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<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> A sou'wester was tearing across the plains, threatening to sweep the whole Wirree township off its foundations and dash the fragments of the mud houses against the hills. It broke round the Black Bull with the noise of great guns, and in the pauses of its blowing the booming of the sea on the beaches five miles away could be heard. When Davey burst open the door he brought a gust of wind into the tap-room that set the lights sputtering and flaring. Two of them went out. The glasses on McNab's bench danced as he hammered it with his fists. "For two pins I'd thrash you," he yelled. "You got me into borrowing money from you. I was a blamed young fool! But what's your game? What do you mean playing fair to me and then giving me away to the old man. A neat way of bleeding him, that's what it was. Getting me in here drunk and then—" The Schoolmaster was playing cards with a couple of men on an upturned box behind the door. He threw down his cards and took Davey's arm. The boy threw it off. "Leave me alone, Mr. Farrel," he cried. "I'd sweep the floor with the—the damned swine, if he were worth sweeping the floor with. You're all afraid of him. Well, I'm not! You see here, Mister McNab," he leant across the bar and his eyes burnt their way into the pale shifty eyes of Thad McNab. "I'll break every bone in your body if you ever interfere between me and mine again. D'you hear that? I don't know what you've got up your sleeve, and I don't care! You just keep it there, see, or it'll be the worse for you." McNab had blenched at the boy's headlong passion. The quivering long arms seemed scarcely able to keep themselves off his miserable shoulders. His skin was the gingery colour of his hair, and though he grinned feebly, looking everywhere but at Davey, there was not a man who did not see he was trembling. Thad McNab was a coward, everybody knew that. There was nothing in the world he feared more than the vengeance which might wreak itself on his miserable body. As Young Davey stamped out of the bar there was a rustle of movement, smothered oaths of surprise and amusement, a swinging of eyes after him with something of admiration and applause in them; but McNab was recovering himself. He gazed speechlessly after the boy too; there was a ghost of a smile on his face. His mind was working; his lips moved though no words came. The men who had wanted to cheer Young Davey shifted their opinions uneasily. There would be more to score to McNab's account yet, they imagined. The Schoolmaster did not follow Davey out of the bar as he felt inclined to; but when the boy had gone McNab looked across at him. "That's what comes of interferin', Farrel," he said. "You'll know better another time, won't you, McNab," the Schoolmaster drawled, looking up from the cards he was holding. "It's a bad business getting between father and son." McNab's smile changed. "I was alludin' to your interferin' when I had a bit of business on hand, Mr. Farrel," he snarled. "Had you a bit of business on, Thad?" the Schoolmaster asked. "Who with? Davey? And did I interfere? Well, now you beat me! Out with it! Let's hear all about it. We're all old friends here." McNab's wrath surged so that he could not speak. "There now!" Farrel cried. "He won't tell! Never mind, McNab, you came off very well! When Young Davey came in I thought he'd have you out on the road for a certainty, and he's a pretty bruiser. Showed him how to put up his fists myself a couple of years ago." It was Dan's way of saying things, with a whimsicality, an inimitable geniality, tinged with sarcasm, that brought the house down. When the men in the bar threw back their heads and stretched their lungs that night, Thad did not laugh. He stood, shivering, with gimlet flames in his eyes, his fingers twitching restlessly. There were drinks all round and the Schoolmaster played another rubber before he swung out of the shanty and into the wind that roared and beat over the plains. Davey was waiting in the lee of the garden fence round Farrel's cottage, his little red mare set with her haunches against the wind. "What is it, Davey?" the Schoolmaster asked when he saw him. "It's this, Mr. Farrel," Davey said, on a short breath, "I've quarrelled with the old man. I want a job." The cottage was in darkness. But after he had taken Davey to the stable and they had turned Red into it, they went indoors, and a light gleamed from the small square windows until the sky was waning on the edge of the plains. Then Davey came to the door and the Schoolmaster with him. "It's not advice—as I told you—but a job I'm wanting," the boy said. His voice carried against the wind, hoarse with anger and disappointment. "But this job, Davey, you know what it is." The Schoolmaster's voice was troubled. "Yes, I know—haven't I told you. As a matter of fact I haven't the price of food or a bed on me, and I'm not going back for it. You said these cattle of Maitland's in the yards would have to be taken to the hills. Maitland's got fattening paddocks up beyond Steve's, hasn't he? Tim and Pat Kearney have cleared off to the new rush, and you said you'd have to get somebody to take them for Conal." "You can have what money—" the Schoolmaster began. "It wasn't what I asked for," Davey said curtly. None knew better than Farrel what the difficulties of his getting work of any sort would be in the Wirree with McNab's mark against him. In the hills no one would employ him for fear of offending Donald Cameron. But it was neither McNab, nor Donald Cameron, the Schoolmaster was thinking of when he tried to persuade the boy to go home. Not a word moved Davey from his purpose to be independent. "If you take this mob to-morrow, you will clear out then and look for another job on the other side of the ranges?" "Yes," Davey said eagerly. "Right," the Schoolmaster replied, "but I don't want you in this business with Conal, Davey." The boy gripped his hand. "You said if ever I was hard-up for a friend," he said, "to come to you. And this job with those beasts of Maitland's is the only thing sticking out for me just now." Farrel turned away wearily. "I'd be glad enough to stand by you always, Davey," he said. "But this is different! I'd never forgive myself if I got you into a mess. However, it can't do any harm your taking these beasts to Steve's. Deirdre and I'll be going up in a day or two. I'll tell Conal about it. Then you can go on over the ranges. There's always work on Middleton's or Yaraan. Come in now and I'll make you a cup of tea." Davey glanced at the lightening dome of the sky. "It's a couple of hours to dawn yet," he said, with a sigh. "Then I'll be going." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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