We of the Never-Never

by Jeannie Gunn

Forty years out-bush had not been enough to stamp generations of Sabbath-keeping out of Dan’s blood, although he was not particular which day of the week was set apart for his Sabbath. “Two in a fortnight” was all he worried about.

Fortune favouring the musterers, by midday all was peace and order; the drovers, placid and contented, had retired to their tents once more, reprieved from taking delivery for another day and night, and after dinner, as the “boys” tailed the bullocks and mixed cattle on the outskirts of the camp, to graze them, we settled down to “celebrate our Sabbath” by resting in the warm, dry shade.

Here and there upon the grassy incline that stretched between the camp and the Yellow Hole, we settled down each according to his taste; Dan with his back against a tree trunk and far-reaching legs spread out before him; the Măluka, Jack, and the Dandy flat upon their backs, with bent-back folded arms for pillows, and hats drawn over eyes to shade them from the too dazzling sunlight; dogs, relaxed and spread out, as near to their master as permitted, and the missus “fixed up” in an opened-out, bent-back grassy tussock, which had thus been formed into a luxurious armchair. At the foot of the incline lay the Yellow Hole, gleaming and glancing in the sunshine; all around and about us were the bush creatures, rustling in the scrub and grasses—flies were conspicuous by their absence, here and there shafts of sunlight lay across the gray-brown shade; in the distance the grazing cattle moved among the timber; away out in the glorious sunshine, beyond and above the tree-tops, brown-winged, slender Bromli kites wheeled and circled and hovered and swooped; and lounging in the sun-flecked shade, well satisfied with our lot, we looked out into the blue, sunny depths, each one of us the embodiment of lazy contentment, and agreeing with Dan that “Sunday wasn’t a bad institution for them as had no objection to doing a loaf now and then.”

That suggesting an appropriate topic of conversation to Dan, for a little while we spoke of the Sabbath-keeping of our Scottish forefathers; as we spoke, idly watching the circling, wheeling Bromli kites, that seemed then as at all times, an essential part of the sunshine. To the bush-folk of the Never-Never, sunshine without Bromli kites would be as a summer’s day without the sun. All day and every day they hover throughout it, as they search and wait and watch for carrion, throwing dim, gliding shadows as they wheel and circle, or flashing sunshine from brown wings by quick, sudden swoops, hovering and swooping throughout the sunshine, or rising to melt into blue depths of the heavens, where other arching, floating specks tell of myriads there, ready to swoop, and fall and gather and feast wherever their lowest ranks drop earthwards with the crows.

Lazily we watched the floating movement, and as we watched, conversation became spasmodic—not worth the energy required to sustain it—until gradually we slipped into one of those sociable silences of the bushfolk—silences that draw away all active thought from the mind, leaving it a sensitive plate ready to absorb impressions and thoughts as they flit about it, silences where every one is so in harmony with his comrades and surroundings that the breaking of them rarely jars—spoken words so often defining the half-absorbed thoughts.

Dimly conscious of each other, of the grazing cattle the Bromli kites, the sweet scents and rustling sounds of the bush, of each other’s thoughts and that the last spoken thought among us had been Sabbath-keeping, we rested, idly, not thinking, until Dan’s voice crept into the silence.

“Never was much at religion meself,” he said, lazily altering his position, “but Mrs. Bob was the one to make you see things right off.” Lazily and without stirring we gave our awakened attention, and after a quiet pause the droning Scotch voice went on, too contented to raise itself above a drone: “Can’t exactly remember how she put it; seemed as though you’d only got to hoe your own row the best you can, and lend others a hand with theirs, and just let God see after the rest.”

Quietly, as the droning voice died away, we slipped back into our silence, lazily dreaming on, with Dan’s words lingering in our minds, until, in a little while, it seemed as though the dancing tree-tops, the circling Bromli kites, every rustling sound and movement about us, had taken them up and were shouting them to the echo. “How much you will be able to teach the poor, dark souls of the stockmen,” a well-meaning Southerner had said, with self-righteous arrogance; and in the brilliant glory of that bush Sabbath, one of the “poor, dark souls” had set the air vibrating with the grandest, noblest principles of Christianity summed up into one brief sentence resonant with its ringing commands: Hoe your own row the best you can. Lend others a hand with theirs. Let God see to the rest.

Men there are in plenty out-bush, “not much at religion,” as they and the world judge it, who have solved the great problem of “hoeing their own rows” by the simple process of leaving them to give others a hand with theirs; men loving their neighbours as themselves, and with whom God does the rest, as of old. “Be still, and know that I am God,” is still whispered out of the heart of Nature, and those bushmen, unconsciously obeying, as unconsciously belong to that great simple-hearted band of worshippers, the Quakers; men who, in the hoeing of their own rows have ever lived their lives in the ungrudging giving of a helping hand to all in need, content that God will see to the rest.

Surely the most scrupulous Quaker could find no fault with the “Divine Meeting” that God was holding that day: the long, restful preparation of silence; that emptying of all active thought from the mind; that droning Scotch voice, so perfectly tuned to our mood, delivering its message in a language that could pierce to the depths of a bushman’s heart; and then silence again—a silence now vibrating with thought. As gradually and naturally as it had crept upon us, that silence slipped away, and we spoke of the multitude of sounds and creatures about us, until, seeing deeper and deeper into Dan’s message every moment, we learned that each sound and creature was hoeing its own row as it alone knew how, and, in the hoeing, was lending all others a hand with theirs, as they toiled in the Mighty Row of the Universe, each obedient to the great law of the Creator that all else shall be left to Him, as through them He taught the world that no man liveth to himself alone.