4 IN A FRONTIER SETTLEMENT 



they may destroy the rich growth of centuries 

 in building up the ardent ambitions of the hour. 



But the greater things, the things which are 

 neither little nor personal to any man, the 

 phantom forces which are behind the Universe — 

 the forces which ordain mankind to life, to an 

 existence, and to death — as fish, or fowl, or fly, 

 is ordered — those are the forces which are the 

 soul of the North. And it is a soul which 

 whispers that the land and water and sky of 

 nature's universe will grow and nourish and still 

 be beautiful while race after race of mankind 

 rise up, halt a little, and pass away. 



To anyone who valued, with the fresh outlook 

 of a stranger, the intensity of first impressions, 

 the world of the North showed calm and of 

 fathomless beauty and mystery, and dominated 

 all; yea, even the foreground of humanity. It 

 was all-powerful, this vastness of eternity, yet 

 all forgiving ; and one was constrained to 

 murmur : 



So great this beautiful earth, 



So little our earthly being, 



So let us pass ; each in our own way. 



It was in this vein, then, that I mused of the 

 Frontier, and Beyond, on early acquaintance. 



Time had passed since the evening of my 

 arrival. I had been tw T o days in Big River — two 

 long days of delightful, ruminating freedom 

 amongst the older bushmen of the place. And 

 now it was the evening of the second day. 



I sat at the only table occupied in the great, 

 bare, paintless, featureless, interior of the barn- 



