【荆棘鸟】第四章 02

"你不是个天言教徒，对吗？"
　　"对，可帕迪是天主教徒。自然啦，孩子们是按天主教徒来抚养的，连最小的那个也是，如果你担心的是这个的话。"
　　"我从来没这么想过。你对此感到不满吗？"
　　"这样也好，那样也好，我实在觉得无所谓。"
　　"那你没有改信天主教吗？"
　　"我不是个虚伪的人，德·布里克萨特神父。我已经不信自己的教了，而也不想去信奉另一个不同的、但同样是毫无意义的信条。"
　　"我明白了。"他望着站在前廊下的梅吉，她正在凝望着通往德罗海达那幢大宅的道路。"你女儿长得真俊俏啊。你知道，我喜欢金红色的头发。她的头发会使那位艺术家迫不及待地去操笔作画的。我以前确实从未见过这种颜色，她是你的独生女儿吧？"
 
　　"是的。男孩子们继承了帕迪家和我家的遗传，女孩子则出落得与众不同。"
　　"可怜的小东西，"他含混不清地说道。
　　板条筐从悉尼运到后，屋子里就摆上了那些书籍、磁器和小摆设；它显得亲切得多了。客厅里放满了菲的家具，一切都渐次安顿妥当。帕迪和那几个比斯图尔特年龄大的孩子大部分时间都在外面，和玛丽·卡森没有辞退的两个牧工呆在一起，向他们讨教新南威尔士西北部的绵羊与新西兰绵羊之间的诸多差别。菲、梅吉和斯图尔特发现，住在德罗海达牧工头的住宅里和在新西兰操持家务大不一样。这里有一种默契，即他们决不去打搅玛丽·卡森本人，但是，她的女管家和女仆们却很热心地来帮这里女人们的忙，就像她的牧工热心地帮那些男人的忙一样。
　　尽人皆知，德罗海达是个自成一统的天地。它与文明世界的隔绝是如此之深，才过了没多久，就连基兰博也仅仅成他们记忆中的一个遥远的记忆了。在圈起来的一片家宅围场内有马厩、一个铁匠房、车库和数不清的库棚，里面堆放着饲料以及农机等杂物，可以说是应有尽有。这里有狗窝和饲养场；迷宫般的牲畜围栏和一个庞大的剪毛房，它有26个工位，真能让人吓一跳，而它的后面又是一片星罗棋布的围栏。这里还有家禽场、猪圈、牛栏和牛奶场，26个剪毛工的住房，牧羊场杂工的小棚屋和两幢和他们自己住的房子很相似的、但要小一些的房子，供牧工居住；还有一间供牧场新手住的临时工棚，一个屠宰场，以及一些木料垛。
 

"No, Paddy's the Catholic. Naturally the children have been reared as Catholics, every last one of them, if that's what's worrying you." "It never occurred to me. Do you resent it?"
  "I really don't care one way or the other."
  "You didn't convert?"
  "I'm not a hypocrite, Father de Bricassart. I had lost faith in my own church, and I had no wish to espouse 1 a different, equally meaningless creed 2." "I see." He watched Meggie as she stood on the front veranda 3, peering up the track toward Drogheda big house. "She's so pretty, your daughter. I have a fondness for titian hair, you know. Hers would have sent the artist running for his brushes. I've never seen exactly that color before. Is she your only daughter?"
  "Yes. Boys run in both Paddy's family and my own; girls are unusual." "Poor little thing," he said obscurely.
  After the crates 4 arrived from Sydney and the house took on a more familiar look with its books, china, ornaments 5 and the parlor 6 filled with Fee's furniture, things began to settle down. Paddy and the boys older than Stu were away most of the time with the two station hands Mary Carson had retained to teach them the many differences between sheep in northwest New South Wales and sheep in New Zealand. Fee, Meggie and Stu discovered the differences between running a house in New Zealand and living in the head stockman's residence on Drogheda; 
there was a tacit understanding they would never disturb Mary Carson herself, but her housekeeper 7 and her maids were just as eager to help the women as her station hands were to help the men. Drogheda was, everyone learned, a world in itself, so cut off from civilization that after a while even Gillanbone became no more than a name with remote memories. 
Within the bounds of the great Home Paddock lay stables, a smithy, garages, innumerable sheds storing everything from feed to machinery 8, dog kennels 9 and runs, a labyrinthine 10 maze 11 of stockyards, a mammoth 12 shearing 13 shed with the staggering number of twenty-six stands in it, and yet another jigsaw 14 puzzle of yards behind it. 
There were fowl 15 runs, pigpens, cow bails 16 and a dairy, quarters for the twenty-six shearers, small shacks 17 for the rouseabouts, two other, smaller, houses like their own forstockmen, jackaroos'' barracks, a slaughter 18 yard, and woodheaps.