Part 17 (1/2)
The life of the bush was silent, save for the grasshoppers and an occasional stridulation froetic cicada (locust, as the bush-term has it, and which, like iven because it was inappropriate, for the cicada is anything but a locust, while the ”grasshopper” is nothing else) The leaves of the gulare, so as to let the fierce heat strike on the ste festoons--and puzzle the minds of the new chums why broad leaves cast no shade Under the folds of the shed-bark the lizards cuddled asleep, and occasionally a tree-snake shared their shelter; while far down, squeezing into the farthest corner, away frohbours, the green tree-frogs spread their ball-pointed toes and turned their golden eyes up to the light to watch the coiled mystery as they slept
The iron of the store-roof popped and crackled now and then as a sheet of ”galvanized,” expanding, strained on a nail and buckled And yet from further down the townshi+p road there ca its way through hard-wood logs; the clang and jangle of Cullen's hammers as they fell on iron and anvil; andwith the hot languor of the day, the hum of the children's voices as they chanted their task in unison on the open verandah of the school-house Marrew in ietful that the court was not sitting and that he was alone, he took the pipe fro the stem down the dusty, sun-scorched track, exclaireat cause--the cause of our being a nation--_the_ nation; yes, bust me, _the_ nation--is--what?”
He waited for an answer fro none, save the crackle of the sheets of iron in the roof, pointed with his pipe-stem in the direction of the sounds from the townshi+p
”That!” he exclaio
That's what makes us e are Here's the bush asleep If there's any niggers in it, they're asleep Even the lizards are asleep The trees stop growing, and won't even make a shade; but us--do we stop? No! There ain't nothin' that'll stop us We didn'tit fit for our needs Who'd work this hot spell except us? Who'd run this country except us? Here's Australia; there's Africa; there's America; there's India; and there's ”home;” and who runs the lot if it ain't us? And what's the world outside of that lot? A few paddocks full of dargoes and black-fellows ready to cut each other's throats if it wasn't for us”
He put his pipe oncein silence
The buzz-sahirred and jarred; the haled; the school-children droned and hummed; and beyond Marmot saw in his fancy the selections whence they came to school Always the same picture, inas with his hoe in his pumpkin patch; there another cared for his les for the roof of a shed he was building; a fourth was splitting logs with a heavywater-tanks to be ready when the rain ca a waterhole in the hard, baked earth also to be ready for the rain On every selection, as it ca on--work that listen with the beads of sweat; work that round of nature at rest Inside the selection houses the women did their share, and sometimes outside as well Beyond the houses and the selections, in the gullies of the ranges, ht for h, as well as when it was low; on the big paddocks of the station the bush slept, and the flocks and herds huddled wherever shelter could be found, but the men were never still, not even in the station homesteads Everywhere that the mind of Marmot wandered, every scene that came to hilo-Saxon blood, tireless, restless, working Only when men of other races, dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, passed his mental vision, was there the stillness of lazy rest; and Marlo-Saxon and the work they had done, and would do, for the world that gave them birth
His meditations were interrupted by the sound of e of the verandah, so as to command a better view up the road A wide column of dust, or a cloud lea the figures of the men within it almost invisible It approached rapidly, and part of it rolled along as an advance guard, filling the air that Marhed and swore When the main body arrived, he felt it in his eyes and nostrils, and the men who tramped on to the verandah and into the store were covered with it, so that, as they moved, it came in small puffs from their clothes and boots
The , their clothes toil-stained and ragged, their faces tanned nearly black by the sun
”Now, then, old brusher, where's your reach- out a pound of twist as a start,” another de of shot,” a third wanted; while others clamoured for tent-calico, blankets, sheath-knives, and such like necessaries, and, growing i attended to at once, tras as they filled their pipes
”There's no rum in the show, boys,” a man exclaimed, as he appeared in the doorway ”It's all up at the pub”
”Co his swag to the ground by the horse-posts, cried, as he swung his swag on to his shoulder again
Like a body of ants swar on to a victim they had coain and gathered in the roadway, calling to one another, chaffing one another, and worrying those who still lingered inside to hasten along and bring the storekeeper with them
Then, with Marmot in the lead, they passed slowly down the townshi+p road, and as they passed the various centres of industry which had so roused Marmot's admiration earlier in the day, a hush fell upon the machinery and the workers ceased their labours, while the procession in the direction of the Rest grew larger It was just such an occasion as justified the expansion of bush hospitality, and Birralong, recognizing the fact, went out as a man to meet it The school-children, as they trooped away hoe with them to their fathers and their brothers that the prospectors had coets, and that there was a pile of the melted The news travelled, as such neill, and ht Half the fared or out of order, and flooring-boards were at a pre the early evening--school only broke up at four--rode or drove up to the smithy and the saw-mill, and had perforce to seek the proprietors farther afield
Since the arrival of the trio who led Tony away the Rest had not known such an entertainht in the land, and water was so scarce onwas a luxury which stood adjourned till the rain caood store of necessaries, as so regarded at a bush hotel, was in the house, for a drought is usually followed, sooner or later, by a flood; and in a country where rain is rare and sunshi+ne frequent, that which in arded with displeasure, is hailed in droughty lands as an occasion for festivity and mirth; hence the Rest ell stocked, so as to be ready for the rain
The acco an unlimited number of visitors, however, was not quite so apparent, but when those visitors were men who had for years past known no other roof than a tent, and often none other than the sky, sleeping quarters were not difficult to obtain, especially as each man had his blankets--or what passed for such--with hih for a hundred tents in Marold in their pockets, the fossickers of Boulder Creek asked for nothing ood fortune royally with their co and jest circulated, as well as the encourager of both, and the at roohter and tobacco-sht of the arrival
Subsequently other elein in the influence of potent libations acting on natures by no ht, but which, under that influence, were stripped of the scanty robes they wore, and stood before the world naked in all the siuest already staying at the Rest when the crowd of diggers arrived--a guest whose suave ratiate himself with the proprietor of the Rest, but which had only tended to induce a lurking suspicion against him Men used to the blunt methods of unadulterated human nature are prone to be sceptical of the motives which underlie what they tersely define as ”chin-oil”
He, a sli-limbed man, with a sharp-featured face and shi+fty eyes, who said his naers trooped in, and siven to ”Fill 'eed, he sidled up to a group, and asked, in his set
The man nearest, a burly, sunburned specimen, with a voice like a bull's and a vocabulary li save profanity, turned and looked at hie e fro a store of gold ”We've all got 'e