"Do you mean to say that Chow comes, too?" queried Cecil.

"No; he's shy," Wally answered. "We've tried to get him, but in vain; he prefers to go to bed and dream of China. And Billy hangs about like a black ghost, but he won't come in. So we lose a lot of international enjoyment; but, even so, what's left is pretty good, itsn't it, Norah?"

"I love it," said Norah.

"And you don't get any of your own friends to come? It seems to me the queerest arrangement," said Cecil.

"It's the men's dance, don't you see? There wouldn't be much fun for them if the place were filled up with our friends."

"Well, I should think a few of your own sort would be better. Aren't there any girls or boys within reach that you know? I suppose you've a juvenile sweetheart or two in the district?"

Norah looked at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush on his brown face.

"We never talk that sort of rot here," he said angrily. "Norah's not a town girl, and her head isn't full of idiotic, silly bosh. I'll thank you--"

Mr. Linton came in at the moment, and the point on which Jim intended to express his grat.i.tude remained unuttered. Cecil had reddened wrathfully, and the general atmosphere was electric. Mr. Linton took, apparently, no notice. He pulled Norah's hair gently as he pa.s.sed her.

"You're all remarkably spruce," he commented. "Can any one tell me why almost every maid I have met in my house this day turns and flees as though I were the plague? Sarah is the only one who doesn't shun me, and her mind appears to be taken up with affairs of State, for I asked her twice if she had seen my tobacco pouch, and she brought me in response a jug of shaving water, for which I have had no use for some time!" He laughed, stroking his iron-grey beard. "Can you explain the mystery, Norah?"

"It's easy," said his daughter. "Sarah's hair has a natural friz, so she's the only girl in the house without curling pins concealed--more or less--in her front hair. Brownie gave permission for the pins to-day; I guess she thinks it would give Sarah an unfair start if she didn't!"

"But the shaving water?"

"Ah, well, I expect Fred Anderson wanted that. She's engaged to him, you know," said Norah, simply.

"Well, I hardly see why she should give me his shaving water, either from Anderson's point of view or mine; but I suppose it's all right,"

said Mr. Linton. "The whole place is upset. I really wanted some work done, but the men who should have been sinking a well were tacking up ferns, and those whose mission in life is--or ought to be--hoeing out ragwort were putting French chalk on the floor of my loft! Judging from my brief inspection, it seemed to me that the latter occupation was far more strenuous than the ragwort job; but they seemed much happier than usual, and were working overtime without a struggle!"

"To hear you talk so patiently," quoth Norah, "no one would imagine that you'd bought the French chalk yourself!" She perched on the arm of his chair, and looked at him severely, while the boys laughed.

"The men are like a lot of kids to-day," Jim said. "Did you hear about old Lee Wing, Dad? He was standing under the block and pulley after they'd hoisted up the piano, and I expect the sight of the hook on the end of the dangling rope was too much for the men, for they slipped it through Wing's leather belt and hauled him up too! You should have seen him, with his pigtail dangling, kicking at the end of the rope like the spider in 'Little Miss m.u.f.fet!' They landed him in the loft, and Fred Anderson insisted on waltzing with him, while one of the musicians hammered out The Merry Widow on the piano. Poor old Wing was very wild at first, but they got him laughing finally."

"Why that long-suffering Chinaman stays here is always a mystery to me," said his father, laughing. "He's the b.u.t.t of the whole place; but he fattens on it."

"There's the dinner gong!" said Norah, jumping up. "Come on, gentlemen, we've to hurry to-night, so that the girls can get free early."

The loft over the stables, which had been built with a view to such occasions, was quite transformed when the house party entered it a couple of hours later. The electric light--Billabong had its own plant for lighting--had been extended to the loft, and gleamed down on a perfect bower of green--bracken and coral ferns, the tender foliage of young sapling tops, Christmas bush, clematis and tall reeds from the lagoon--the latter gathered by Jim and Wally during their morning bathe.

Rough steps had been improvised to lead from outside up to the main door of the loft, over which still dangled from the block and pulley the rope that had suspended the irate Lee Wing earlier in the day. It was also possible to enter by the usual method--a trapdoor in the floor over a ladder leading from the floor below; but this was considered by the men scarcely suitable for their partners. All traces of its usual contents had, of course, been removed from the big room, and the floor gleamed in the light, mute evidence of the ardour with which Mr.

Linton's French chalk had been applied. At one end, near the railing guarding the trapdoor, the Cunjee musicians were stationed, and close to them a queer old figure hovered--old Andy Ferguson, gnarled and knotted and withered; Irish, for all his Scotch name, and with his old blue eyes full of Irish fire at the thought of "a spree." He held his old fiddle tenderly as he might hold a child; it, too, was the worse for wear, and showed in more than one place traces of repair; but when Andy wielded the bow its tones were just as mellow to him as the finest instrument on earth. He kept a jealous eye on the Cunjee men; they might oust him for most of the night, but at least his was to be the old privilege of opening the ball. "The Boss" had said so.

The homestead men had lined up near the door to receive their guests--to-night they were hosts to Mr. Linton and his children, as to every one else. They were a fine lot of fellows--Murty O'Toole, and Mick Shanahan, the horse breaker, and Willis and Blake and Burton--all long and lean and hard, with deep-set, keen eyes and brown, thin faces; Evans, who was supposed to be over-seer, and important enough to arrive late; younger fellows, like Fred Anderson and David Boone (the latter's hair suspiciously smooth and shiny); Hogg, the dour old man who ruled the flower garden and every one but Norah; and a sprinkling of odd rouseabouts and boys, very sleek and well brushed, in garments of varying make, low collars, and the tie the bushman loves "for best"--pale blue satin, with what Wally termed "jiggly patterns" on it.

Of the same type were the guests--men from other stations, c.o.c.ky farmers and a very small sprinkling of township men.

The ladies kept rigidly on arrival to the other side of the loft. There was Mrs. Brown, resplendent in a puce silk dress that Norah remembered from her earliest childhood, with a lace cap of monumental structure topped by a coquettish bow of pale pink ribbon. Her kind old face beamed on every one. Close to her, very meek under her sheltering wing, were Sarah and Mary, the housemaids--very gay in papery silks, pink and green, with much adornment of wide yellow lace. Norah had helped to dress them both, and she smiled delightedly at them as she came in.

There was Mrs. Willis, who ruled over the men's hut, and was reckoned, as a cook, only inferior to Mrs. Brown; and Joe Burton's pretty wife, in a simple white muslin--with no doubt in big Joe's heart, as he looked at her, as to who was the belle of the ball. Then, girls and women from that vague region the bush calls "about," in mixed attire--from flannel blouses and serge skirts, to a lady who hurt the eye it looked at, and made the lights seem pale, in her gorgeous gown of mustard-coloured velveteen, trimmed with knots of cherry-coloured ribbon. They came early, with every intention of staying late, and cheerfully certain of a good time. The Billabong ball was an event for which an invitation was much coveted.

Norah kept close to her father's wing, as they entered, shaking hands gravely with the men by the door, and with Mrs. Brown--which latter proceeding she privately considered a joke. The boys followed; Jim quiet and pleasant; Wally favouring Murty O'Toole with a solemn wink, and Cecil plainly bored by the little ceremony. He let his fingers lie in each man's hand languidly--and would probably have been injured had he seen Murty wipe his hand carefully on the side of his trousers after he had pa.s.sed on. The men had no love for the city boy.

"S'lect y'r partners!" It was Dave Boone, most noted "M.C."--in demand at every ball in the district. Dave knew what he was about, and saw that other people understood the fact; no shirking when he was in command, no infringement of rules, no slip-shod dancing. Even as he kept his eagle eye on the throng, he "selected" one of the prettiest girls himself, and bore her to the head of the room. There was never any doubt of Dave's generalship.

Cecil turned to Norah.

"May I have this?"

"Sorry," Norah said, "I always dance with Jim first."

"P'f!" said Cecil, lightly. "That old brother-and-sister idea is exploded."

"Not with Jimmy and me," Norah answered. "Why don't you ask Mary? She can dance awfully well."

"No, thank you," said Cecil, with elevated nose. "I'll watch."

Wally had approached Mrs. Brown, and bowed low.

"Ours, I think?"

"Now, Master Wally, me dancin' days are over," said Brownie. "Go an'

get one of the girls, now, dearie, do!"

"A girl!--when I can get you?" Wally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Not much!" He tucked her hand into his arm and led her off in triumph.

"Promen-ayde y'r partners!"

Dave turned and nodded to Andy Ferguson, who, with fiddle tucked lovingly under his chin, was waiting for his signal. He broke into a march--the time a little shaky, the tune a little old, for the hand that held the bow was old and shaky, too; but still a march, with a swing to it that set the feet going at once. The dancers promenaded round the room in a long procession, led proudly by Wally and Mrs. Brown. At one end a few men, disappointed in obtaining partners, cl.u.s.tered by the wall; near them stood Mr. Linton, watching in his grave, pleasant way that was so like Jim's, with Cecil at his elbow, his delicate face dull and expressionless. Round and round marched the couples.

"Circular waltz, please!"

The music swung into a waltz without a break, and simultaneously the march broke into the dance as every man seized his partner by the waist and began to revolve solemnly and silently. Cecil gaped.

"What on earth is a circular waltz?"

"Blest if I know for certain," replied his uncle, laughing. "Much like any other waltz--but you mustn't use the middle of the floor. Watch young Boone."

Dave was keeping an eagle eye on the dancers. For the most part they were content to gyrate near the wall; but should any more daring couple approach the unoccupied s.p.a.ce in the middle of the room, they were instantly detected and commanded to return. As Cecil looked, Wally, who was dancing with a broad grin of sheer happiness on his face, swung his ponderous partner right across the centre--and was greeted by the vigilant M.C. with the stern injunction--"Keep circle!" Quite oblivious that this outbreak had anything to do with him, while Mrs. Brown, feeling the most miserable of sinners, was far too breathless to explain, Wally presently repeated his offence, whereupon Boone pulled him up gravely, and pointed out his enormity to him. The culprit grinned the more widely, promised amendment, nodded vigorously, and danced off, Mrs. Brown remaining speechless throughout. Mr. Linton smothered a laugh in his beard.

Presently the music came to an end. Old Andy put his fiddle down and looked along the loft with a happy little smile. The dancers stopped, and Mr. Boone's voice rose sonorously.

"Seats, please!"

At this, each man rushed with his partner to the side of the loft previously tenanted by the ladies, and deposited her on the long forms ranged there. Then the men retreated hastily to the other side.

There was no conversation, nor had there been any through the dance. It seemed that the poetry of motion must suffice for enjoyment.

Norah and Jim, who had been dancing vigorously, pulled up near the others.

"Did you see me get hauled over the coals?" asked Wally gleefully. He had placed Mrs. Brown on a seat, and followed the example of his s.e.x in retreating.

"Rather--we were in fits, behind you!" said Jim. "Was Dave cross?"