and astonished look until the whole class fell silent, and you suddenly realised it was you he was being outraged and astonished at.
The thing opened its mouth and mooed, a long deep sound with a little shrill hysterical thing on the end, and without thinking he mooed back. It was an uncharacteristic thing to do and he wished straight away he had not. The cow stared at him as if its feelings were hurt and took another step towards him. When it stopped again it was really very close. He could see a bit of grass stuck in one of its cavernous nostrils, and a little greenish froth on what he supposed you’d have to call its lips.
After what seemed a tremendously long time, it dropped its big brown head and started tearing at the grass. He could hear the muffled crushing noise as it ground away.
Being boring seemed to have finally paid off.
Smoothly, unprovocatively, boringly, he got up from the log and walked away sideways, keeping an eye on the cow. When he was able to get a tree between them, he turned and walked quickly up the paddock. Glancing back he could see that they were doing the I-am-outraged-and-astonished thing again.
It would be easy to get sick of cows.
The adventurous feeling had gone. He was feeling watched now. In the city no one looked. You were just another object taking up space on the footpath. Here you were huge and conspicuous, moving over the rounded bulge of a paddock. You could never be sure you were alone. There were cows, and perhaps people as well, watching you, screened by the hum of insects.
All this, grassy paddock, cows, trees — he had thought it was Nature. But now he could see that that was ignorance, or lack of imagination. It was not Nature. It was actually property.
That fence, for example, over beyond the chimney, was not just a picturesque feature of the landscape, put there to make the most of the perspective. It actually belonged to someone. Someone had paid money for it. So many days of labour at so much an hour, and so much for the posts and the wire. It was not decoration, it was a sum: cost of fence subtracted from number of cows contained by it, divided by the number of years it stayed up.
What he was doing was not exploring. It was trespassing.
He looked around from side to side as he walked up the paddock, swinging his arms vigorously. He was a person out for a walk, telegraphing his innocent intentions by a great attention to clouds, trees, birds. Country people were not big on going for a walk, but he thought they knew that going for a walk was something city people did.
His footsteps were unsteady on the rough grass. Grasshoppers sprang out of the tussocks with every step he took, like flights of little arrows. When two tiny fat birds swooped low in front of him he flinched. He was hot, could feel sweat running down his forehead from under his hat. Slow down, he told himself. No need to panic.
When he glanced back he saw that the cows were still staring at him. Some of them had just twisted their heads over their shoulders to stare but one or two had actually turned their entire bodies around.
Somehow at Scouts they seemed to have missed out on Cows.
Up close, the poplars and the chimney were disappointing. He’d been looking forward to ancient treasures in the grass, but there seemed to be no old bottles or bits of brass bed-stead. At least here he was hidden.
Just beyond the poplars, two fences met at right-angles, and beyond that was the road, picturesquely curving up and away around the corner of the rise, like a road in a story-book. Seeing how close he was to the road, with his ute parked a little way further along, it felt silly to have got himself hot and bothered, panting here in the sun, just because a few cows had looked at him.
A willy-wagtail swivelled on top of a fence-post. One of the fences was higher than usual and one strand had a tin label with a picture of a lightning-bolt. He supposed that meant it was electrified. The other was a
The thing opened its mouth and mooed, a long deep sound with a little shrill hysterical thing on the end, and without thinking he mooed back. It was an uncharacteristic thing to do and he wished straight away he had not. The cow stared at him as if its feelings were hurt and took another step towards him. When it stopped again it was really very close. He could see a bit of grass stuck in one of its cavernous nostrils, and a little greenish froth on what he supposed you’d have to call its lips.
After what seemed a tremendously long time, it dropped its big brown head and started tearing at the grass. He could hear the muffled crushing noise as it ground away.
Being boring seemed to have finally paid off.
Smoothly, unprovocatively, boringly, he got up from the log and walked away sideways, keeping an eye on the cow. When he was able to get a tree between them, he turned and walked quickly up the paddock. Glancing back he could see that they were doing the I-am-outraged-and-astonished thing again.
It would be easy to get sick of cows.
The adventurous feeling had gone. He was feeling watched now. In the city no one looked. You were just another object taking up space on the footpath. Here you were huge and conspicuous, moving over the rounded bulge of a paddock. You could never be sure you were alone. There were cows, and perhaps people as well, watching you, screened by the hum of insects.
All this, grassy paddock, cows, trees — he had thought it was Nature. But now he could see that that was ignorance, or lack of imagination. It was not Nature. It was actually property.
That fence, for example, over beyond the chimney, was not just a picturesque feature of the landscape, put there to make the most of the perspective. It actually belonged to someone. Someone had paid money for it. So many days of labour at so much an hour, and so much for the posts and the wire. It was not decoration, it was a sum: cost of fence subtracted from number of cows contained by it, divided by the number of years it stayed up.
What he was doing was not exploring. It was trespassing.
He looked around from side to side as he walked up the paddock, swinging his arms vigorously. He was a person out for a walk, telegraphing his innocent intentions by a great attention to clouds, trees, birds. Country people were not big on going for a walk, but he thought they knew that going for a walk was something city people did.
His footsteps were unsteady on the rough grass. Grasshoppers sprang out of the tussocks with every step he took, like flights of little arrows. When two tiny fat birds swooped low in front of him he flinched. He was hot, could feel sweat running down his forehead from under his hat. Slow down, he told himself. No need to panic.
When he glanced back he saw that the cows were still staring at him. Some of them had just twisted their heads over their shoulders to stare but one or two had actually turned their entire bodies around.
Somehow at Scouts they seemed to have missed out on Cows.
Up close, the poplars and the chimney were disappointing. He’d been looking forward to ancient treasures in the grass, but there seemed to be no old bottles or bits of brass bed-stead. At least here he was hidden.
Just beyond the poplars, two fences met at right-angles, and beyond that was the road, picturesquely curving up and away around the corner of the rise, like a road in a story-book. Seeing how close he was to the road, with his ute parked a little way further along, it felt silly to have got himself hot and bothered, panting here in the sun, just because a few cows had looked at him.
A willy-wagtail swivelled on top of a fence-post. One of the fences was higher than usual and one strand had a tin label with a picture of a lightning-bolt. He supposed that meant it was electrified. The other was a
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