Ezekiel Clancy of course would have no native stockmen on Overflow, though Drinkwater and some of the neighbours did. But surely if the neighbouring properties’ owners had been warned, they’d have sent a message down.

If there had been time, or if they’d heeded the natives’ warnings.

At last he and Ezekiel returned to the silent house. The shearers had already left — there was no need of their services now. Ezekiel and Clancy and a couple of the men could shear the remaining flock, once they had rigged up a new stock race and pens.

The three of them sat at the kitchen table — the old bush one, handmade from split slabs that Ezekiel had never bothered to replace when a dining room had been added. Somehow the polished dining table, the sideboard with its carved fruit and cherubs, had no place in today’s assessment of their lives. The house smelled of flood, accumulated wombat droppings and the growing stench of dead animals that would undoubtedly grow worse for weeks.

‘How bad is it?’ asked Clancy finally, his hands around his mug of tea — a tin mug for kitchen use, not the china he’d have drunk from in the parlour.

‘You saw how bad,’ said Ezekiel flatly.

‘I mean what resources do we have to restock?’

‘About a hundred pounds in the bank. Won’t be nothin’ more this year, nor till we restock.’ Ezekiel’s accent had reverted to his convict days.

‘Only a hundred pounds!’ That would buy, at most, four hundred sheep, and poor ones at that, wethers or ewes too old to lamb. Flora’s father’s debts had been over five thousand. Clancy’s personal allowance was six hundred pounds a year, and from that he made Flora an allowance of four hundred pounds for clothes and . . . and whatever else women needed money for. ‘A hundred won’t go far,’ he said expressionlessly. ‘I have about a hundred and fifty pounds left of my allowance.’

‘And that won’t go far neither.’ Ezekiel’s mouth was a grim line.

Clancy said what his father could not. ‘We’ll have to sell Rosemere. That should raise enough capital to get a decent starter flock.’ But not seventy thousand sheep, and certainly not of the quality that had bought Overflow its riches.

‘Going to be hard to get sheep worth breeding from,’ said Ezekiel flatly. ‘Those who have a good line tend to hold on to ’em. But we’re better off with a few good ’uns than breaking our backs with others’ cast-offs.’

Clancy tried not to think of Flora’s face when he told her they must sell her home. He wished he could suggest a mortgage. But mortgages must be repaid, and it would be years before Overflow could do that. ‘I’d prefer Flora to remain in Sydney if possible until the child is born.’

‘You may as well stay in the house till it’s sold. Get rid of them servants though.’ Ezekiel stood stiffly. ‘We’d better see how the men are going with the new pens. At least we have wood in plenty to put them up.’ He gazed out the window. ‘Have to let most of the shepherds go. The married ones might stay for their board and keep and cottages.’