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Ross’s right hand resting on the desk was very eloquent: horny, scarred and knotted at every joint, with broken, twisted nails, and nearly closed, as though fitted to the handle of an axe or a spade. Ross was an educated man (he had a regular library of books at home), and perhaps that’s why he suffered so much.

Peter preached as if he were speaking quietly to one person only, but every word was plain and every sentence went straight to someone. I believe he looked every soul in the eyes before he had done. Once he said something and caught my eye, and I felt a sudden lump in my throat. There was a boy there, a pale, thin, sensitive boy who was eating his heart out because of things he didn’t understand. He was ambitious and longed for something different from this life; he’d written a story or two and some rhymes for the local paper; his companions considered him a “bit ratty” and the grown-up people thought him a “bit wrong in his head,” idiotic, or at least “queer.” And during his sermon Peter spoke of “unsatisfied longings,” of the hope of something better, and said that one had to suffer much and for long years before he could preach or write; and then he looked at that boy. I knew the boy very well; he has risen in the world since then.

Peter spoke of the life we lived, of the things we knew, and used names and terms that we used. “I don’t know whether it was a blanky sermon or a blanky lecture,” said long swanky Jim Bullock afterwards, “but it was straight and hit some of us hard. It hit me once or twice, I can tell yer.” Peter spoke of our lives: “And there is beauty–even in this life and in this place,” he said. “Nothing is wasted–nothing is without reason. There is beauty even in this place—“

I noticed something like a hint of a hard smile on Ross’s face; he moved the hand on the desk and tightened it.

“Yes,” said Peter, as if in answer to Ross’s expression and the movement of his hand, “there is beauty in this life here. After a good season, and when the bush is tall and dry, when the bush-fires threaten a man’s crop of ripened wheat, there are tired men who run and ride from miles round to help that man, and who fight the fire all night to save his wheat–and some of them may have been wrangling with him for years. And in the morning, when the wheat is saved and the danger is past, when the fire is beaten out or turned, there are blackened, grimy hands that come together and grip-hands that have not joined for many a long day.”

Old Palmer, Ross’s neighbour, moved uneasily. He had once helped Ross to put a fire out, but they had quarrelled again since. Ross still sat in the same position, looking the hard man he was. Peter glanced at Ross, looked down and thought a while, and then went on again:

“There is beauty even in this life and in this place. When a man loses his farm, or his stock, or his crop, through no fault of his own, there are poor men who put their hands into their pockets to help him.”

Old Kurtz, over the ridge, had had his stacked crop of wheat in sheaf burned–some scoundrel had put a match to it at night–and the farmers round had collected nearly fifty pounds for him.

“There is beauty even in this life and in this place. In the blazing drought, when the cattle lie down and cannot rise from weakness, neighbours help neighbours to lift them. When one man has hay or chaff and no stock, he gives it or sells it cheaply to the poor man who has starving cattle and no fodder.”