Joe Wilson and His Mates [103]
was a settler's daughter.
The newness took away some of the loneliness, she said, and there was truth
in that: a Bush home in the scrubs looks lonelier the older it gets,
and ghostlier in the twilight, as the bark and slabs whiten,
or rather grow grey, in fierce summers. And there's nothing under God's sky
so weird, so aggressively lonely, as a deserted old home in the Bush.
Job's wife had a half-caste gin for company when Job was away on the run,
and the nearest white woman (a hard but honest Lancashire woman
from within the kicking radius in Lancashire -- wife of a selector)
was only seven miles away. She promised to be on hand,
and came over two or three times a-week; but Job grew restless
as Gerty's time drew near, and wished that he had insisted on sending her
to the nearest town (thirty miles away), as originally proposed.
Gerty's mother, who lived in town, was coming to see her over her trouble;
Job had made arrangements with the town doctor, but prompt attendance
could hardly be expected of a doctor who was very busy,
who was too fat to ride, and who lived thirty miles away.
Job, in common with most Bushmen and their families round there,
had more faith in Doc. Wild, a weird Yankee who made medicine in a saucepan,
and worked more cures on Bushmen than did the other three doctors
of the district together -- maybe because the Bushmen had faith in him,
or he knew the Bush and Bush constitutions -- or, perhaps,
because he'd do things which no `respectable practitioner' dared do.
I've described him in another story. Some said he was a quack,
and some said he wasn't. There are scores of wrecks and mysteries like him
in the Bush. He drank fearfully, and `on his own', but was seldom incapable
of performing an operation. Experienced Bushmen preferred him
three-quarters drunk: when perfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky.
He was tall, gaunt, had a pointed black moustache, bushy eyebrows,
and piercing black eyes. His movements were eccentric. He lived
where he happened to be -- in a town hotel, in the best room of a homestead,
in the skillion of a sly-grog shanty, in a shearer's, digger's, shepherd's,
or boundary-rider's hut; in a surveyor's camp or a black-fellows' camp --
or, when the horrors were on him, by a log in the lonely Bush.
It seemed all one to him. He lost all his things sometimes --
even his clothes; but he never lost a pigskin bag which contained
his surgical instruments and papers. Except once; then he gave the blacks
5 Pounds to find it for him.
His patients included all, from the big squatter to Black Jimmy;
and he rode as far and fast to a squatter's home as to a swagman's camp.
When nothing was to be expected from a poor selector or a station hand,
and the doctor was hard up, he went to the squatter for a few pounds.
He had on occasions been offered cheques of 50 Pounds and 100 Pounds
by squatters for `pulling round' their wives or children;
but such offers always angered him. When he asked for 5 Pounds
he resented being offered a 10 Pound cheque. He once sued a doctor
for alleging that he held no diploma; but the magistrate, on reading
certain papers, suggested a settlement out of court, which both doctors
agreed to -- the other doctor apologising briefly in the local paper.
It was noticed thereafter that the magistrate and town doctors
treated Doc. Wild with great respect -- even at his worst.
The thing was never explained, and the case deepened the mystery
which surrounded Doc. Wild.
As Job Falconer's crisis approached Doc. Wild was located at a shanty
on the main road, about half-way between Job's station and the town.
(Township of Come-by-Chance -- expressive name; and the shanty was
the `Dead Dingo Hotel', kept by James Myles -- known as `Poisonous Jimmy',
perhaps as a compliment to, or a libel on, the liquor he sold.)
Job's brother Mac. was stationed at the Dead Dingo Hotel
with instructions to hang round on some pretence, see that the doctor
didn't either drink himself into the `D.T.'s' or get sober enough
to
The newness took away some of the loneliness, she said, and there was truth
in that: a Bush home in the scrubs looks lonelier the older it gets,
and ghostlier in the twilight, as the bark and slabs whiten,
or rather grow grey, in fierce summers. And there's nothing under God's sky
so weird, so aggressively lonely, as a deserted old home in the Bush.
Job's wife had a half-caste gin for company when Job was away on the run,
and the nearest white woman (a hard but honest Lancashire woman
from within the kicking radius in Lancashire -- wife of a selector)
was only seven miles away. She promised to be on hand,
and came over two or three times a-week; but Job grew restless
as Gerty's time drew near, and wished that he had insisted on sending her
to the nearest town (thirty miles away), as originally proposed.
Gerty's mother, who lived in town, was coming to see her over her trouble;
Job had made arrangements with the town doctor, but prompt attendance
could hardly be expected of a doctor who was very busy,
who was too fat to ride, and who lived thirty miles away.
Job, in common with most Bushmen and their families round there,
had more faith in Doc. Wild, a weird Yankee who made medicine in a saucepan,
and worked more cures on Bushmen than did the other three doctors
of the district together -- maybe because the Bushmen had faith in him,
or he knew the Bush and Bush constitutions -- or, perhaps,
because he'd do things which no `respectable practitioner' dared do.
I've described him in another story. Some said he was a quack,
and some said he wasn't. There are scores of wrecks and mysteries like him
in the Bush. He drank fearfully, and `on his own', but was seldom incapable
of performing an operation. Experienced Bushmen preferred him
three-quarters drunk: when perfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky.
He was tall, gaunt, had a pointed black moustache, bushy eyebrows,
and piercing black eyes. His movements were eccentric. He lived
where he happened to be -- in a town hotel, in the best room of a homestead,
in the skillion of a sly-grog shanty, in a shearer's, digger's, shepherd's,
or boundary-rider's hut; in a surveyor's camp or a black-fellows' camp --
or, when the horrors were on him, by a log in the lonely Bush.
It seemed all one to him. He lost all his things sometimes --
even his clothes; but he never lost a pigskin bag which contained
his surgical instruments and papers. Except once; then he gave the blacks
5 Pounds to find it for him.
His patients included all, from the big squatter to Black Jimmy;
and he rode as far and fast to a squatter's home as to a swagman's camp.
When nothing was to be expected from a poor selector or a station hand,
and the doctor was hard up, he went to the squatter for a few pounds.
He had on occasions been offered cheques of 50 Pounds and 100 Pounds
by squatters for `pulling round' their wives or children;
but such offers always angered him. When he asked for 5 Pounds
he resented being offered a 10 Pound cheque. He once sued a doctor
for alleging that he held no diploma; but the magistrate, on reading
certain papers, suggested a settlement out of court, which both doctors
agreed to -- the other doctor apologising briefly in the local paper.
It was noticed thereafter that the magistrate and town doctors
treated Doc. Wild with great respect -- even at his worst.
The thing was never explained, and the case deepened the mystery
which surrounded Doc. Wild.
As Job Falconer's crisis approached Doc. Wild was located at a shanty
on the main road, about half-way between Job's station and the town.
(Township of Come-by-Chance -- expressive name; and the shanty was
the `Dead Dingo Hotel', kept by James Myles -- known as `Poisonous Jimmy',
perhaps as a compliment to, or a libel on, the liquor he sold.)
Job's brother Mac. was stationed at the Dead Dingo Hotel
with instructions to hang round on some pretence, see that the doctor
didn't either drink himself into the `D.T.'s' or get sober enough
to