When Spring came Argus and Adious were fit but lean and hungry. Jessie was the plumpest of the three of them, a serene and dreamy baby who rarely cried but chortled and kicked her little legs at the daily pleasures of life in the valley. But her life there was due to be interrupted. Argus had decided to resume his journey, to make towards his parents’ home and bring his quest to a finish. Adious and Jessie were to travel with him as far as Conroy, a large town where Adious’ aunt lived, not far from Random. At a later date they would either come on and join Argus in Random, or he would pick them up and the three of them would return to the valley, to take up more permanent residence there.
Argus went away for two days to negotiate with neighbouring farmers for the care of the sheep and the harvesting of their crops and vegetables. Argus and Adious would take little with them, as the handcart was too slow and awkward to tow. So the preparation for the trip did not take long. In the event, though, it was several weeks before they actually left: the weather remained unstable and both were a little reluctant to leave their safe and secure hut for the perils of the road. Argus in particular was somewhat perplexed how he would explain a wife and child — which, for all practical purposes Adious and Jessie were — to his parents.
Before they left Adious made a last sad pilgrimage to Jared’s grave, laying on it the first wild rosebuds of the Spring. She stayed there some hours, and when she returned her mood was one of melancholy. Argus kept his distance and allowed her time to shed her sadness gradually.
The journey began. Argus stepped out with a fine vigour, sad to be leaving the valley, but excited to be on the road again, with fresh sights in the offing. It took him only a few moments to realise, however, that this was going to be a very different kind of walking. Despite the extra weight he carried he was too fast for Adious, who had Jessie in a pouch on her back. It took Argus several days to adjust, and even then there were times when he was so frustrated that he had to run ahead, or take an extravagant detour through a paddock.
The weather was good, but erratic, and they slept under bridges the first few nights because of threatening clouds. Jessie was fascinated by the whole exercise and gazed in speechless astonishment at each fresh sight they came upon. She was able to sit up comfortably now, and could even move around a little. It was one of Argus’ constant delights to be able to bring little oddities to her from the fields and forests — objects that she could play with or eat or both. He brought her flowers and coloured stones, feathers and insects. If he could have brought her a wisp of mist from a cloud, he would have. The two of them, the young man and the baby, were deeply in love with each other.
After three days’ walking they camped by a stream in a place so pleasant that they decided to stay there a full day. Adious was not used to doing so much walking and was developing blisters on both feet. They spent most of the day sleeping, eating blackberries and looking for birds’ eggs, which were there in abundance. Around mid-afternoon, Argus’ attention was caught by a deep silence that suddenly seemed to engulf the whole clearing. He looked across at where Jessie slept in the sun. Curled up snugly next to her, nestled into the warmth of her body, was a snake about as long as Argus was tall. It was black and thick and menacing even in its somnolence.
Argus’ heart began to race. Moisture broke out on his palms at the same time as it drained away from his mouth. He needed no time to assess the dilemma. Indeed he seemed never to have thought so coolly and clearly. If he approached the snake, or made any movement to startle it, it was likely to bite Jessie. Yet if he waited too long, Jessie would wake up, and would kick about or cry out, which would also invite an attack. And then there was the further complication of Adious who was somewhere upstream. She might come back at any moment and unwittingly provoke the snake.
For five long minutes Argus sat and sweated. Several times the baby stirred and moved. Several times the snake restlessly rearranged its coils. In that short time Argus came to appreciate another of the grim complexities of life: the fact that no-one can refuse to be involved. Not to act is as deliberate as the decision to act. A small bird flew suddenly out of a thicket of blackberries and the snake lifted its sleepy head and followed the flight of the bird with vague interest. This reaction gave Argus an idea. What if he could make enough of a disturbance to make the snake uneasy, but not enough to panic it? He thought he could hear Adious singing to herself in the distance, and the danger posed by her possible approach forced him to act quickly. He picked up a stone and threw it against some rocks on the other side of the stream. The clatter it made caused the snake to raise its head sharply. Argus waited a minute and threw another stone in about the same place. The snake stirred and uncoiled half of its length. Argus threw a third stone but it fell in grass and made no sound. Just then Adious called out, ‘Argus! Argus!’ The snake, for the first time, separated itself from the baby’s body. Argus threw another stone and the snake glided off a few feet. Argus leapt out of cover at it and the snake, startled, slithered quickly away and was gone, like black lightning in the grass.
The boy bent over and put his hands on his knees. He shook uncontrollably for a few seconds. But Jessie was awake now, and gurgling, and he could hear Adious coming towards their clearing. As so often, the ordinary and the commonplace filled the available space, and there was no time to dwell on the heroic. He picked up the baby and went to meet her mother.