earts in the loft at Billabong that night. But Andy looked over
the heads of the dancers at his master, meeting his eyes as man to man,
and each knew that the mind of the other had gone back to days long
dead.

The long floor echoed under the dancers' feet--up and down, swing in the
centre, hands across; the pace was always a good one when Andy Ferguson
played the "Royal Irish." One foot tapped out the time, and his grey
head nodded in sympathy with it. They called to him now and again,
"Bravo, Andy! Good man, Andy! Keep it going!" and he smiled at the
friendly voices, watching them with the keenness of the Irishman for a
light foot in a dance.

Just before him, Mrs. Brown, dancing with Jim, was footing it in and
out of the figures like a girl, holding her skirts quaintly on either
side as she advanced and retired, and came back to sweep a curtsey that
shamed the quick bow of the younger generation, while the tall lad she
had nursed waited for her with a grave gentleness that sat prettily on
his broad shoulders. Near, too, the old man's eyes dwelt lovingly on
Norah, whose eyes were dancing in time with her feet as Wally pranced
her madly up and down, his own brown face glowing.... just for a moment
Andy saw "the little mistress" who had known her baby for so brief a
time fourteen years before; her face looked at him through her child's
grey eyes. He looked across at his master again, a little wistfully.

The tune broke into "St. Patrick's Day," and Murty O'Toole gave a
sudden involuntary shout, his hand above his head, Mick Shanahan echoed
it; the Irish music was in their blood, and the old man with the brown
fiddle had power to make them boys again. He, too, had gone back on the
lilt of the tune; back to his own green country, where the man with the
fiddle has his kingdom always, and the lads and lasses are his
subjects. There was a girl with blue Irish eyes, coming to meet him on
St. Patrick's morning... the tune wavered ever so little then, as his
heart cried out to her. Then the dream passed, and he knew that he was
a boy no more, but old Andy Ferguson, playing for the boys and girls in
the loft at Billabong. The bow moved faster and faster yet--only a good
pair could see him right through the "Royal Irish." They were panting
when he dropped his hand at last and stood looking at them a little
vaguely. Then they crowded round him, thanking him. Even the Cunjee
musicians were saying that he could beat them all, and