We of the Never Never
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Jeanie Mrs. Aeneas Gunn >> We of the Never Never
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Poor old Queen! And yet, perhaps, her grand, noble heart would have
understood these, her subjects, and known them for the men they were--
as loyal-hearted and true to her as the highest in the land.
"They were lying two-deep about the place next morning," Dan added,
continuing his tale; but the Maluka, fearing the turn
the conversation had taken, suggested turning in.
Then Dan having found a kindred spirit in the traveller, laid
a favourite trap for one of his favourite jokes: shaking out a
worn old bluey, he examined it carefully in the firelight.
"Blanket's a bit thin, mate," said the man from Beyanst,
unconsciously playing his part. "Surely it can't keep you
warm"; and Dan's eyes danced in anticipation of his joke.
"Oh well!" he said, solemn-looking as an owl, as he tucked it
under one arm, "if it can't keep a chap warm after ten years'
experience it'll never do it," and turned in at once,
with his usual lack of ceremony.
We had boiled eggs for breakfast, and once more the traveller
joined us. Cheon had sent the eggs out with the cabbage, and I
had hidden them away, intending to spring a surprise on the men-folk
at breakfast.
"How many eggs shall I boil for you, Dan?" I said airily,
springing my surprise in this way on all the camp. But Dan,
wheeling with an exclamation of pleasure, sprung a surprise
of his own on the missus.
"Eggs!" he said. "Good enough! How many? Oh, a dozen'll do,
seeing we've got steak "; and I limply showed all I had--fifteen.
Dan scratched his head trying to solve the problem. "Never reckon
it's worth beginning under a dozen," he said; but finally suggested
tossing for 'em after they were cooked.
"Not the first time I've tossed for eggs either," he said, busy
grilling steak on a gridiron made from bent-up fencing wire.
"Out on the Victoria once they got scarce, and the cook used
to boil all he had and serve the dice-box with 'em, the chap
who threw the highest taking the lot."
"Ever try to boil an emu's egg in a quart-pot?" the man from Beyanst
asked, "lending a hand" with another piece of fencing wire,
using it as a fork to turn the steak on the impromptu gridiron.
"It goes in all right, but when it's cooked it won't come out,
and you have to use the quart-pot for an egg-cup and make tea
later on."
"A course dinner," Dan called that; and then nothing being
forthcoming to toss with--dice or money not being among our
permanent property--the eggs were distributed according to the
"holding capacity" of the company: one for the missus, two for
the Maluka, and half a dozen each for the other two.
The traveller had no objection to beginning under a dozen,
but Dan used his allowance as a "relish" with his steak.
"One egg!" he chuckled as he shelled his relish and I enjoyed
my breakfast. "Often wonder how ever she keeps alive."
The damper proved "just a bit boggy" in the middle, so we ate
the crisp outside slices and gave the boggy parts to the boys.
They appeared to enjoy it, and seeing this, after breakfast
the Maluka asked them what they thought of the missus as a cook.
"Good damper, eh?" he said, and Billy Muck rubbing his middle,
full of damper and satisfaction, answered: "My word! That one damper
good fellow. Him sit down long time", and all the camp, rubbing
middles, echoed his sentiments. The stodgy damper had made
them feel full and uncomfortable; and to be full and uncomfortable
after a meal spells happiness to a black fellow.
"Hope it won't sit too heavy on my chest," chuckled the man
from Beyanst, then, remembering that barely twelve hours before
he had ridden into the camp a stranger, began "begging pardon,
ma'am," most profusely again, and hoped we'd excuse him "making
so free with a lady."
"It's your being so friendly like, ma'am," he explained. "Most
of the others I've struck seemed too good for rough chaps like us.
Of course," he added hastily, "that's not saying that you're not
as good as 'em. You ain't a Freezer on a pedestal, that's all."
"Thank Heaven," the Maluka murmured and the man from Beyanst
sympathised with him. "Must be a bit off for their husbands,"
he said; and his apologies were forgotten in the absorbing topic
of "Freezers."
"A Freezer on a pedestal," he had said. "Goddess," the world
prefers to call it; and tradition depicts the bushman worshipping
afar off.
But a "Freezer" is what he calls it to himself, and contrary
to all tradition, goes on his way unmoved. And why shouldn't he?
He may be, and generally is, sadly in need of a woman friend,
"some one to share his joys and sorrows with", but because he knows
few women is no reason why he should stand afar off and adore
the unknowable. "Friendly like" is what appeals to us all;
and the bush-folk are only men, not monstrosities--rough, untutored
men for the most part. The difficult part to understand is how any
woman can choose to stand aloof and freeze, with warm-hearted men
all around her willing to take her into their lives.
As the men exchanged opinions, "Freezers" appeared solitary
creatures--isolated monuments of awe-inspiring goodness and purity,
and I felt thankful that circumstances had made me only the Little
Missus--a woman, down with the bushmen at the foot of all pedestals,
needing all the love and fellowship she could get, and with no more
goodness than she could do with--just enough to make her worthy
of the friendship of "rough chaps like us."
"Oh well," said the traveller, when he was ready to start,
after finding room in his swag for a couple of books,
"I'm not sorry I struck this camp; "but whether because of the
cabbage, or the woman, or the books, he did not say. Let us hope
it was because of the woman, and the books, and the cabbage, with
the cabbage placed last.
Then with a pull at his hat, and a "good-bye, ma'am, good luck,"
the man from Beyanst rode out of the gundy camp, and out of our
lives, to become one of its pleasant memories.
The man from Beyanst was our only visitor for the first week,
in that camp, and then after that we had some one every day.
Dan went into the homestead for stores, and set the ball rolling
by returning at sundown in triumph with a great find: a lady
traveller, the wife of one of the Inland Telegraph masters.
Her husband and little son were with her, but--well, they were
only men. It was five months since I had seen a white woman,
and all I saw at the time was a woman riding towards our camp.
I wonder what she saw as I came to meet her through the leafy bough
gundies. It was nearly two years since she had seen a woman.
It was a merry camp that night--merry and beautiful and picturesque.
The night was very cold and brilliantly starry, as nights usually
are in the Never-Never during the Dry; the camp fires were
all around us: dozens of them, grouped in and out among the gundies,
and among the fires--chatting, gossiping groups of happy-hearted
human beings.
Around one central 6re sat the lubras, with an outer circle
of smaller fires behind them: one central fire and one fire
behind each lubra, for such is the wisdom of the black folk;
they warm themselves both back and front. Within another circle
of fires chirruped and gossiped the "boys," wliile around
an immense glowing heap of logs sat the white folk--
the "big fellow fools " of the party, with scorching faces
and freezing backs, too conservative to learn wisdom from their
humbler neighbours.
At our fireside we women did most of the talking, and as we sat
chatting on every subject under the sun, our husbands looked on
in indulgent amusement. Dan soon wearied of the fleeting
conversation and turned in, and the little lad slipped away
to the black folk; but late into the night we talked: late into
the night, and all the next day and evening and following morning--
shaded from the brilliant sunshine all day in the leafy "Cottage,"
and scorching around the camp fire during the evenings.
And then these travellers, too, passed out of our camp to become,
with the man from Beyanst, just pleasant memories.
"She'll find mere men unsatisfying after this," the Maluka said
in farewell, and a mere man coming in from the north-west before
sundown, greeted the Maluka with: "Thought you married a towny,"
as he pointed with eloquent forefinger at our supper circle.
"So I did," the Maluka laughed back. "But before I had time
to dazzle the bushies with her the Wizard of the Never-Never
charmed her into a bush-whacker."
"Into a CHARMING bush-whacker, he MEANS!" the traveller said,
bowing before his introduction; and I wondered how the Maluka
could have thought for one moment that "mere men" would prove
unsatisfying. But as I acknowledged the gallantry Dan looked
on dubiously, not sure whether pretty speeches were a help
or a hindrance to education.
But no one could call the Fizzer a "mere man"; and half-past
eleven four weeks being already past, the Fizzer was even then at
the homestead, and before another midday, came shouting into our
camp, and, settling down to dinner, kept the conversational ball
rolling.
"Going to be a record Dry," he assured us--" all surface water
gone along the line already"; and then he hurled various items
of news at us: "the horse teams were managing to do a good trip;
and Mac? Oh, Mac's getting along," he shouted; "struck him on
a dry stage; seemed a bit light-headed; said dry stages weren't
all beer and skittles--queer idea. Beer and skittles! He won't
find much beer on dry stages, and I reckon the man's dilly that 'ud
play a game of skittles on any one of 'em."
Every one was all right down the line! But the Fizzer was always
a bird of passage, and by the time dinner was over, and a few
postscripts added to the mail, he was ready to start, and rode
off, promising the best mail the "Territory could produce
in a fortnight."
Other travellers followed the Fizzer, and the cooking lessons
proceeded until the fine art of making "puff de looneys," sinkers,
and doughboys had been mastered, and then, before the camp had
time to grow monotonous, the staff appeared with a few of the
station pups. "Might it rnissus like puppy dog," it said to explain
its presence hinting also that the missus might require a little
clothes-washing done.
Lately, washing-days at the homestead had lost all their vim,
for the creek having stopped running, washing had to be conducted
in tubs, so as to keep the billabong clear for drinking purposes.
But at the Springs there was no necessity to think of anything
but running water; and after a happy day, Bertie's Nellie, Rosy,
and Biddy returned to the homestead--the goats had to be seen to,
Nellie said, thinking nothing of a twenty-seven-mile walk in a day,
with a few hours' washing for recreation in between whiles.
Part of the staff, a shadow or two, and the puppy dogs, filled in
all time until the yard was pronounced finished then a mob
of cattle was brought in and put through to test its strength;
and just as we were preparing to return to the homestead the Dandy's
waggon lumbered into camp with its loading of stores.
A box of new books kept us busy all afternoon, and then, before
sundown, the Maluka suggested a farewell stroll among the
pools.
The Bitter Springs--a chain of clear, crystal pools, a long winding
chain, doubling back on itself in loops and curves--form the source
of the permanent flow of the Roper; pools only a few feet deep,
irregular and wide-spreading, with mossy-green, deeply undermined,
overhanging banks, and lime-stone bottoms washed into terraces
that gleam azure-blue through the transparent water.
There is little rank grass along their borders, no sign
of water-lilies, and few weeds within them; clumps of palms dotted
here and there among the light timber, and everywhere sunflecked,
warm, dry shade. Nowhere is there a hint of that sinister
suggestion of the Reach. Clear, beautiful, limpid, wide-spreading,
irregular pools, set in an undulating field of emerald-green mossy
surf, shaded with graceful foliage and gleaming in the sunlight with
exquisite opal tints--a giant necklace of opals, set in links
of emerald green, and thrown down at hazard to fall in loops and
curves within a forest grove.
It is in appearance only the pools are isolated; for although
many feet apart in some instances, they are linked together
throughout by a shallow underground river, that runs over
a rocky bed; while the turf, that looks so solid in many places,
is barely a two-foot crust arched over five or six feet of space
and water--a deathtrap for heavy cattle; but a place of interest
to white folk.
The Maluka and I wandered aimlessly in and out among the pools
for a while, and, then coming out unexpectedly from a piece of bush,
found ourselves face to face with a sight that froze all movement
out of us for a moment--the living, moving head of a horse,
standing upright from the turf on a few inches of neck: a grey,
uncanny, bodyless head, nickering piteously at us as it stood
on the turf at our feet. I have never seen a ghost, but I know
exactly how I will feel if ever I do.
For a moment we stood spellbound with horror, and the next,
realising what had happened, were kneeling down beside the
piteous head. The thin crust of earth had given way beneath
the animal's hindquarters as it grazed over the turf, and before
it could recover itself it had slipped bodily through the hole
thus formed, and was standing on the rocky bed of the underground
river, with its head only in the upper air.
The poor brute was perishing for want of food and water. All around
the hole, as far as the head could reach, the turf was eaten, bare,
and although it was standing in a couple of feet of water it
could not get at it. While the Maluka went for help I brought
handfuls of grass, and his hat full of water, again and again,
and was haunted for days with the remembrance of those pleading
eyes and piteous, nickering lips.
The whole camp, black and white, came to the rescue but it was
an awful work getting the exhausted creature out of its death-trap.
The hole had to be cut back to a solid ridge of rocky soil, saplings
cut to form a solid slope from the bed of the river to the ground
above, and the poor brute roped and literally hauled up the slope
by sheer Iorce and strength of numbers. After an hour's digging,
dragging, and rope-pulling, the horse was standing on solid turf,
a new pool had been added to the Springs, and none of us had much
hankering for riding over springy country.
The hour's work among the pools awakened the latent geologist
in all of us, excepting Dan, and set us rooting at the bottom of one
of the pools for a piece of the terraced limestone.
It was difficult to dislodge, and our efforts reminded Dan of a night
spent in the camp of a geologist--a man with many letters
after his name. "Had the chaps heaving rocks round for him half
his time," he said. "Couldn't see much sense in it meself." Dan
spoke of the geologist as "one of them old Alphabets." "Never met
a chap with so many letters in his brand," he explained. "He was
one of them taxydermy blokes, you know, that's always messing
round with stones and things."
Out of the water, the opal tints died out of the limestone,
and the geologist in us went to sleep again when we found that
all we had for our trouble was a piece of dirty-looking rock.
Like Dan, we saw little sense in "heaving rocks round,"
and went back to the camp and the business of packing up
for the homestead.
About next midday we rode into the homestead thoroughfare,
where Cheon and Tiddle'ums welcomed us with enthusiasm,
but Cheon's enthusiasm turned to indignation when he found we
were only in for a day or two.
"What's er matter?" he ejaculated. "Missus no more
stockrider"; but a letter waiting for us at the homestead made
"bush" more than ever imperative: a letter, from the foreman of the
telegraphic repairing line party, asking for a mob of killers,
and fixing a date for its delivery to one "Happy Dick."
"Spoke just in the nick of time," Dan said; but as we discussed
plans Cheon hinted darkly that the Maluka was not a fit and proper
person to be entrusted with the care of a woman, and suggested
that he should undertake to treat the missus as she should be treated,
while the Maluka attended to the cattle.
Fate, however, interfered to keep the missus at the homestead,
to persuade Cheon that, after all, the Ma1uka was a fit and proper
person to have the care of a woman, and to find a very present use
for the house; an influenza sore-throat breaking out in the camp,
the missus developed it, and Dan went out alone to find
the Quiet Stockman and the "killers" for Happy Dick.
CHAPTER XV
Before a week was out the Maluka and Cheon had won each other's
undying regard because of their treatment of the missus.
With the nearest doctor three hundred miles away in Darwin,
and held there by hospital routine, the Maluka decided on bed
and feeding-up as the safest course, and Cheon came out in a new
character.
As medical adviser and reader-aloud to the patient, the Maluka
was supposed to have his hands full, and Cheon, usurping the position
of sick-nurse, sent everything, excepting the nursing, to the wall.
Rice-water, chicken-jelly, barley-water, egg-flips, beef-tea junket,
and every invalid food he had ever heard of, were prepared, and,
with the Maluka to back him up, forced on the missus; and when food
was not being administered, the pillow was being shaken or
the bedclothes straightened. (The mattress being still on the ends
of cows' tails, a folded rug served in its place). There was
very little wrong with the patient, but the wonder was she did not
become really ill through over-eating and want of rest.
I pleaded with the Maluka, but the Maluka pleading for just
a little more rest and feeding-up, while Cheon gulped and choked
in the background, I gave in, and eating everything as it was
offered, snatched what rest I could, getting as much entertainment
as possible out of Cheon and the staff in between times.
For three days I lay obediently patient, and each day Cheon grew
more affectionate, patting my hands at times, as he confided
to the Maluka that although he admired big, moon-faced women as
a feast for the eyes, he liked them small and docile when he had
to deal personally with them. Until I met Cheon I thought
the Chinese incapable of affection; but many lessons are learned
out bush.
Travellers--house-visitors--coming in on the fourth day, I hoped
for a speedy release, but visitors were considered fatiguing,
and release was promised as soon as they were gone.
Fortunately the walls had many cracks in them--not being as much
on the plumb as Johnny had predicted, and for a couple of days,
watching the visitors through these cracks and listening to their
conversation provided additional amusement. I could see them quite
distinctly as, no doubt, they could see me; but we kept a decorous
silence until the Fizzer came in, then at the Fizzer's shout the walls
of Jericho toppled down.
"The missus sick!" I heard him shout. "Thought she looked in prime
condition at the Springs." (Bush language frequently has a strong
twang of cattle in it.)
"So I am now," I called; and then the Fizzer and I held an animated
conversation through the walls. "I'm imprisoned for life," I moaned,
after hearing the news of the outside world; and laughing and chuckling
outside, the Fizzer vowed he would "do a rescue next trip if they've
still got you down." Then, after appreciating fervent thanks, he shouted
in farewell: "The boss is bringing something along that'll help to pass
some of the time--the finest mail you ever clapped eyes on,"
and presently patient and bed were under a litter of mail-matter.
The Fizzer having brought down the walls of conventionality,
the traveller-guests proffered greetings and sympathy through
the material walls, after which we exchanged mail-news and general
gossip for a day or two; then just as these travellers were
preparing to exchange farewells, others came in and postponed
the promised release. As there seemed little hope of a lull in
visitors, I was wondering if ever I should be considered well
enough to entertain guests, when Fate once more interfered.
"Whatever's this coming in from the East?" I heard the Maluka call
in consternation, and in equal consternation his traveller-guest
called back: "Looks like a whole village settlement." Then Cheon
burst into the room in a frenzy of excitement: "Big mob traveller,
missus. Two-fellow-missus, sit down," he began; but the Maluka
was at his heels.
"Here's two women and a mob of youngsters," he gasped. "I'm afraid
you'll have to get up, little 'un, and lend a hand with them."
Afraid! By the time the village settlement had "turned out"
and found its way to the house, I was out in the open air welcoming
its members with a heartiness that must have surprised them.
Little did they guess that they were angels unaware. Homely enough
angels, though, they proved, as angels unaware should prove: one man
and two women from "Queensland way," who had been "inside" for fifteen
years, and with them two fine young lads and a wee, toddling baby--
all three children born in the bush and leaving it for the first time.
Never before had Cheon had such a company to provide for; but as we
moved towards the house in a body--ourselves, the village settlement,
and the Maluka's traveller-guests, with a stockman traveller
and the Dandy looking on from the quarters, his hospitable soul
rejoiced at the sight; and by the time seats had been found
for all comers, he appeared laden uith tea and biscuits, and within
half an hour had conjured up a plentiful dinner for all comers.
Fortunately the chairs were all "up" to the weight of the ladies,
and the remainder of the company easily accommodated itself
to circumstances, in the shape of sawn stumps, rough stools,
and sundry boxes; and although the company was large and the
dining-table small, and although, at times, we feared the table was
about to fulfil its oft-repeated threat and fall over, yet the dinner
was there to be erjoyed, and, being bush-folk, and hungry, our
guests enjoyed it, passing over all incongruities with simple
merriment--a light-hearted, bubbling merriment, in no way comparable
to that "laughter of fools," that crackling of thorns under a pot,
provoked by the incongruities of the world's freak dinners.
The one is the heritage of the simple-hearted, and the other--
all the world has to give in exchange for this birthright.
The elder lads, one fourteen and one ten years of age, found
Cheon by far the most entertaining incongruity at the dinner,
and when dinner was over--after we had settled down on the various
chairs and stumps that had been carried out to the verandah
again--they shadowed him wherever he went.
They were strangely self-possessed childJen; but knowing little
more of the world than the black children their playmates, Cheon,
in his turn, found them vastly amusing, and instructing them
in the ways of the world--from his point of view--found them also
eager pupils.
But their education came to a standstill after they had mastered
the mysteries of the Dandy's gramophone, and Cheon was no longer
entertaining.
All afternoon brass-band selections, comic songs, and variety
items, blared out with ceaseless reiteration; and as the men-folk
smoked and talked cattle, and the wee baby--a bonnie fair child--
toddled about, smiling and contented, the women-folk spoke
of their life "out-back," and listening, I knew that neither I
nor the telegraph lady had even guessed what roughness means.
For fifteen years things had been improving, and now everyone was
to have a well-earned holiday. The children were to be christened
and then shown the delights of a large town! Darwin of necessity
(Palmerston, by the way, on the map, but Darwin to Territorians).
Darwin with its one train, its telegraph offices, two or three stores,
banks and public buildings, its Residency, its Chinatown,
its lovers' walk, its two or three empty, wide, grass-grown streets
bordered with deep-verandahed, iron-built bungalow-houses,
with their gardens planted in painted tins--a development
of the white-ant pest--and lastly, its great sea, where ships wander
without tracks or made ways! Hardly a typical town, but the best
in the Territory.
The women, naturally, were looking forward to doing a bit of shopping,
and as we slipped into fashions the traveller guests became
interested. "Haven't seen so many women together for years,"
one of them said. "Reminds me of when I was a nipper," and the other
traveller "reckoned" he had struck it lucky for once. "Three on 'em
at once," he chuckled with indescribable relish. "They reckon it
never rains but it pours." And so it would seem with three women
guests within three weeks at a homestead where women had been almost
unknown for years.
But these women guests only stayed one night, the children being all
impatience to get on to the telegraph line, to those wires that talked,
and to the railway, where the iron monster ran.
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