Robin
Robin is the story of a girl living in the Gippsland countryside, and of her adventures when bushfires sweep the area.
Mary Grant Bruce’s description of the coming of the Black Sunday bushfires is a very graphic piece of writing, and one of her best.
Somewhere behind the curtain (of haze) it was mounting, already giving promise of a day that should be hotter than anything they had yet endured—there was something sinister in its steady, unseen force. The air of early morning had no sense of refreshment and coolness. It was heavy to breathe, and profoundly still. Not a flicker stirred a leaf in the garden. And Robin suddenly realized that the busy chatter of awakening birds was altogether absent. They were hiding in the trees; there was no merry flutter of wings, no cheery call of cockatoos beyond the creek. The utter silence sent a little thrill of discomfort through her.
“This is too quiet altogether, even for Sunday morning,” she said, with a half-laugh. “It feels uncanny . . .”
The Trustee of The Mary Grant Bruce Family Trust owns the extant copyrights on this story.
First Published in: 1926
First Publisher: Angus and Robertson Limited
Places First Published: Sydney and London