The Pioneers

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

  CHAPTER III

  This journey to Port Southern for stores meant that Mary would have toremain alone in the hills until her husband returned. The cow and calfhad to be fed and looked after. They were valuable possessions, andcould not be left for fear they might wander away from the clearing andget lost in the scrub. Besides, there were the fowls to feed, and thecrop 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. Shestood bareheaded before him, the afternoon sunlight outlining her figureand setting threads of gold in her hair. The coming of the child hadmade her vaguely dearer to him. This journey had not been mentionedbetween them since Davey's birth. He had tried to put off making it,ekeing out their dwindling supply of corned meat by shooting the brownwallabys 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 thebranches of the trees on moonlight nights, made very good food. DonaldCameron had been told that no man need starve in the hills while he hada gun, and there were 'possums in the trees. But neither he nor Maryliked the strong flavour of 'possum flesh, tasting as it did, of thepungent eucalyptus buds and leaves the little creatures lived on. Heshot the 'possums for the sake of their skins though, spread and tackedthe grey pelts against the wall of the house, and when the sun had driedthem, Mary stitched them into a rug. She had lined Davey's cradle withthem, too.

  Donald made ready for his journey next day. During the morning he tookhis gun down from the shelf above the door, cleaned it, and called hiswife out of doors. He showed her how to use it and made her take aim ata 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. Andmust 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 givewarning 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 herand the child, and turned his back on them silently.

  She stood watching the wagon go along the path they had come by from thePort, 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 thestillness was upon her. When she reached the break in the trees and theclearing was visible, the hut on the brow of the hill had an alienaspect. The air was empty without the sound of Donald's axe clanging inthe distance, or of his voice calling Lassie.

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

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

  Kneeling by the hearth she tried to pray. But her thoughts were flyingin an incoherent flight like scattered birds. Davey slept peacefully onthe bed among the grey 'possum furs she had wrapped round him. Shewatched him sleeping for awhile, and then undressing noiselessly, laydown beside him.

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

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

  All the long day there was a faint busy hum of insects in the air. Itcame from the grass, from the trees--the long tasselled branches ofdowny honey-sweet, white blossoms that hung from them. Yet thisceaseless chirring of insects, the leafy murmuring of the trees,twittering of birds in the brushwood, the murmuring of the wind indistant valleys, the intermittent crooning and drone of the creek--allthe faint, sweet, earth voices dropped into the great quiet that broodedover the place as they might have into a mysterious ocean that absorbedand obliterated all sounds. The bright hours were rent by the momentaryscreeching and chatter of parroquets, as they flew, spreading the red,green and yellow of their breasts against the blue sky. At sunset anddawn there were merry melodious flutings, long, sweet, mating-calls,carollings and bursts of husky, gnomish laughter. Yet the silenceremained, hovering and swallowing insatiably every sound.

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

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

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

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

  But the shadows fell quickly. The birds were calling, long andwarningly, when she carried the wheel indoors, and busied herself forthe 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 forwater, or to the cow paddock. He lay with watchful eyes on the edge ofthe clearing, when she sat at her spinning in the afternoon, or walkedbackwards and forwards crooning Davey to sleep.

  At about noon on the fourth day while she was making porridge for hermidday meal, the dog started to his feet and barked furiously. He hadbeen lying stretched on the mat in the doorway. For a moment her heartstood 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 theleft of the hut. Every short hair on his lean body bristled. He growledsullenly. Later in the afternoon, when she sat in the clearing spinningand singing with Davey on his shawl beside her, he started to his feetsuddenly and snarled fiercely.


  Mary looked at him again questioningly and her eyes flew to the edge ofthe trees in the direction he pointed. No quivering leaf nor threateningsound stirred the quiet. He subsided at her feet after a moment, but hisears, kept pricked, twitched uneasily; his eyes never left the edge ofthe trees. Once they twisted up to her and she read in them the clearexpression 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 onthat 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 thecow down to the shed. She milked, with Davey on her knees and the dogcrouched beside her; then, with the child on one arm and the milk pailon 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 nothave barked like that for nothing. It was a warning, and it would not benice of us to take no notice of him at all."

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