KATE GRENVILLE: The Secret River Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Either 17 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: He wanted to convince her that the land would get them the wherries and the house quicker, how the children would thank them for it. But he made himself hold his tongue. Outside he heard a rustle and creak. Scabby Bill, that would be, settling down for the night. We best grab this chance, Sal, he said. He heard his voice start reasonable and then rise in spite of himself. Not muck about! But he had pressed her too hard. No, she said. I ain't coming at it, Will, and that's flat. He could feel the children, woken by the raised voices, watching from the mattress. He glanced over to where Willie's face was a pale circle in the gloom. As the oldest, at eight, he got the part of the mattress closest to the fire. Dick had to make do with the draughty side by the wall. Bub, that puny child, had only just outgrown the cradle, and was still not used to sleeping with the older boys. He was making the scratchy noises in his throat that meant he was not yet awake enough to cry, but soon would be. They all went very still. After a moment Bub fell silent and the boys lay down again. He was proud of the fact that his boys had a blanket each. They did not have to lie awake, as he had done as a lad, waiting for the others to fall asleep. Sal tightened her shoulders into herself and leaned towards the fire, not looking at her husband. They had never disagreed on anything that mattered. He wished he could explain to her the marvel of that land, the way the sunlight fell so sweet along the grass. But she could not imagine it, did not want to. He saw that her dreams had stayed small and cautious, being of nothing grander than the London they had left. Perhaps it was because she had not felt the rope around her neck. That changed a man forever. He said no more, but the thought of that mild-mannered point of land was with him from the instant of waking, as if his dreams had been full of it. On his trips up and down the river with Blackwood he saw it in all weathers and conditions. Under the black skies of August he would see the curtain of rain advancing up what he thought of as Thornhill's Reach, turning the headland grey, making the bushes on the point twist and flail in the wind. As summer came, birds sang from the trees on sweet blue and gold mornings. He saw kangaroos, and striped lizards as long as his arm sidling up the trunks of the river-oaks. Sometimes he thought there was a haze of smoke rising up between the trees, but when he looked harder it was not there. At low tide the point was lined with mud. This was not the same as slimy Thames mud, but a rich brown that looked good enough to eat. Beyond the mud were the rushes, higher than a man, packed as tight as the bristles of a broom, topped with feathery plumage. They were alive with little round brown birds, something of the order of a robin. He could hear them in there making their calls: ca chink pee pee pee wheep! Wheep! Other birds, as bright as soldiers, stalked across the mud on long hinged legs. He watched, not two yards away, as one of them broke off a reed with its claws, holding it so its beak could strip off the outer sheath and eat the pale stalk within, one bite at a time, like a lady with a finger of asparagus. The reeds protected the point on one side, dense mangroves on the other. Beyond the slope of the gentlemen's park, the land tilted and became a wall of jumbled rocks and scrubby woods. But between the river and the ridge there was plenty of good flat land. A hundred acres? Two hundred? Whatever it was, it was enough. Each time they passed the place he looked for the thing he was dreading: the dug-over patch of ground where some other man's corn was growing, the square of some other man's hut. Each time there was a moment's relief, but then the dread returned. The thought of that point of land became a private thing, a bead of warmth in his heart. [from Part 2] How does Grenville vividly convey Thornhill's feelings to you at this moment in the novel?