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- Колин Маккалоу
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- Стр. 211/535
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They
talked
a
lot
,
but
always
about
general
things
;
shearing
,
the
land
,
the
sheep
,
or
what
he
wanted
out
of
life
,
or
perhaps
about
the
places
he
had
seen
,
or
some
political
happening
.
He
read
an
occasional
book
but
he
was
n't
an
inveterate
reader
like
Meggie
,
and
try
as
she
would
,
she
could
n't
seem
to
persuade
him
to
read
this
or
that
book
simply
because
she
had
found
it
interesting
.
Nor
did
he
lead
the
conversation
into
intellectual
depths
;
most
interesting
and
irritating
of
all
,
he
never
evinced
any
interest
in
her
life
,
or
asked
her
what
she
wanted
from
it
.
Sometimes
she
longed
to
talk
about
matters
far
closer
to
her
heart
than
sheep
or
rain
,
but
if
she
made
a
leading
statement
he
was
expert
at
deflecting
her
into
more
impersonal
channels
.
*
*
*
Luke
O'Neill
was
clever
,
conceited
,
extremely
hardworking
and
hungry
to
enrich
himself
.
He
had
been
born
in
a
wattle-and-daub
shanty
exactly
on
the
Tropic
of
Capricorn
,
outside
the
town
of
Longreach
in
Western
Queensland
.
His
father
was
the
black
sheep
of
a
prosperous
but
unforgiving
Irish
family
,
his
mother
was
the
daughter
of
the
German
butcher
in
Winton
;
when
she
insisted
on
marrying
Luke
senior
,
she
also
was
disowned
.
There
were
ten
children
in
that
humpy
,
none
of
whom
possessed
a
pair
of
shoes
--
not
that
shoes
mattered
much
in
torrid
Longreach
.
Luke
senior
,
who
shore
for
a
living
when
he
felt
like
it
(
but
mostly
all
he
felt
like
doing
was
drinking
OP
rum
)
,
died
in
a
fire
at
the
Blackall
pub
when
young
Luke
was
twelve
years
old
.
So
as
soon
as
he
could
Luke
took
himself
off
on
the
shearing
circuit
as
a
tar
boy
,
slapping
molten
tar
on
jagged
wounds
if
a
shearer
slipped
and
cut
flesh
as
well
as
wool
.
One
thing
Luke
was
never
afraid
of
,
and
that
was
hard
work
;
he
thrived
on
it
the
way
some
men
thrived
on
its
opposite
,
whether
because
his
father
had
been
a
barfly
and
a
town
joke
or
because
he
had
inherited
his
German
mother
's
love
of
industry
no
one
had
ever
bothered
to
find
out
.
As
he
grew
older
he
graduated
from
tar
boy
to
shed
hand
,
running
down
the
board
catching
the
great
heavy
fleeces
as
they
flew
off
the
boggis
in
one
piece
billowing
up
like
kites
,
and
carrying
them
to
the
wool-rolling
table
to
be
skirted
.
From
that
he
learned
to
skirt
,
picking
the
dirt-encrusted
edges
off
the
fleeces
and
transferring
them
to
bins
ready
for
the
attention
of
the
classer
,
who
was
shed
aristocrat
:
the
man
who
like
a
wine-taster
or
a
perfume-tester
can
not
be
trained
unless
he
also
has
instinct
for
the
job
.
And
Luke
did
n't
have
a
classer
's
instinct
;
either
he
turned
to
pressing
or
to
shearing
if
he
wanted
to
earn
more
money
,
which
he
certainly
did
.
He
had
the
strength
to
man
the
press
,
tamp
down
the
graded
fleeces
into
massive
bales
,
but
a
gun
shearer
could
make
more
money
.
By
now
he
was
well
known
in
Western
Queensland
as
a
good
worker
,
so
he
had
no
trouble
getting
himself
a
learner
's
pen
.
With
grace
,
coordination
,
strength
and
endurance
,
all
necessary
and
luckily
present
in
Luke
,
a
man
could
become
a
gun
shearer
.
Soon
Luke
was
shearing
his
two
hundred-plus
a
day
six
days
a
week
,
a
quid
a
hundred
;
and
this
with
the
narrow
handpiece
resembling
a
boggi
lizard
,
hence
its
name
.
The
big
New
Zealand
handpieces
with
their
wide
,
coarse
combs
and
cutters
were
illegal
in
Australia
,
though
they
doubled
a
shearer
's
tally
.
It
was
grueling
work
;
bending
from
his
height
with
a
sheep
clamped
between
his
knees
,
sweeping
his
boggi
in
blows
the
length
of
the
sheep
's
body
to
free
the
wool
in
one
piece
and
leave
as
few
second
cuts
as
possible
,
close
enough
to
the
loose
kinky
skin
to
please
the
shed
boss
,
who
would
be
down
in
a
second
on
any
shearer
not
conforming
to
his
rigorous
standards
.
He
did
n't
mind
the
heat
and
the
sweat
and
the
thirst
which
forced
him
to
drink
upward
of
three
gallons
of
water
a
day
,
he
did
n't
even
mind
the
tormenting
hordes
of
flies
,
for
he
was
born
in
fly
country
.
Nor
did
he
mind
the
sheep
,
which
were
mostly
a
shearer
's
nightmare
;
cobblers
,
wets
,
overgrowns
,
snobs
,
dags
,
fly-strikes
,
they
came
in
all
varieties
,
and
they
were
all
merinos
,
which
meant
wool
all
the
way
down
to
their
hoofs
and
noses
,
and
a
cobbled
fragile
skin
which
moved
like
slippery
paper
.
No
,
it
was
n't
the
work
itself
Luke
minded
,
for
the
harder
he
worked
the
better
he
felt
;
what
irked
him
were
the
noise
,
the
being
shut
inside
,
the
stench
.
No
place
on
earth
was
quite
the
hell
a
shearing
shed
was
.
