face, the light of her eyes.
"Mother!" he sobbed.
His arms went round her, and his face with the rough beard--such a man'sface it had become since it last brushed her's--was crushed against hercheek.
"I'm coming home," he said, his voice breaking. "Not now, not to-night,but in a little while. I'll ask the old man to forgive me and see if wecan't get along better."
"Davey! Davey!" she cried softly, looking into his face, a new joy inher own. "Oh, but they are sad days, these! Have you heard what they aresaying of your father? They tell me that you have been over the ranges."
"Yes," Davey said. She scarcely recognised his voice. "It's because offather--because of what they're saying--I'm coming home. I won't havethem say it ... after all he's done ... do you think I'm going to lethim lose it, if I can help it."
There was a passionate vibration in his voice.
"How did it happen? I saw you on Friday and followed you home."
"Oh, my boy!" Her hand trembled on his shoulders. "It was you then?What's come to your father I don't know at all. He's not the same man heused to be. It's that man at the Black Bull. He's got hold of him--Idon't know how ... but he's been drinking there often now, and he neverused to be a drinking man--your father. I think it was hisdisappointment with you at first ... I'm not blaming you, Davey. Itwasn't to be expected you'd do anything but what you did. I'm notblaming you. But there were the long evenings by ourselves, after you'dgone. He sat eating his heart out about it before the fire, and Icouldn't say a word. He was thinking of you all the time--but his pridewouldn't let him speak. He was seeing the ruin of his hopes for you. Hemeant you to be a great man in the district. Then McNab began talking tohim. Your father thinks McNab's doing him a good turn in some way, but Ifeel it's nothing but evil will come to us from him. The sight of theman makes me shiver and I wonder what harm it is he is planning for us."
Her voice went to Davey's heart.
"I know, mother," he said. "But it'll be all right soon. The old man'llpull up when I come home. I'll tell him I mean to be all he wants me tobe. I was a fool before, though I don't think I could go on in the oldway even now. But he'll be reasonable if I go the right way about askinghim. I've a deal more sense than I had. I've sobered down a lot ... cansee things straighter. I won't be having any dealings with McNabagain--and I'll get father to cut him. The pair of us'll be more thanequal to him. But I've got to finish my job with Conal first ... itwouldn't be playing the game to leave him just now."
"Is it Conal you've been working with, Davey?" her eyes went up to hisanxiously.
"Yes," he said.
"Your father's been talking a lot about this work of Conal's," she wenton, a troubled line in her forehead. "He says the Schoolmaster's in ittoo. McNab's been talking to him about it, and they mean to interfere insome way. He's talked a good deal about it when he didn't know he wastalking, driving home in the evenings. But McNab's making a fool of himfor his own purposes, and to do harm to Mr. Farrel, I think. I wastrying to tell your father that, but he wouldn't hear me. Oh, why haveyou got yourself mixed up with duffing and crooked ways, Davey?"
"What did he say?" Davey asked.
"I don't remember all of it." She swept her brow with a little wearygesture. "It was all mumbling and muttering, and I couldn't hear halfwhat he said--but it was to do with cattle. And to-day McNab came overto the yards as soon as we arrived and I heard him say: 'I've got wordwhere there's a mob with brands won't bear lookin' into, to-night. I'llt
ell M'Laughlin, and he'll get a couple of men to work with him. Ifyou'll come round to the parlour we can fix up what's to be done.'"
Davey jerked his horse's bridle, pulling him round to mount.
"I meant to take you home myself to-night, mother," he said. "But I'llhave to find Conal and tell him this. There's no time to lose."
"I'll be all right, Davey," she said tremulously; "I'll go and wait foryour father at McNab's. He's there now. And we're quite safe with Besstaking us home. She knows every inch of the way."
Davey kissed her hurriedly.
He turned out of the church paddock towards Hegarty's. There was a dancein full swing, and he thought that Conal might be there. But although anew fiddler was in his element and most of the young people in thedistrict jigging, Conal was not. He went back along the road to McNab's.
Outside, in the buggy, Mary Cameron was sitting. She turned and smiledwhen he rode up to her. Her face had a shy happiness, but the patienceand humility of her waiting attitude infuriated him.
He swung off his horse and opened the door of McNab's side parlour.
Cameron was sitting at the small, uneven table, a bottle of rum andglasses before him. McNab on the other side of the table, leaning acrossit was talking to him, his voice running glibly. The light of an oillamp on the table between them showed his yellow, eager eyes, thescheming intensity of the brain behind them, the lurking half-smile oftriumph about his writhing, colourless lips. M'Laughlin, leaning lazilyback in his chair, his long legs stretched under the table, sat watchingand listening to him.
McNab sprang to his feet with an oath when he saw Davey in the doorway.
"Mother's waiting for you outside," he said, lifting Donald Cameron bythe elbows and leading him to the door.
He turned on McNab with his back to it.
"I'll be looking after my father's affairs from this out," he said. "Andyou remember what I promised you if you interfered with me again ...you'll get it sure as I live."
He slammed the door.
Donald Cameron, stupid with McNab's heavy spirits, was unprepared forthis masterful young man whose rage was burning to a white heat. He wentwith him as quietly as as a child.
Davey helped him into the buggy.
"Keep him away from McNab," he said to his mother, "and I'll be home assoon as I can."
She smiled, the shy, happy smile of a girl, nodded to him, and theydrove off.
Davey went back into the bar of the Black Bull, with its crowd ofstockmen, drovers, shop-keepers and sale-yard loungers.
"Where's Conal?" he asked. "Does anybody know if he's left the townyet?"
There was a roar of laughter.
"He was looking for you an hour ago, Davey," a drunken youngster yelledgaily. "Was in here, 'n McNab gave him a turn about the Schoolmaster'sgirl--"
"McNab was tellin' him you'd made-up to marry her. You should have heardConal go off," somebody shouted.
"Where is he?" There was a sharpness about Young Davey's question thatnobody liked.
"Who? McNab?"
"No, Conal!"
McNab had come into the bar and was standing watching him, his facelivid.
"Round somewhere lookin' for your blood," the same jovial youngster, whohad first spoken, cried.
"Seen him go up towards the store a while ago, Davey," Salt Watson saidslowly.
No one smelt mischief brewing quicker than he. He had seen McNab's face.He knew Young Davey's temper and the sort of man he was growing. He knewConal, too, and that no love was lost between them. It was an urgentmatter would send Davey looking through the town for Conal that way, heguessed, and knowing something of the business they had in hand, as anold roadster always does, imagined the cause of the urgency.
McNab looked as if Davey's anxiety to find Conal had taught himsomething too.
Davey flung out of the bar. He straddled his horse again and went flyingoff down the road to the store.
Conal was not there. Someone said he had been, and set out for the hillsan hour earlier. Davey made off down the road again, doubling on histrack, past the Black Bull. He thought that he would catch up to Conalon the road, and that they would be back at Steve's before M'Laughlinand his men were out of Wirreeford.
The culvert over the creek that he had watched Bess shy at and take inher own leisurely fashion a week before, was not half a mile from theoutskirts of the township. The creek banks on either side were fringed Iwith wattles and light-woods. As the mare rattled across it there was awhistling crack in the air. Davey pitched on her neck. Terrified, sheleapt forward. He clung to her, swaying for a while, yet never losinghis grip.
He knew that someone had shot him from the trees by the culvert. Therewas a sharp pain in his breast; blood welled from it.
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