“It’s not that; you ought to know me better than that. It was—I—Johnny, I was only thinking—we’ve been married twenty years to-night—an’—it’s New Year’s Night!”
“And I’ve never thought of it!” said Johnny (in the afterwards). “Shows what a God-forgotten selection will make of a man. She’d thought of it all the time, and was waiting for it to strike me. Why! I’d agreed to go and play at a darnce at Old Pipeclay School-house all night—that very night—and leave her at home because she hadn’t asked to come; and it never struck me to ask her—at home by herself in that hole—for twenty-five bob. And I only stopped at home because I’d got the hump, and knew they’d want me bad at the school.”
They sat close together on the long stool by the table, shy and awkward at first; and she clung to him at opening of thunder, and they started apart guiltily when the first great drops sounded like footsteps on the gravel outside, just as they’d done one night-time before—twenty years before.
If it was dark before, it was black now. The edge of the awful storm-cloud rushed up and under the original darkness like the best “drop” black-brushed over the cheap “lamp” variety, turning it grey by contrast. The deluge lasted only a quarter of an hour; but it cleared the night, and did its work. There was hail before it, too—big as emu eggs, the boys said—that lay feet deep in the old diggers’ holes on Pipeclay for days afterwards—weeks some said.
The two sweethearts of twenty years ago and to-night watched the retreat of the storm, and, seeing
