Bob sat down again. "New stockman coming, a good bloke according to Jimmy. Been working out on the West Queensland plains around Longreach and Charlville. Was a drover, too. Good references and all aboveboard. Can sit anything with four legs and a tail, used to break horses. Was a shearer before that, gun shearer too, Jimmy says, over two fifty a day. That's what makes me a bit suspicious. Why would a gun shearer want to work for stockman's wages? Not too often a gun shearer will give up the bo)i for a saddle. Be handy paddock-crutching, though, eh?" With the passing of the years Bob's accent grew more drawling and Australian but his sentences shorter in compensation. He was creeping up toward thirty, and much to Meggie's disappointment showed no sign of being smitten with any of the eligible girls he met at the few festivities decency forced them to attend. For one thing he was painfully shy, and for another he seemed utterly wrapped in the land, apparently preferring to love it without distraction. Jack and Hughie grew more and more like him; indeed, they could have passed for triplets as they sat together on one of the hard marble benches, the closest to comfortable housebound relaxa tion they could get. They seemed actually to prefer camping out in the paddocks, and when sleeping at home stretched out on the floors of their bedrooms, frightened that beds might soften them. The sun, the wind and the dryness had weathered their fair, freckled skins to a sort of mottled mahogany, in which their blue eyes shone pale and tranquil, with the deep creases beside them speaking of gazing into far distances and silver-beige grass. It was almost impossible to tell what age they were, or which was the oldest and which the youngest. Each had Paddy's Roman nose and kind homely face, but better bodies than Paddy's, which hadbeen stooped and arm-elongated from so many years shearing. They had developed the spare, easy beauty of horsemen instead. Yet for women and comfort and pleasure they did not pine.
"Is the new man married?" asked Fee, drawing neat lines with a ruler and a red-inked pen.
"Dunno, didn't ask. Know tomorrow when he comes."
"How is he getting here?"
"Jimmy's driving him out; got to see about those old wethers in Tankstand." "Well, let's hope he stays awhile. If he's not married he'll be off again in a few weeks, I suppose. Wretched people, stockmen," said Fee. Jims and Patsy were boarding at Riverview, vowing they wouldn't stay at school a minute longer than the fourteen years of age which was legal. They burned for the day when they would be out in the paddocks with Bob, Jack and Hughie, when Drogheda could run on family again and the outsiders would be welcome to come and go as frequently as they pleased. Sharing the family passion for reading didn't endear Riverview to them at all; a book could be carried in a saddlebag or a jacket pocket and read with far more pleasure in the noonday shade of a wilga than in a Jesuit classroom. It had been a hard transition for them, boarding school. The big-windowed classrooms, the spacious green playing fields, the wealth of gardens and facilities meant nothing to them, nor did Sydney with its museums, concert halls and art galleries. They chummed up with the sons of other graziers and spent their leisure hours longing for home, or boasting about the size and splendor of Drogheda to awed but believing ears; anyone west of Burren Junction had heard of mighty Drogheda.
Several weeks passed before Meggie saw the new stockman. His name had been duly entered in the books, Luke O'neill, and he was already talked about in the big house far more than stockmen usually were. For one thing, he had refused to bunk in the jackaroos" barracks but had taken up residence in the last empty house upon the creek. For another, he had introduced himself to Mrs. Smith, and was in that lady's good books, though she didn't usually care for stockmen. Meggie was quite curious about him long before she met him.
Since she kept the chestnut mare and the black gelding in the stables rather than the stockyards and was mostly obliged to start out later of a morning than the men, she would often go long periods of time without running into any of the hired people. But she finally met Luke O'neill late one afternoon as the summer sun was flaring redly over the trees and the long shadows crept toward the gentle oblivion of night. She was coming back from Borehead to the ford across the creek, he was coming in from southeast and farther out, also on a course for the ford.
The sun was in his eyes, so she saw him before he saw her, and he was riding a big mean bay with a black mane and tail and black points; she knew the animal well because it was her job to rotate the work horses, and she had wondered why this particular beast was not so much in evidence these days. None of the men cared for it, never rode it if they could help. Apparently the new stockman didn't mind it at all, which certainly indicated he could ride, for it was a notorious earlymorning bucker and had a habit of snapping at its rider's head the moment he dismounted.
It was hard to tell a man's height when he was on horseback, for Australian stockmen used small English saddles minus the high cantle and horn of the American saddle, and rode with their knees bent, sitting very upright. The new man seemed tall, but sometimes height was all in the trunk, the legs disproportionately short, so Meggiie reserved judgment. However, unlike most stockmen he preferred a white shirt and white moleskins to grey flannel and grey twill; somewhat of a dandy, she decided, amused. Good luck to him, if he didn't mind the bother of so much washing and ironing.
"G'day, Missus!" he called as they converged, doffing his battered old grey felt hat and replacing it rakishly on the back of his head. Laughing blue eyes looked at Meggie in undisguised admiration as she drew alongside.
"Well, you're certainly not the Missus, so you've got to be the daughter," he said. "I'm Luke O'neill."