“Isn’t that pretty rock?” she observed. “It’s got such queer colours and markings.”
“Just what a girl would say!” was Barry’s scornful rejoinder. “It’s only old rock: I don’t see anything pretty about it. But the bang was gorgeous, if you like! I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up—they always have lots of blasting rocks in their jobs!”
“Do they always kill pigs?” asked Robin, cruelly.
CHAPTER XII
STRANGERS
It seemed to Mrs. Hurst that the evening grew hotter as sundown approached, and the atmosphere more oppressive. The blue haze drifting slowly down from the ranges made all the air heavy: it had spread gently over the landscape, so that distant objects were misty and indistinct. Since this was not unusual in summer-time, when fires were constantly burning in the distant ranges, it had caused no anxiety to the settlers in the valleys below. But as Mrs. Hurst strolled out into the garden, weary of the hot house, she cast an apprehensive glance upwards.
“I believe it is thicker than it was this morning,” she said, half aloud. “I wonder—if the wind should get up—” She did not put the partly-formed thought into words.
Even in the garden the feeling of being shut in oppressed her, and presently she opened the white gate and strolled slowly down the slope towards the road. There was a log close to the fence; she sat down on it, looking across the paddocks towards the green line of wattles that marked the winding course of the creek.
“I wish the children would come home,” she said.
From the hills a loud booming noise came as if in answer, and she started violently, while the echoes ran round the gullies: laughing at herself as they died away.
“Only the road-gang blasting somewhere,” she said. “I believe I am getting nervous. This long spell of dry heat makes us all jumpy. If only rain would come—!”