Yet So Adaptable Are We Bush-Folk To
Circumstances That Most Of That Night Was Oblivion.
At sun-up, the drovers, still sweetly smiling, announced that two
bullocks had strayed during some one's watch.
Not in theirs, they
hastened to assure us, when Dan sniffed scornfully in the background.
But Dan's scorn turned to blazing wrath, when - the drovers refusing to
replace the "strays" with cows from the mixed cattle in hand, and
refusing also to take delivery of the bullocks, two beasts short - the
musterers had to turn out to gather in a fresh mob of cattle for the sake
of two bullocks. "Just as I was settling down to celebrate Sunday, too,"
Dan growled, as he and Jack rode out of camp.
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 Maluka, Jak [sic], 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.
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