The Mystical Swagman. Gary Blinco

depends on representation of a wide range of interest groups so that a balanced government can be formed. What you suggest would inevitably lead to an approach that would ultimately act against the interests of everyone, including your own class. Whether you accept it or not, the interests and efforts of all people need to interlock; we all need each other.”

      He smiled as his uncle’s whiskers started to twitch. His wife simpered nervously. One of the men laughed out loud, slapping his thigh. “By Jove, Arthur, the boy has you covered there.”

      “That child is a smarty pants if ever there was one,” Arthur growled. “He should learn that children are to be seen but not heard.”

      Ede moved quickly to offer the tea around, at the same time quietly urging Brennan to return to his books. As he left, the boy thought being seen but not heard a strange idea; but he had observed the reaction of the other adults to his speaking up. He resolved henceforth to keep quiet in the presence of his elders, deciding that one did not necessarily need to show off what one knew. Until he found a use for it, he would keep his growing knowledge to himself.

      Chapter

      3

      Sometimes Brennan liked to get out of the city and visit fringe of bush land covering the high ridges over looking the harbour. Today he followed a narrow animal track that snaked up the hill until eventually the path disappeared altogether and he was forced to push his way through the bush. At the top of the ridge he found a private little clearing that looked out over the sprawling city and the glassy, picture-book image of the harbour. Squatting on the rocks, he looked down on the sailing ships that were moored against the key. The water was still and crystal-clear, and the ships looked like tiny ornaments sitting on a glass tabletop. He watched the fishing boats coming through the heads, their keels low in the water with the weight of the catch.

      It was quiet on the ridge in the mid-morning. The sounds of the bush were unobtrusive and only the faintest sounds of civilisation rose up from the settlement below. The native animals were his only companions. People never strayed too far from the city or the well-established roads – they were too afraid of the Aborigines or the bushrangers, and any other real or imagined evils that may lurk in the bush. Brennan feared none of these things, though. The few natives he had met were friendly and he doubted that any bushrangers would venture this close to the city; and even if they did, they would have no interest in someone like him.

      Kangaroos and wallabies regarded him curiously from a safe distance, and birds hopped about in the lower branches of the gums to study the strange boy who had suddenly appeared among them. A large family of laughing kookaburras howled with mirth when they saw him, as if he’d triggered some private joke in their minds. Some of them settled on the rocks nearby and stared at him, heads aslant, their eyes two bright beads of resentment directed at this pale intruder into their world. Brennan grinned at the birds and looked around the clearing at all the timid creatures that peered at him quietly from the gloom of the undergrowth. He liked the solitude and the serenity of the setting. After a time he decided to follow the ridgeline a little further, moving further away from the city and the harbour below. It took him to a well-worn animal pad leading down the spur, which he began to follow eagerly.

      At first the track followed the ridgeline as it descended steeply; then the landscape flattened out and soon he was walking across a broad level plateau. When he came upon a larger track that crossed his path at right angles, bearing the impressions of wagon or sulky wheels, he decided to follow that for a while to see where it would lead him. The scrub had thinned out here on the plateau, and long grass grew along the verges of the narrow road. When Brennan looked back, he could see the ridge that overlooked the city and the harbour rising up behind him, its tall trees and craggy rocks stark against the deep blue sky.

      After about an hour of strolling along the little road, his mind lost in the landscape’s beauty, Brennan was beginning to think that he had better retrace his steps. For himself he was not afraid to be out after dark, but Ede would become frantic if he were not home in time for supper. Just when he had decided to turn back, he came upon a little creek that curled around the base of a small hill like an apron, making the little knoll look almost like an island as it nestled in the folds of the watercourse. The road forded the creek, then climbed the rise to where Brennan could see a slab cottage set among a grove of wattle trees, with a large garden sprawling down the far side of the slope to the creek. A man wearing a huge conical hat like that of an oriental coolie was chipping away with a long-handled hoe between tall rows of tomato plants. Brennan decided to approach him boldly; he was hungry and thirsty after his walk, and he was curious to know how this pretty little farm had appeared here in the bush.

      The man looked up and rested his chin on the handle of his hoe as Brennan approached. He was tall and sinewy, and burnt dark by the sun. “Hello there, m’lad,” he said in a rich cockney accent. “I thought yer was the traps coming to check up on me an’ all.”

      “Not the traps,” Brennan laughed. “Just a tramper out in the bush for a stroll. I saw your wagon tracks, and decided to follow and see where they led me. I came from the city via the high ridge; I did not expect to find a farm out here. My name is Brennan.”

      “Glad to know you then, Brennan,” the man said. “They call me Sly Joe, the Cockney farmer; though some call me the wise man. I was a bloomin’ convict to begin with; but now I’m what they call a ‘ticket of leave man’. I think I may be the last of my kind because the Governor cancelled the idea, but he made a special case for me. I don’t think there will be any more convicts coming to the colony at all from now on. If I’m a good lad and grow vegetables for the military garrison for the next three years this little farm is me own, and in the meantime I’ve also met a fine and pretty lady convict who has agreed to be me bride an’ all as well. So there you have it straight, and that’s why I thought yer was the traps come to check up on me.”

      Brennan looked around and saw lines of bean bushes with long, plump beans hanging from them, and melon and pumpkin vines twisting their way down the slope amid huge patches of fruit. Fat cobs of corn hugged tall stems that reached skyward with shiny brown tassels on the tops. “The garden looks so healthy,” he said in awe, his mouth watering.

      “Aye,” Sly Joe said proudly, perhaps even a little smugly. “The land is new and rich, and the water from the creek is sweet and plentiful. Few men have a better life than old Sly Joe these days – though I’ve braved some tough times to get here.” He shouldered his hoe and shook Brennan’s hand. “Come up to the cottage and share a pannikin of tea with a man. I don’t get much company except the troopers and a few mates, and a pint twice a month when I take the crop down the road to the garrison.”

      He led the way through the lush garden towards the cottage. In the outside fireplace Sly Joe prodded the dark coals until they glowed red, then set a large pot of water over it to boil for tea. Brennan followed him inside when Sly Joe went for the tea leaves; he was curious to see the interior. By now he had learned that Joe had built the cottage himself, with a little help from some fellow convicts. The walls were made of iron bark slabs that had been shaped and trimmed to fit perfectly. The roof had been constructed using long strips of stringy-bark and wattle cladding welded together with clay. Push-out windows of light pine shingles let light and air into the dwelling when they were open, and kept out the rain and the cold when they were closed. A rough table had been built on two stout stumps in the middle of the bare earthen floor, with a long bench-seat running down one side of the little building. A cabinet with a bag for a door and a tin trunk sat against one wall, while a kangaroo-hide hammock hung across a corner.

      All things considered, Brennan reckoned Joe to be pretty comfortable. They went back outside, where the boy watched the man make the tea. “Why do they call you Sly Joe instead of just Joe?” he asked finally, sipping the sweet tea as they moved over to sit on a rough bench seat under the shade of a large tree.

      “Because I am a sly dog,” Joe laughed, “and I did a few sly deeds that led me to this land in the first place. Still, I have managed to keep out of harm’s way with the troopers over the years, and that’s no mean feat, let me tell ye, lad. That’s how I got this wicket here in the bush.”

      They drank the tea, and munched