Her voice broke. She began to cry, finding relief in utter abandonment. Steve put his arms round her, trying to comfort her.
"Deirdre! Deirdre!" he muttered distressfully. "Don't cry! It's your father's own girl you are. So brave! Meetin' the devil himself with your clear eyes, 'n me no more than a shiverin' old corpse where he is!"
Deirdre lifted her eyes. She looked into the pathetic quiveringly childish, old face bent over her.
"It's the best thing you could have said to me—that I'm my father's own girl, Uncle Stevie," she said, "My father's girl shouldn't be crying like this when there's work—and a lot of thinking to do."
CHAPTER XLII
"There's bad news from Cameron's, Deirdre."
Steve came in from the road.
A bullock wagon had just passed from the Wirree. Deirdre had seen it halt up. She had seen the bullocks standing with dumb, dull patience under the yoke, swinging their tails to keep the flies off. Some of them had gone down on their knees by the roadside, while the teamster had a drink and yarned with Steve. Then she had heard the cracking of the teamster's whip, his oaths and calls to the beasts, and the creaking of the heavy, blue-washed cart as it went on again.
"What is it?" she asked breathlessly, thinking of Davey.