The Pioneers
Page 12
CHAPTER XII
For months Davey and Deirdre went together along the winding tracks,from the school to Cameron's and from Cameron's to school, sometimes inthe spring-cart, but more often on Lass's broad back.
Deirdre had to hang on to Davey when the old horse took it into her headto step out jauntily, but for the most part they rode her lightlyenough, Davey with one hand on her mane and Deirdre swinging behind him.
Sometimes Davey dug his heels into her fat sides and put her at a trotthat set them bumping up and down like peas in a box, and laughing tillthe hills echoed. And sometimes in the middle of the fun they foundthemselves shot on the roadside, as Lass shied and propped, pretendingto be startled by a wallaby or a dead tree. These comfortable,middle-aged shies and proppings were regarded as her little joke, herway of indicating that she did not like being dug in the sides. Theyshrieked with laughter as she stood blinking at them, her white-lashedeyes, on which a chalky whiteness was growing, bland and innocent.
"As if she were so surprised--and hadn't done it all of a purpose," theyexplained to each other.
Deirdre quickly outgrew the dresses that Mrs. Cameron had first made forher. The Schoolmaster thought that Davey was growing too. Although Lasswas up to the weight of the two, and they ran beside her up thehillsides as often as not, and rode her only one at a time as they grewolder, with keen eyes for a fair thing where a horse was concerned, theSchoolmaster bought a little wilding of a white-stockinged chestnut forDeirdre to ride. A stockman had traded the colt for a bottle of rum whenhis mare foaled at Steve's. She was a fine animal with a strain of Arabin her, and when the Schoolmaster had mouthed and gentled White Socks,as Deirdre christened the colt, she straddled him bareback and Davey hadhis old Lass to himself.
There was nothing for him to do but watch Deirdre as she went off downthe track clinging lightly to the little horse whose legs spread outlike the wings of a bird. Davey's heart sickened with envy every timeDeirdre dashed past him. He urged Lass to the limit of her heavy,clompering gait; but even then she did not keep the chestnut in sight,and all but broke a blood vessel in the attempt. When Davey came up toher, Deirdre was invariably twisted round, waiting for him,brilliant-eyed, a wind-whipped colour in her cheeks, and her hair flyingabout her.
"You'll break your neck some day, riding like that," he told her,sombrely.
But he was eating his heart out at not having a horse to put againsthers, at not being able to send flying the pebbles on the hill tracks asshe did. He had asked his father over and over again for a horse of hisown, but Donald Cameron would not give him one.
"No, my lad," he said shrewdly. "I'm not going to have you racing horsesof mine on these roads with the Schoolmaster's girl--breaking theirknees and windin' them. I haven't money to throw away, if theSchoolmaster has. By and by, when you're working with me, you'll have agood steady-going stock horse of y're own--maybe."
Davey's school days were numbered, Mrs. Cameron knew. He was shooting upinto a long, straggling youth. His father was talking of breaking himinto the work of the place, and Davey was beginning to be restive atschool, wanting to do man's work and get a horse of his own.
Deirdre learnt womanly ways about a house quickly enough when she hadmade up her mind to. Although since the new order of things at Ayrmuir,Mrs. Cameron had Jenny, a big, raw-boned, brown-eyed girl from theWirree, to help her, and the family had meals in the parlour, and sat onthe best shiny, black horse-hair furniture every day, Deirdre made beds,dusted and swept with Mrs. Cameron. She fed the fowls and learnt to cookand sew. Davey had seen her churning, sleeves rolled up from her long,thin arms; he had watched her and his mother working-up shapeless massesof butter in the cool dark of the dairy. When they washed clothes intubs on the hillside, he carried buckets of water for them and hadhelped to hang the clean, heavy, wet things on lines between the trees;or to spread them on the grass to sun-bleach. Mrs. Cameron had taughtDeirdre to knit, and when her husband was not at home had even taken herspinning wheel from under its covers, set it up in the garden and showedher how to use it. She had sat quite a long time at it, spinning, anddelighting in its old friendly purr and clatter.
At such times she would sing softly to herself, Davey and Deirdrecrouched on the grass beside her, and, when they begged for them, shewould tell some of the fairy tales they loved to hear.
Mrs. Cameron scarcely ever saw the Schoolmaster, and it was rarely thenthat she spoke to him. Sometimes she discovered him in the background ofa gathering of hill folk who met in the school-room on Sundays forhymns, prayers and a reading of the Scriptures, and sometimes she heardhim singing in the distance as he rode along the hill roads. Deirdre hadsensed a reserve in Mrs. Cameron's manner and attitude towards herfather, and could not forgive her for it, though she had a shy,half-grateful affection for her.
Davey was not sure that he liked the Deirdre who had learnt to brush herhair and wear woman's clothes as well as the old Deirdre. There wassomething more subdued about her; her laughter was rarer, though it hadstill the catch and ripple of a wild bird's song. She was not quitetamed, however, for all that she did, deftly and quickly though it wasdone, had a certain wild grace.
It was one evening when she was knitting--making a pair of socks for theSchoolmaster--and muttering to herself; "Knit one, slip one, knit one,two together, slip one," that he realised Deirdre was going a woman'sway and that he had to go a man's.
"It'll be moonlight early to-night, and there'll be dozens of 'possumsin the white gums near the creek, Deirdre," he said, coming to hereagerly.
The proposition of a 'possum hunt had always been irresistible. Deirdrehad loved to crouch in the bushes with him on moonlight nights and watchthe little creatures at play on the high branches of trees near the edgeof the clearing. They had flung knobby pieces of wood at them, orcatapulted them, and were rejoiced beyond measure when a shot told,there was a startled scream among the 'possums and a little grey bodytumbled from a bough in the moonlight to the dark earth.
But this night Deirdre shook her head, and went on with her murmuringof: "Knit one, slip one, knit one, two together, slip one."
"No, I can't go 'possuming to-night, Davey," she said. "I want to finishturning this heel."