"Unless you made me the teacher," he said. "What would you say if I applied for the post?"
"You!"
Her eyes were wide with amazement.
"Oh I thought so!" he laughed. "But your reformed young man would have something of a past too, you know, and it might not be as clean even as mine. It's a pity you won't consider me as a likely person. I've got what you call the 'education.'"
"Have you?" she asked eagerly. "The grammar, geography, all the—the learning that is—'essential to a liberal education'?"
"All that, and letters after my name for it," he said, bitterly. "But I'm an Irishman ... I called myself a patriot—and any stick is good enough to beat a dog with. I don't know exactly what they called my offence—'inciting to revolt,' or 'using seditious language,' perhaps; but I have earned my sentence since I got here. It was that I was doing all the time in New South Wales and the Island—'inciting to revolt' and 'using seditious language' ... but the fire's gone out of me now. I want a quiet life."
In his eyes she read a passionate impatience and weariness.
"If you were willing that I should be the Schoolmaster, the other people would be likely to have me, perhaps," he continued. "They would not know what you know, and I can play the part of the broken-down fool who has lost every penny he had on the fields."
"It does not rest with me, naming the Schoolmaster, of course," she said, a little troubled. "But if the others are willing to have you I shall be glad."
She had a native grace that took for granted in others her own sincerity and purity of motive.