Читать книгу The Pioneers - Katharine Susannah Prichard - Страница 5

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This journey to Port Southern for stores meant that Mary would have to remain alone in the hills until her husband returned. The cow and calf had to be fed and looked after. They were valuable possessions, and could not be left for fear they might wander away from the clearing and get lost in the scrub. Besides, there were the fowls to feed, and the crop to guard from the shy, bright-eyed, wild creatures, that already, lopping out of the forest at dawn, had nibbled it down in places.

Cameron's eyes lingered on his wife as he answered her question. She stood bareheaded before him, the afternoon sunlight outlining her figure and setting threads of gold in her hair. The coming of the child had made her vaguely dearer to him. This journey had not been mentioned between them since Davey's birth. He had tried to put off making it, ekeing out their dwindling supply of corned meat by shooting the brown wallabys which came out of the trees on the edge of the clearing, surprised at the sight of strange, two-legged and four-legged creatures.

They, and the little grey furry animals that scurried high on the branches of the trees on moonlight nights, made very good food. Donald Cameron had been told that no man need starve in the hills while he had a gun, and there were 'possums in the trees. But neither he nor Mary liked the strong flavour of 'possum flesh, tasting as it did, of the pungent eucalyptus buds and leaves the little creatures lived on. He shot the 'possums for the sake of their skins though, spread and tacked the grey pelts against the wall of the house, and when the sun had dried them, Mary stitched them into a rug. She had lined Davey's cradle with them, too.

Donald made ready for his journey next day. During the morning he took his gun down from the shelf above the door, cleaned it, and called his wife out of doors. He showed her how to use it and made her take aim at a tall tree at the end of the clearing.

"You must have no fires or light in the place after sundown," he said, "and let the grub fires in the stumps die out. Bar the doors at night. And if blacks, or a white man sets foot in the hut y've the gun. And must use it! Don't hesitate. It's the law in this country—self-defence. Every man for himself and a woman is doubly justified. You understand."

"Yes, of course," she answered.

"And I'll leave you the dog," he went on. "He's a good watch and'll give warning if there's any danger about."

"Yes," she said.

When the morning came she went to the track in the wagon with him, carrying Davey. She got down when they reached the track; he kissed her and the child, and turned his back on them silently.

She stood watching the wagon go along the path they had come by from the Port, until its roof dipped out of sight over the crest of the hill; then she went slowly back along the threadlike path among the trees.

A white-winged bird flapped across her path; already fear of the stillness was upon her. When she reached the break in the trees and the clearing was visible, the hut on the brow of the hill had an alien aspect. The air was empty without the sound of Donald's axe clanging in the distance, or of his voice calling Lassie.

She was glad when Davey began to cry fretfully. But she could not sing to him. She tried, and her voice wavered and broke. Every other murmur in the stillness was subdued to listen to it.

The day seemed endless. At last night came. She closed and barred the door of the hut at sunset, glancing towards the shelf where Donald had put his gun. The firelight flickered and gleamed on its polished barrel.

Kneeling by the hearth she tried to pray. But her thoughts were flying in an incoherent flight like scattered birds. Davey slept peacefully on the bed among the grey 'possum furs she had wrapped round him. She watched him sleeping for awhile, and then undressing noiselessly, lay down beside him.

She did not sleep, but lay listening to every sound. The creak of the wood of the house, the panting of the wind about it, far-away sounds among the trees, the shrill cry of a night creature, every stir and rustle, until the pale light of early dawn crept under the door, and she knew that it was day again.

While she was busy in the morning she was unconscious of the world about her, or the flight of the day, but when her work was done and she stood in the doorway at noon, the silence struck her again.

All the long day there was a faint busy hum of insects in the air. It came from the grass, from the trees—the long tasselled branches of downy honey-sweet, white blossoms that hung from them. Yet this ceaseless chirring of insects, the leafy murmuring of the trees, twittering of birds in the brushwood, the murmuring of the wind in distant valleys, the intermittent crooning and drone of the creek—all the faint, sweet, earth voices dropped into the great quiet that brooded over the place as they might have into a mysterious ocean that absorbed and obliterated all sounds. The bright hours were rent by the momentary screeching and chatter of parroquets, as they flew, spreading the red, green and yellow of their breasts against the blue sky. At sunset and dawn there were merry melodious flutings, long, sweet, mating-calls, carollings and bursts of husky, gnomish laughter. Yet the silence remained, hovering and swallowing insatiably every sound.

She gazed at the wilderness of the trees about her. From the hill on which the cow paddock was she could see only the clearing and trees—trees standing in a green and undulating sea in every direction, clothing the hills so that they seemed no more than a dark moss clinging close to their sides. In the distance they took on all the misty shades of grey and blue, or stood purple, steeped in shadows, under a rain cloud. She remembered how she had wondered what their mystery contained for her when she had first seen them on the edge of the plains, and she and Donald had set their faces towards them.

She looked down on the child in her arms, and realised that they had brought him to her; from him, her eyes went to the brown roof of the hut with its back to the hillside, a thread of smoke curling from its brown and grey chimney, and to the stretches of dark, upturned earth before it. They had brought her this too, all the dear homeness of it, and a sense of peace and consolation filled her heart.

To throw off the spell of the silence she decided that she must work again. But what to do? Donald had said no fires were to be lit in the stumps because the smoke might attract wayfarers on the road, or wandering natives to the clearing. She sang to the child, fitfully, softly. Then, remembering the spinning wheel which stood in its muffling cloths against the wall in the hut, she brought it into the sunshine and laid Davey down on a shawl at her feet.

When she had a slender thread of yarn going and the spinning wheel began its familiar, communicative little click-clatter, her mind was set to old themes. She forgot place and time as her fingers pursued their familiar track. A gay little air went fluttering moth-wise over her lips to the accompaniment of the wheel, and the little tap tapping of its treadles. She glanced at the child every now and then, laughing and telling him that his mother had found the wherewithal to keep her busy and gay, as a bonny baby's mother ought to be, and that the song she was singing was a song that the women sang over their spinning wheels in the dear country that she had come from, far across the sea.

But the shadows fell quickly. The birds were calling, long and warningly, when she carried the wheel indoors, and busied herself for the evening milking.

Wherever she went the dog that had come from the Port with them, followed. He trailed in her footsteps when she went to the creek for water, or to the cow paddock. He lay with watchful eyes on the edge of the clearing, when she sat at her spinning in the afternoon, or walked backwards and forwards crooning Davey to sleep.

At about noon on the fourth day while she was making porridge for her midday meal, the dog started to his feet and barked furiously. He had been lying stretched on the mat in the doorway. For a moment her heart stood still. Then she went to the door.

"What is it, Jo?" she asked.

The dog's eyes were fixed on the trees and scrubby undergrowth to the left of the hut. Every short hair on his lean body bristled. He growled sullenly. Later in the afternoon, when she sat in the clearing spinning and singing with Davey on his shawl beside her, he started to his feet suddenly and snarled fiercely.

Mary looked at him again questioningly and her eyes flew to the edge of the trees in the direction he pointed. No quivering leaf nor threatening sound stirred the quiet. He subsided at her feet after a moment, but his ears, kept pricked, twitched uneasily; his eyes never left the edge of the trees. Once they twisted up to her and she read in them the clear expression of a pitiful uneasiness, the assurance of deathless fidelity, a prayer almost to go into the house.

She picked up the child and walked towards the hut. The dog followed, glancing uneasily towards the edge of the clearing. She shut the door on that side of the hut and went to the back door.

"Jo! Jo!" she called long and clearly.

He flew round to her.

Though her limbs trembled, Mary went up to the paddock and brought the cow down to the shed. She milked, with Davey on her knees and the dog crouched beside her; then, with the child on one arm and the milk pail on the other, she went towards the house again.

She did not go down to the creek for water as she usually did.

"It's not because I'm afraid, Davey," she murmured, "but Jo would not have barked like that for nothing. It was a warning, and it would not be nice of us to take no notice of him at all."

As she left the shed the dog darted savagely away. She did not notice that he was no longer at her heels until she had re-entered the hut. As she was going to call him, the words died on her lips. Two gaunt and ragged men stood in the doorway!