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Pioneers, The

<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> It was not every day there was dancing at Mrs. Mary Ann's—only on Fridays, 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. He was in the Port one day, in Wirreeford the next, then on to Rane, or off wandering somewhere over the ranges. Whenever word went round that Pat was coming the couples gathered from every direction. Whether they danced on a wooden floor or on the grass was a matter of little importance. There was always a merry time when Pat Glynn put up anywhere for 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, drafting and beating beasts from one yard to another, men watching them, drovers, lean, sun-dried, hawk-eyed men, cattle-buyers, cattle-owners and auctioneers. Horses were hanging on loose reins about the sale-yards, or in rows with drooping heads along the hitching posts at the Black Bull and Mrs. Hegarty's. Two or three heavy family carry-alls were drawn up before the store where the women, with children about them, were shopping, buying lengths of calico, dress stuffs, or groceries and ironmongery, 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 the sale-yards foregathered. They danced until the blood boiled under weather-beaten, leathern faces, and the rising sweat left furrows in the dust of the road on them. Matted, lank, sun-bleached hair lay in wet streaky locks on foreheads marked with the line of hats that almost grew on them—the line beyond which the sunburn never travelled. Men, women, boys and girls of all ages, children, grandfathers and grandmothers, Pat danced 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 and forwards so dexterously, with such agility, that the gay airs he played possessed him as well as everyone who heard them. Old men and women left their benches by the wall and skipped and trundled until the pine floor shook. The only people who were not dancing were a young mother with a baby in her 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 was dragged feet foremost to the door and thrown out, because he cumbered the floor. The young mother joggled her baby and sang softly in tune to Pat's music, enfolding the assembled company and Pat himself in her beaming smile. It was incense to Pat's soul to see everybody within earshot moving. The clatter, rhythmic lift, shuffle and thump of heavily-shod feet was as good to his ears as any of the old airs he played. His arm flying quicker and quicker, sent old and young along with the strain of his music, like corks on a stream. Heads bobbed, feet stamped busily. A catch of laughter flew out. The elderly, stout mother of a family called breathlessly: "Stop it, Pat! Stop it, ye villain!" But Pat only laughed and his fiddle arm flew faster, till the dancers dropped exhausted against the wall, or hung there gasping with a stitch in their sides. When he had tired them all out, he lifted his bow with a flourish and a shout of laughter. The two that kept the floor longer than most others were Jess—Ross's Jess, as she was called—and young Davey Cameron. They were reckoned a fine pair of dancers. Pat had great pride in them. When everybody else had left the floor he made the pace faster and faster for them, till they whirled to a finish, watched and cheered by the crowd against the walls. Off-scourings and derelicts of the Wirree, whom Mrs. Hegarty would not have to dance in her parlour, had to amuse themselves by looking in the doorway, or by jigging as best they might out of doors under the star-strewn sky. It was that night of the November sales, when Pat was at Hegarty's, that the Schoolmaster and Deirdre came back to the Wirree. They put up at the Black Bull, and it was not until the dance was in full swing that they appeared in Mrs. Hegarty's doorway. Pat was speeding up a reel, his eyes kindling. "Faith, it's a drop of the craythur you want to waken you up, Mick Ross," he called. Catching up the air of his tune, he sang gaily, and the company joined in 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 laughter running down his withered cheeks. "But he'll break Morrison's daughter's back 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's music, and he scraping for all he was worth to beat them in their whirling and turning, that Jess saw a tall, dark-eyed girl watching them on the outskirts of the people who had just stopped dancing. She knew her at once, her dark eyes, white skin, the black hair that swept back from her face. It was Deirdre—Deirdre grown very tall and lithe and straight-backed—Deirdre in a dark dress with a necklace of red beads about 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 had become great friends while she was away. He had not seen the girl in the doorway. He flung Jess backwards and forwards, flushed and excited, spurred on by the music and the test of keeping step, losing no movement of hers, to be even with Pat when he drew his last chords. Jess flew with him. Davey saw no more of her than her sonsy face, surrounded with the fair wisps of curls. Her grey eyes came to him and her lips parted and smiled as her arms went out to him. She stumbled and fell breathlessly 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 eyes were 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 had moved to call to the fiddler. He saw the group there and stood staring for a moment. The colour ebbed from his face. He recognised the Schoolmaster, though he wore a shade over one eye now, but it was the sight of the dark head, the turn of a girl's shoulder and back near him that was a shock to Davey. The great moment had come. Deirdre had returned. She stood with her back to the room, men and women gathered about her and the Schoolmaster. Davey heard her voice ring out. The sound of it thrilled him and left him trembling. It seemed only yesterday that she had gone ... and yet it was ages—three years. They had written once or twice at first, but somehow the letters had stopped. He had not heard from her for a long time. What could he do? What a lot there would be to tell her. He wanted to show her his new horse, a sturdy red-bay that he had coveted on sight and had induced his father to buy. Would he ever be able to go and speak to her, he wondered, his legs shook so. Would he be able to speak? His throat ached. Did she know that he, Davey, her sweetheart, was there against the wall, so full of love for her that he could not move, that he could only gaze at her. If only she would come to him. If only the whole of Mrs. Mary Ann's room would fall away from them—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 the spell-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 who had been to school with her when she and the Schoolmaster lived in the hills. The Schoolmaster had gone out of doors again; but where he had been, a long, black-browed drover of Maitland's, Conal—Fighting Conal—was standing, leaning against the wall and smiling down on her. Beneath the inexplicable exhilaration, the tingling, thrilling joy which possessed Davey, a slow wrath surged, at the way Conal looked and smiled at Deirdre, and at the way she looked—her eyes leaping up to his—and smiled at Conal. But she was his, his sweetheart, and had promised to marry him, Davey told himself, and the resurgent joy at seeing her flooded him. "Aren't you going to dance, Davey?" Jess asked anxiously, when Pat began to fiddle again. "No," he said. "If you're not going to get-up, can I have this one with Jess?" asked Buddy 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 Bud Morrison. His sun-scorched face and ruddy hair was responsible for his youthful appearance although he was older by a couple of years than Davey. He was Jess's most humble adorer, but his grief was that she would never look at him if Davey was looking at her. "Oh, yes," Davey replied. He watched Jess and Buddy Morrison go out among the dancers. His eyes flew back to where Deirdre had been standing. But she was dancing with Conal. A lightning tremor of surprise flickered through him; he caught his breath. That anybody but himself would dance with Deirdre had not occurred to him. He made up his mind that he would go to her after the dance. What right had Conal to dance with her? He was caught in a cloud of troubled thought and dismay. Davey watched them dancing, this tall slender girl with her hair knotted up on the nape of her neck and the long-limbed, bearded man who had come to the sales for Sam Maitland. He could dance. He and Deirdre were dancing as the people in Wirreeford had never seen folk dancing, and Conal's dark, handsome face was turned down to the girl's. It was not the dance he was thinking of, but her. There was a gleam in his eyes as they covered her; every movement was tender of her. Jess, in a fury of impatience with her partner, dragged him off the floor. He was heavy and slow on his feet, missed the time, and muddled his steps. In order not to disgrace her own dancing she had to fall back against the wall. When Deirdre came away from the dancers with her tall partner, Davey went round to where they were standing. Once only he had seen her flash a swift glance round the room, then her eyes had not rested on him at all, but skimmed past him like swallows in flight. He thought that she had not recognised him. Now that he stood near her his heart throbbed pain-fully. She laughed and chattered with the people about her. Davey caught a word or two of her 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 to grow 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 a dozen 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 you remember 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 with a glance for Conal. "This is Conal, you know, Long Conal, Davey—Fighting Conal—they call him, don't they?" she went on with a little mischievous inflection in her 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 of Fighting 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 for pluck," Conal said, and that was why she got her name. Though he had his title to live up to, Conal was a prime favourite on the roads. It was rumoured 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, it was reckoned. There was talk under the breath of cattle-duffing sometimes when he was mentioned. But it was always under the breath, for Conal was a man with a fist that could punish any reflections on his character as thoroughly as the fist of a man had ever been known to. But he was a lightsome swaggerer, a reckless, devil-me-care, good-natured sort of bully. "Then if you know," said Conal coolly, "you'd better have gone home and to bed, young shaver, before havin' asked Deirdre to dance with you to-night. I don't like any interference with the partners I choose for meself." 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 to privileges 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 on his 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 forgot his anger, forgot Conal, forgot the roomful of dancers stampeding merrily, forgot Pat Glynn and his music. He forgot everything, but that Deirdre was laughing at him. Her words tingled in his ears; he had heard her laughter—Deirdre, his sweetheart, was laughing at him—Deirdre who had promised— He stumbled out of the room. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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