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.
"You will find that a woman alone in a camp of men is decidedly out of
place," the Darwin ladies had said; and yet that day, as at all times,
the woman felt strangely and sweetly in place in the bushmen's camp. "A
God-forsaken country," others of the town have called the Never-Never,
because the works of men have not yet penetrated into it. Let them look
from their own dark alleys and hideous midnights into some or all of the
cattle camps out-bush, or, better still, right into the "poor dark
souls'" of the bush-folk themselves - if their vision is clear
enough - before they judge.
Long before our midnight had come, the camp was sleeping a deep, sound
sleep - those who were not on watch - a dreamless sleep, for the bullocks
were peaceful and ruminating, the Chinese drovers having been "excused"
from duty lest other beasts should stray during "some one's" watch.
Soon after sun-up the head drover formally accepted the mob, and, still
inwardly marvelling at the Maluka's trust, filled in his cheque, and,
blandly smiling, watched while the Maluka made out receipts and cancelled
the agreement. Then, to show that he dealt little in simple trust, he
carried the receipts and agreement in private and in turn, to Dan, and
Jack, and the Dandy, asking each if all were honestly made out.
Dan looked at the papers critically ("might have been holding them upside
down for all I knew," he said later), and assured the drover that all was
right.
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