We of the Never-NeverWith illustrations from photographs . erce, consoling pain ; for out-bush our dead are allour own. Beyond those seven faithful years the mate couldtell us but little of his comrades life. He wasWilliam Neaves, born at Woolongong, with a motherliving somewhere there. That was all he knew. He was always a reticent chap, he reiterated. He never wanted any one but me about him, andthe unspoken request was understood. He was hismate, and no one but himself must render the lastservices. Dry-eyed and worn, the man moved about, doingall that should be done, the bushmen only helpin
We of the Never-NeverWith illustrations from photographs . erce, consoling pain ; for out-bush our dead are allour own. Beyond those seven faithful years the mate couldtell us but little of his comrades life. He wasWilliam Neaves, born at Woolongong, with a motherliving somewhere there. That was all he knew. He was always a reticent chap, he reiterated. He never wanted any one but me about him, andthe unspoken request was understood. He was hismate, and no one but himself must render the lastservices. Dry-eyed and worn, the man moved about, doingall that should be done, the bushmen only helpingwhere they dared ; then shouldering a pick andshovel, he went to the little rise beyond the sliprails, and set doggedly to work at a little distancefrom two lonely graves already there Doggedly heworked on ; but, as he worked, gradually his burdenlost its overwhelming weight, for the greater part of ithad somehow slipped on to the Dandys shoulders—those brave, unflinching shoulders, that carried othermens burdens so naturally and so willingly that 212. WILLIAM NEAVES. BORN AT WOOLONGONG. WE OF THE NEVER-NEVER their burdens always seemed the Dandys Dandy may have had that power of finding something decent in every one he met, but inthe Dandy all men found the help they neededmost. Quietly and unassumingly, the Dandy put allin order, and then, soon after midday, with brilliantsunshine all about us, we stood by an open gravein the shade of the drooping glory of a crimsonflowering bauhenia. Some scenes live undimmedin our memories for a lifetime—scenes where wehave seemed onlookers rather than actors, seeingevery detail with minute exactness—and that scene,with its mingling of glorious beauty, human pathos,and soft, subdued sound, will live, I think, in thememory of most of us for many years to come : In the midst of life we are in death, the Malukaread, standing among that drooping crimson splen-dour, and at his feet lay the open grave, preachingsilently its great l
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1907
