The Schoolmaster and Deirdre had been gone from the hills for over a year when Wirreeford began to make concessions for the sake of the younger generation.
Although cards were shuffled and dice were thrown at the Black Bull, when the rush-lights flickered in the windows after the sales, and the little fires of cow-dung—lighted before the doors of the houses to keep away the sandflies and mosquitoes—glowed in the dusk, sending up faint wreaths of blue smoke, Mrs. Mary Ann Hegarty threw open her parlour, and there was dancing in it until the small hours.
The hill people lent the countenance of their presence to days of out-door sports, and to the dancing at Mrs. Hegarty's on Christmas and New Year's day. The Ross boys danced with bright-eyed Wirree girls. Morrison's Kitty and some of the other girls from the hills learnt the reels and jigs that their parents had danced in the country beyond the seas, they were always talking of. The old people danced too. There were nights of wholesome, heart-warming merriment and the singing of old songs.
Only Donald Cameron and his wife held aloof from these festivities. But before long it was observed that Young Davey was going to the monthly dancing with the Rosses. He rode down from the hills with the boys and Jess. They made the Wirree streets ring as they galloped to Hegarty's, and their laughter streeled out on the wind behind them, as they went home in the early hours of the morning, when even the roisterers at the Black Bull had fallen asleep in uneasy attitudes about its verandahs.
CHAPTER XIX
It was not every day there was dancing at Mrs. Mary Ann's—only on Fridays, after the cattle sales.
And it was not every Friday that Pat Glynn could be got for the music. He wandered all over the country putting the devil into folks' heels. He was in the Port one day, in Wirreeford the next, then on to Rane, or off wandering somewhere over the ranges. Whenever word went round that Pat was coming the couples gathered from every direction. Whether they danced on a wooden floor or on the grass was a matter of little importance. There was always a merry time when Pat Glynn put up anywhere for the night.
He came trotting into Wirreeford on the day of the early November sales, about two years after Deirdre and the Schoolmaster had left the hills. The township was full of dust, cattle, and dogs; boys, yelling, drafting and beating beasts from one yard to another, men watching them, drovers, lean, sun-dried, hawk-eyed men, cattle-buyers, cattle-owners and auctioneers. Horses were hanging on loose reins about the sale-yards, or in rows with drooping heads along the hitching posts at the Black Bull and Mrs. Hegarty's. Two or three heavy family carry-alls were drawn up before the store where the women, with children about them, were shopping, buying lengths of calico, dress stuffs, or groceries and ironmongery, to take home to the hills.
Word that Pat Glynn was at Hegarty's went round like wildfire.