They were a merry company of young warrigals, these children of the hills, when they poured out of the school doorway, played in the clearing at midday, munching their crusty lunches, or chased in the horses, as a preliminary to scrambling on to them and racing each other helter-skelter down the bush tracks, spreading and straggling in every direction to their homes.
The Schoolmaster governed them all with an easy familiarity. He had an eager, boyish way of talking when he explained a peculiarity of spelling, or grammar, or a story from history—a light reckless humour that made Mrs. Cameron, if she were sitting by the window, sewing, look up uneasily, her serene face disturbed, her eyes mildly reproving. But the children laughed and loved the flippancies. They scratched and scraped the better for being on good terms with the Schoolmaster, although Mrs. Cameron was afraid that they had not a proper respect for him and that he was not dignified enough with them.
She was not the only woman who sat on the seat by the window. Sometimes Mrs. Ross or Mrs. Morrison took a turn there and knitted or stitched as they watched to see that the Schoolmaster's behaviour was all that might be expected. They knew nothing of Mr. Farrel's history or antecedents. As far as they were concerned he was a broken-down Irishman who had come to make his fortune on the goldfields and lost any money he had. That was his story; and that he wanted to live a quiet life for awhile, away from the temptations and risks of the scramble for gold. His manner and air were decorous enough to make them believe it; and after the first few visits of inspection they were satisfied not to make any more. Only Mary Cameron was concerned as to the nature of some of the seeds he was sowing in the minds of the young generation. She had heard him describing the state of Ireland under His Most Gracious Majesty George III. to the older boys and girls, and on another occasion had heard him telling them that the exports of Great Britain were cotton and woollen goods, coal and iron, and convicts to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.
"Did you have good lessons to-day, Davey," she asked one evening when her son was poring over his books.
"Not half as good as yesterday, when you were there, mother," he said.
"Why, how was that?" she asked.
"Oh, Mr. Farrel says more things to make us laugh when you're there," he said, going on with his writing, painstakingly. "He made me do sums all this morning, and I'd never have got them right if Deirdre hadn't helped me. He lets her sit next me, now."
When school was out, a day or two later, Mrs. Cameron rose from her seat by the window. She tied her bonnet strings.
The Schoolmaster hummed the tune the children had been singing before they clattered out for the day; it was an old English folk song that he had taught them. As he put away his books and pencils, his eyes wandered towards Mrs. Cameron once or twice. Her back was to him; she was looking out of the window.
He strode over to her. He knew she was displeased. His eyes had the guilty look of awaiting reproof, the glad light of the miscreant who knows that he has done wrong but has enjoyed doing it. He had not admitted to himself even that his reason for talking to make the children laugh and pointing a story from history with a radical or cynical moral, was that her anxiety about the instruction they were getting might not be quite lulled. He did not want her to give up coming to the school and cease to occupy the seat by the window occasionally.