No hint of his strength failing,
but a favour asked, and with it a service for a woman.
The stern set lines about the man's mouth quivered for a moment, then set
again as he sacrificed his wishes to a woman's need, and relinquishing
the spade, turned away; and as we drove down to the house in the chief's
buggy - the buggy that a few minutes before had borne our sick traveller
along that last stage of his earthly journey - he said gently, almost
apologetically: "I should have reckoned on this knocking you out a bit,
missus." Always others, never self, with the bush-folk.
Then, this service rendered for the man who had done what he could for
his comrade, his strong, unflinching heart turned back to its labour of
love, and, all else being done, found relief for itself in softening and
smoothing the rough outline of the newly piled mound, and as the man
toiled, Mother Nature went on with her work, silently and sweetly healing
the scar on her bosom, hiding her pain from the world, as she shrouded in
starry crimson the burial place of her brave, enduring son - a service to
be renewed from day to day until the mosses and grasses grew again.
But there were still other services for the mate to render and as the
bush-folk stood aside, none daring to trespass here, a rough wooden
railing rose about the grave. Then the man packed his comrade's swag for
the last time, and that done, came to the Maluka, as we stood under the
house verandah, and held out two sovereigns in his open palm. The man
was yet a stranger to the ways of the Never-Never.
"I'll have to ask for tick for meself for awhile," he said "But if that
won't pay for all me mate's had there's another where they came from. He
was always independent and would never take charity."
The hard lines about his mouth were very marked just then, and the
outstretched hand seemed fiercely defiant but the Maluka reading in it
only a man's proud care for a comrade's honour, put it gently aside,
saying: "We give no charity here; only hospitality to our guests. Surely
no man would refuse that."
They speak of a woman's delicate tact. But daily the bushman put the
woman to shame, while she stood dumb or stammering. The Maluka had
touched the one chord in the man's heart that was not strained to
breaking point, and instantly the fingers closed over the sovereigns, and
the defiant hand fell to his side, as with a husky "Not from your sort,
boss," he turned sharply on his heel; and as he walked away a hand was
brushed hastily across the weary eyes.
With that brushing of the hand the inevitable reaction began, and for a
little while we feared we would have another sick traveller on our hand.
But only for a little while. After a day or two of rest and care his
strength came back, but his thoughts were ever of those seven years of
steadfast comradeship. Simply and earnestly he spoke of them and of that
mother, all unconscious of the heartbreak that was speeding only too
surely to her. Poor mother! And yet those other two nameless graves on
that little rise deep in the heart of the bush bear witness that other
mothers have even deeper sorrows to bear. Their sons are gone from them,
and they, knowing nothing of it, wait patiently through the long silent
years for the word that can never come to them.
For a few days the man rested, and then, just when work - hard work - was
the one thing needful, Dan came in for a consultation, and with him a
traveller, the bearer of a message from our kind, great-hearted chief to
say that work was waiting for the mate at the line party. Our chief was
the personification of all that is best in the bush-folk (as all bushmen
will testify to his memory) - men's lives crossed his by chance just here
and there, but at those crossing places life have been happier and
better. For one long weary day the mate's life had run parallel with our
chief's, and because of that, when he left us his heart was lighter than
ever we had dared to hope for. But this man was not to fade quite out of
our lives, for deep in that loyal heart the Maluka had been enshrined as
"one in ten thousand."
CHAPTER XVII
The bearer of the chief's message had also carried out all extra mail for
us, and, opening it, we found the usual questions of the South folk.
"Whatever do you do with your time?" they all asked. "The monotony would
kill me," some declared. "Every day must seem the same," said others:
every one agreeing that life out-bush was stagnation, and all marvelling
that we did not die of ennui.
"Whatever do you do with your time?" The day Neaves's mate left was
devoted to housekeeping duties - "spring-cleaning," the Maluka called it,
while Dan drew vivid word-pictures of dogs cleaning their own chains.
The day after that was filled in with preparations for a walk-about, and
the next again found us camped at Bitter Springs. Monotony! when of the
thirty days that followed these three every day was alike only in being
different from any other, excepting in their almost unvarying menu: beef
and damper and tea for a first course, and tea and damper and jam for a
second. They also resembled each other, and all other days out-bush, in
the necessity of dressing in a camp mosquito net. "Stagnation!" they
called it, when no day was long enough for its work, and almost every
night found us camped a day's journey from our breakfast camp.
