"Can't we go now?" she said.
Looking into her eyes he saw the shine of tears in them. He had meant to talk very seriously to her on their way from Mrs. Hegarty's; but now she demanded tenderness and not reproof. She seemed to have stumbled against something she did not understand. She had dropped her armour of gaiety—all her shy, bright glances, smiles, sighs and little airs and graces. She had been playing with these women's weapons and had wearied of them, or perhaps she was surprised at their power, and troubled by it, he thought. There was a hurt expression he had never seen before in her eyes. She looked very young and tired.
He wrapped her up in her shawl, took her by the arm, and they went out into the moonlight together, making their way to the Black Bull, where they were staying until they could find another home in the district.
CHAPTER XXI
In the Wirree, Farrel was never known as anything but the Schoolmaster. Everybody called him that—even Deirdre when she spoke of him.
They had gone to live in a cottage on the outskirts of the township. The Schoolmaster had taken up his old trade, though it was understood he had been droving with Conal for Maitland the greater part of the time he had been away. Deirdre had wandered with him wherever he went, and it was on her account he was anxious to get back to steadier and more settled ways of life, it was said. Before long two or three of the brown-skinned Wirree children were trotting to the cottage for lessons every day.
The south had heard a great deal of Sam Maitland, head of the well-known firm of Maitland & Co., stock-dealers, of Cooburra, New South Wales.
There had been a bad season in the north-west for a couple of years. Maitland had bought up poor beasts and sent them to fatten in the south. Conal had been driving them through Wirreeford at intervals of two or three months, taking the fattened beasts back on the return journey over the border after he brought down the starvers.
All the week the township slept peacefully in the spring sunshine. When a clear, young moon came up over the plains in the evenings, it drenched them with wan, silver light.