It was a black, moonless night but there was no rain, and the three men sat huddled around a candle flame in Arthur's canvas tent. Goldney knocked his pipe out against a rock and filled the bowl with tobacco. They heard a kea screech in the distance and the answer from its mate across the high valley. The men sat in silence, the flickering light casting crevices in their whiskery faces and steam rising from their moleskins.
"Where do you think we are then, Mister Dobson?" said Goldney, striking a match.
"Could be the Arahura River, or the Otira, I can't be sure, but either way it will lead to the coast."
"But we've seen no pasture yet."
"No, but I think we might climb a ridge tomorrow and take a bearing. If it's clear air we may see the lie of the land."
"Right," Goldney blew smoke out of the tent door and turned to John. "And you, young dreamer, tell us. Have ye a lady friend hidden away somewhere, or have you never been kissed, eh?"
Even in the flickering dark the two older men could see John's face was flushing. He was a private young man, not given to talking about himself, but at that moment he felt a close bond with these men and a trust he thought it was unlikely they would betray.
"Come on, schoolteacher, tell us!"
"I have a love, yes. Her name is Maggie ... Maggie. We met on The Sebastopol from Gravesend."
"And where is your sweetheart now, John?"
"Promised to another I am afraid, and my best friend too. George, George Braid, you know him Mister Goldney, he has ridden for you with Parnell and myself. He's a little wild if he has a fault, but a solid enough fellow. And to be fair, he never knew my feelings for Maggie."
"Ah, you're a fool and no mistake," said Goldney, "you should fight him, that's what I think, challenge him to a fistfight and the winner takes all."
"Aye, Parnell told me something similar, Mister Goldney. But right now it causes me no pain to know I have lost her. Here I am, out here in the darkness with you gentlemen and the screeching parrots. And do you know I have never felt more in my rightful place than at this moment."
Arthur looked up and smiled at the young man. "Good for you, Marshall."
He took out a crumpled, yellow paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it carefully. "I have a love too, and I hope she may be my wife one day. Her name is Eleanor."
He went on. "When I'm in the bush at night, I sometimes lie still and listen close. You can hear the kiwis call to each other, and the owls and the kea. And the trees when the wind rises, they creak and groan as if they talk to each other too. Sometimes you hear a falling log like a giant's footstep, to scare you out of your skin. And if you are near a creek, the water plays over the stones like a song. You may stay up all night listening, then after the dawn, boys, you hear the leaves rustling, very quiet, like a whisper, as if the sun is waking them up. It's then, when I'm lonely for a woman's company, I think of Eleanor and I hope she will wait for me until I stop this wandering life."
"Ah, Mister Dobson, you are a sensitive soul too. And what is it you have there in your hand?" said Goldney.
Arthur gave him the crumpled paper. "It is just a few sentimental lines, but I like to read it to myself at such times. I don't know the author but it seems to me as though the man has known the bush just like I have, and has been where I have been."
Goldney looked at the scribbled words in faded ink but could not make them out in the flickering candle light. "You will have to read it to us, Arthur, I am sure you know the verse by rote."
John listened in the stillness as Arthur spoke the lines he knew by heart.
'I hear the soft voice of my love
Like the music of water falling,
Like the murmur of leaves when the dawn is breaking,
Down all the long vista of years,
I hear the sweet words she is calling,
And see the love-light in her eyes,
That shines to welcome me still.'
"Well that's a beautiful piece, Mister Dobson, and I thank you for it," said Goldney. "You see, schoolteacher, what you will be missing if you don't go after this lass of yours."
"Don't embarrass the boy, Goldney," Dobson continued, turning to John. "Don't you worry about that, my friend, but when it's light in the morning you must look around you. One day this forest here, it will be roads and factories and smoke, and horses will be up and down these mountains every day. And people think it is all empty, waiting for civilisation. But it's not empty, John, it's full of life. You can see them and hear them all around. The beech trees, the parrots, the sandflies, the fish in the rivers, the air and the water and all the land. It's full of living things."
"Yes," said John, "I see them. I hear them."
"And you, John, you're full too, full of years, just like me, with our whole lives to spend! Not like this old codger Goldney, here. He's half empty!" He laughed and slapped Goldney hard on the back, and the older man spat out his pipe and guffawed loudly.
"Now then, boys," Goldney said, "less of this philosophy. Let us get some shut-eye before them leaves start a-talking and wakes us up."
John Marshall lay quiet in the darkness and stayed awake until dawn, listening to the sounds of the night and repeating Arthur's song silently to himself, so that he might remember this time.