Sitting astride Moonlight, Toby turned to the wagonette and smiled. Annie smiled back at him. She sat in the middle of the wide seat with the reins in her hand, her mother and sister on either side. She had folded a burlap bag under her bottom to cushion the jolts which the tired old springs beneath the seat were unable to cope with.

Beside Annie, Maree held Sean. Her face still showed dark shadows of grief and heartbreak. Toby knew she cried every night. Sometimes her daughters cried with her, huddled together in a wailing embrace beside the campfire, but mostly she cried alone in the darkness when she thought no one could hear.

Paddy rode beside the wagonette on Patch. Despite having found his voice, he remained a man of few words, but Toby was glad for each and every rationed sentence that came from his brother’s mouth.

‘Where’s the homestead, Toby? How far? Will we be able to see it soon?’ Betty was all but standing in the seat as she looked about. Toby didn’t answer her; he simply pointed ahead to where the trees opened up and the ground rose into a long spur of ridge line. There, on a natural shelf of flat ground that overlooked the valley, sat the homestead.

‘Oh, Toby!’ Tears of joy ran down Annie’s cheeks. ‘It’s beautiful, just as you described it.’

The slip rails were wide open. Toby smiled at this last little act of defiance on the part of Henry Pelham. Annie steered the wagonette through the gap and he stopped to dismount and push them closed, but Paddy slipped to the ground and seized the first rail before he could kick his foot out of the stirrup.

‘I’ve got it, mate.’

Toby smiled at the sound of his brother’s voice, each word a marvel to his ears.

Paddy pushed both rails closed and looked up at his brother. ‘Just the way Pa likes it. Closed good and tight,’ he added to Toby’s delight. Then he remounted and they trotted up beside the wagonette.

‘We are now on O’Rourke land,’ Toby told them. ‘Welcome to your new home, ladies.’

A cheer went up from the three women and they clapped their hands with such delight and gusto that the horse flicked its ears with annoyance. Sean squealed his protest at the noise.

They climbed the track to the homestead and reined in below the verandah. Betty was so excited she sprang to the ground the instant the wagonette stopped and ran to the open door to peer inquisitively inside. Pelham had closed nothing behind him.

It was just as Toby remembered: the rough-sawn planks, the verandah and walls of split timber, a roof of bark sheets held in place by a latticework of bush poles.

He offered his hand to Maree and she took it and stepped down, taking in her surroundings. Annie stepped to the edge of the wagonette and he used both hands to lift her down, pulling her close and kissing her as her feet touched the soil. Their soil. Then he took her hand, led her up the steps, across the verandah and through into the kitchen.