【荆棘鸟】第六章 04

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No one ever knew what Stuart was thinking; like Fee, he spoke¹ little and never aired an opinion. And he had a curious knack² of being utterly³ still, as still within himself as he was in body, and to Meggie, closest to him in age, it seemed he could go somewhere no one else could ever follow. Father Ralph expressed it another way. "That lad isn't human!" he had exclaimed the day he dumped a hunger-striking Stuart back at Drogheda after he was left at the convent minus Meggie. "Did he say he wanted to go home? Did he say he missed Meggie? No! He just stopped eating and patiently waited for the reason why to sink into our thick skulls⁴. Not once did he open his mouth to complain, and when I marched up to him and yelled did he want to go home, he simply smiled at me and nodded!"

But as time went on it was tacitly assumed that Stuart would not go out into the paddocks to work with Paddy and the other boys, even though in age he might have. Stu would remain on guard at the house, chop the wood, take care of the vegetable garden, do the milking-the huge number of duties the women had no time for with three babies in the house. It was prudent⁵ to have a man about the place, albeit⁶ a half-grown one; it gave proof of other men close by. For there were visitors-the clump⁷ of strange boots up the plank⁸ steps to the back veranda⁹, a strange voice saying: "Hullo, Missus, got a bit of tucker for a man?" The Outback had swarms¹⁰ of them, swagmen humping their blueys from station to station, down from Queensland and up from Victoria, men who had lost their luck or were chary¹¹ of holding a regular job, preferring to tramp on foot thousands of miles in search of only they knew what. Mostly they were decent fellows, who appeared, ate a huge meal, packed a bit of donated tea and sugar and flour in the folds of their blueys, then disappeared down the track headed for Barcoola or Narrengang, battered¹² old billycans bouncing, skinny dogs belly¹³ down behind them. Australian itinerants¹⁴ rarely rode; they walked.Occasionally a bad man would come, on the lookout¹⁵ for women whose men were away; with a view to robbery, not rape¹⁶. Thus Fee kept a shotgun standing¹⁷ loaded in a corner of the kitchen where the babies couldn't get to it, and made sure she was closer to it than her visitor until her expert eye assessed his character. After Stuart was officially allotted¹⁸ the house as his domain¹⁹, Fee passed the shotgun to him gladly.

 

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