Joe Wilson and His Mates [107]
cried Job, struggling to rise -- `stop her! -- oh God! my leg.'
`Keep quiet, you fool!'
`Stop her!' yelled Job.
`Why stop her?' asked the doctor. `She won't go fur,' he added.
`She'll go home to Gerty,' shouted Job. `For God's sake stop her!'
`O--h!' drawled the doctor to himself. `I might have guessed that.
And I ought to know men.'
`Don't take me home!' demanded Job in a semi-sensible interval.
`Take me to Poisonous Jimmy's and tell Gerty I'm on the spree.'
When Mac. and Mrs Spencer arrived with the waggonette Doc. Wild was
in his shirt-sleeves, his Chinese silk coat having gone for bandages.
The lower half of Job's trouser-leg and his 'lastic-side boot
lay on the ground, neatly cut off, and his bandaged leg was sandwiched
between two strips of bark, with grass stuffed in the hollows,
and bound by saddle-straps.
`That's all I kin do for him for the present.'
Mrs Spencer was a strong woman mentally, but she arrived
rather pale and a little shaky: nevertheless she called out,
as soon as she got within earshot of the doctor --
`What's Job been doing now?' (Job, by the way, had never been remarkable
for doing anything.)
`He's got his leg broke and shot his horse,' replied the doctor.
`But,' he added, `whether he's been a hero or a fool I dunno.
Anyway, it's a mess all round.'
They unrolled the bed, blankets, and pillows in the bottom of the trap,
backed it against the log, to have a step, and got Job in. It was
a ticklish job, but they had to manage it: Job, maddened by pain and heat,
only kept from fainting by whisky, groaning and raving and yelling to them
to stop his horse.
`Lucky we got him before the ants did,' muttered the doctor.
Then he had an inspiration --
`You bring him on to the shepherd's hut this side the station.
We must leave him there. Drive carefully, and pour brandy into him
now and then; when the brandy's done pour whisky, then gin -- keep the rum
till the last' (the doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette
at Poisonous Jimmy's). `I'll take Mac.'s horse and ride on and send Peter'
(the station hand) `back to the hut to meet you. I'll be back myself
if I can. THIS BUSINESS WILL HURRY UP THINGS AT THE STATION.'
Which last was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor's
which no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for --
except in Doc. Wild's madness.
He rode off at a gallop. The burden of Job's raving, all the way,
rested on the dead filly --
`Stop her! She must not go home to Gerty! . . . God help me shoot! . . .
Whoa! -- whoa, there! . . . "Cope -- cope -- cope" -- Steady, Jessie,
old girl. . . . Aim straight -- aim straight! Aim for me, God! --
I've missed! . . . Stop her!' &c.
`I never met a character like that,' commented the doctor afterwards,
`inside a man that looked like Job on the outside. I've met men
behind revolvers and big mustarshes in Califo'nia; but I've met
a derned sight more men behind nothing but a good-natured grin,
here in Australia. These lanky sawney Bushmen will do things
in an easy-going way some day that'll make the old world
sit up and think hard.'
He reached the station in time, and twenty minutes or half an hour later
he left the case in the hands of the Lancashire woman --
whom he saw reason to admire -- and rode back to the hut to help Job,
whom they soon fixed up as comfortably as possible.
They humbugged Mrs Falconer first with a yarn of Job's alleged
phenomenal shyness, and gradually, as she grew stronger,
and the truth less important, they told it to her. And so, instead of Job
being pushed, scarlet-faced, into the bedroom to see his first-born,
Gerty Falconer herself took the child down to the hut,
and so presented Uncle Job with my first and favourite cousin and Bush chum.
Doc. Wild stayed round until he saw Job comfortably moved to the homestead,
then he prepared to depart.
`I'm sorry,' said Job, who was still weak -- `I'm sorry for that there filly.
I was breaking her in to side-saddle for Gerty when
`Keep quiet, you fool!'
`Stop her!' yelled Job.
`Why stop her?' asked the doctor. `She won't go fur,' he added.
`She'll go home to Gerty,' shouted Job. `For God's sake stop her!'
`O--h!' drawled the doctor to himself. `I might have guessed that.
And I ought to know men.'
`Don't take me home!' demanded Job in a semi-sensible interval.
`Take me to Poisonous Jimmy's and tell Gerty I'm on the spree.'
When Mac. and Mrs Spencer arrived with the waggonette Doc. Wild was
in his shirt-sleeves, his Chinese silk coat having gone for bandages.
The lower half of Job's trouser-leg and his 'lastic-side boot
lay on the ground, neatly cut off, and his bandaged leg was sandwiched
between two strips of bark, with grass stuffed in the hollows,
and bound by saddle-straps.
`That's all I kin do for him for the present.'
Mrs Spencer was a strong woman mentally, but she arrived
rather pale and a little shaky: nevertheless she called out,
as soon as she got within earshot of the doctor --
`What's Job been doing now?' (Job, by the way, had never been remarkable
for doing anything.)
`He's got his leg broke and shot his horse,' replied the doctor.
`But,' he added, `whether he's been a hero or a fool I dunno.
Anyway, it's a mess all round.'
They unrolled the bed, blankets, and pillows in the bottom of the trap,
backed it against the log, to have a step, and got Job in. It was
a ticklish job, but they had to manage it: Job, maddened by pain and heat,
only kept from fainting by whisky, groaning and raving and yelling to them
to stop his horse.
`Lucky we got him before the ants did,' muttered the doctor.
Then he had an inspiration --
`You bring him on to the shepherd's hut this side the station.
We must leave him there. Drive carefully, and pour brandy into him
now and then; when the brandy's done pour whisky, then gin -- keep the rum
till the last' (the doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette
at Poisonous Jimmy's). `I'll take Mac.'s horse and ride on and send Peter'
(the station hand) `back to the hut to meet you. I'll be back myself
if I can. THIS BUSINESS WILL HURRY UP THINGS AT THE STATION.'
Which last was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor's
which no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for --
except in Doc. Wild's madness.
He rode off at a gallop. The burden of Job's raving, all the way,
rested on the dead filly --
`Stop her! She must not go home to Gerty! . . . God help me shoot! . . .
Whoa! -- whoa, there! . . . "Cope -- cope -- cope" -- Steady, Jessie,
old girl. . . . Aim straight -- aim straight! Aim for me, God! --
I've missed! . . . Stop her!' &c.
`I never met a character like that,' commented the doctor afterwards,
`inside a man that looked like Job on the outside. I've met men
behind revolvers and big mustarshes in Califo'nia; but I've met
a derned sight more men behind nothing but a good-natured grin,
here in Australia. These lanky sawney Bushmen will do things
in an easy-going way some day that'll make the old world
sit up and think hard.'
He reached the station in time, and twenty minutes or half an hour later
he left the case in the hands of the Lancashire woman --
whom he saw reason to admire -- and rode back to the hut to help Job,
whom they soon fixed up as comfortably as possible.
They humbugged Mrs Falconer first with a yarn of Job's alleged
phenomenal shyness, and gradually, as she grew stronger,
and the truth less important, they told it to her. And so, instead of Job
being pushed, scarlet-faced, into the bedroom to see his first-born,
Gerty Falconer herself took the child down to the hut,
and so presented Uncle Job with my first and favourite cousin and Bush chum.
Doc. Wild stayed round until he saw Job comfortably moved to the homestead,
then he prepared to depart.
`I'm sorry,' said Job, who was still weak -- `I'm sorry for that there filly.
I was breaking her in to side-saddle for Gerty when