and comes home by the next train.'

After a while I said, 'He told me about the drink, Andy--about his being
on the spree when the children were lost.'

'Well, Jack,' said Andy, 'that's the thing that's been killing him ever
since, and it happened over ten years ago.'

A Bush Dance.

'Tap, tap, tap, tap.'

The little schoolhouse and residence in the scrub was lighted brightly
in the midst of the 'close', solid blackness of that moonless December
night, when the sky and stars were smothered and suffocated by drought
haze.

It was the evening of the school children's 'Feast'. That is to say that
the children had been sent, and 'let go', and the younger ones 'fetched'
through the blazing heat to the school, one day early in the holidays,
and raced--sometimes in couples tied together by the legs--and caked,
and bunned, and finally improved upon by the local Chadband, and got
rid of. The schoolroom had been cleared for dancing, the maps rolled and
tied, the desks and blackboards stacked against the wall outside. Tea
was over, and the trestles and boards, whereon had been spread better
things than had been provided for the unfortunate youngsters, had been
taken outside to keep the desks and blackboards company.

On stools running end to end along one side of the room sat about twenty
more or less blooming country girls of from fifteen to twenty odd.

On the rest of the stools, running end to end along the other wall, sat
about twenty more or less blooming chaps.

It was evident that something was seriously wrong. None of the girls
spoke above a hushed whisper. None of the men spoke above a hushed oath.
Now and again two or three sidled out, and if you had followed them you
would have found that they went outside to listen hard into the darkness
and to swear.

'Tap, tap, tap.'

The rows moved uneasily, and some of the girls turned pale faces
nervously towards the side-door, in the direction of the sound.

'Tap--tap.'

The tapping came from the kitchen at the rear of the teacher's
residence, and was uncomfortably suggestive of a coffin being made: it
was also accompanied by a sickly, indescribable odour--more like that of
warm cheap glue than anything else.

In the schoolroom was a painful scene of strained listening. Whenever
one of the men returned from outside, or put his head in at the door,
all eyes were fastened on him in the flash of a single eye, and then
withdrawn hopelessly. At the sound o