"They are all well at Borombyee. There is no pleuro, or scab, or fire."
"Thank goodness! I was afraid something had happened." She saw something was amiss—something lurking in his eyes. She guessed her guess, and made a cast with her sweep-net of questions and caught him in the meshes. She knew now; the secret was revealed; it lay in the depth of his eyes. There is not much that can be hid from a mother.
She watched him at breakfast, and kept the conversation going to cover his retreat within himself. He ate little, and said less. His father, good, easy man, listened to his wife's talk, which rippled and flowed like a brook in the sun. He had the gift of silence, like many bushmen who have been much alone—who have communed with the great mountains, the wide-spread plains, the quiet clouds, and the silent stars.
"I can't get a word in edgeways," he said, laughing.
"You've got one in flat, at last," she said, "but it will be a long time before you can coin another;" and she rattled on with her bright talk.
After breakfast Alec's father rode to the drafting-yards, where some fat sheep were on the point of starting for the Melbourne market. Alec strolled down the creek on pretence of going to the killing-yard. He wanted to be alone. He would fill up the day somehow, by "topping up" a fence here, by straining a wire there, and by straightening a post anywhere.
He did not go home to luncheon; he was not hungry. The longer he kept from the search-light eyes of his mother the better it was for him. In the dusk, or lamplight, he would be all right. He could run in under the battery with lights out and masked fires.
At dinner he was more at ease. His mother did not appear to watch him, excepting in the most casual way. His father told him, in the briefest, jerkiest sentences, that he had drafted a flock of sheep for Melbourne, picked out four lame ones, skinned one that was smothered in the yard, and spliced a broken leg.
When Alec had gone to bed his mother had a long talk with her husband. She hinted that their son was not looking well. She thought the hard work of shearing-time had been too much for him, and that he required a change.
"Hoots! do I ever get a change, or need one? No. Alec's all right; right's a trivet. If a man thinks he wants a change, make him work. If he wants more change, give him more work. If he wants a spell after that, more work still. Work never killed a man. Work while it's day is scripture an' sense."