Joe Wilson and His Mates [25]
sheer funk -- I started saying,
`Death is riding to-night! . . . Death is racing to-night! . . .
Death is riding to-night!' till the hoofs took that up.
And I believe the old mare felt the black horse at her side
and was going to beat him or break her heart.
I was mad with anxiety and fright: I remember I kept saying,
`I'll be kinder to Mary after this! I'll take more notice of Jim!'
and the rest of it.
I don't know how the old mare got up the last `pinch'.
She must have slackened pace, but I never noticed it:
I just held Jim up to me and gripped the saddle with my knees --
I remember the saddle jerked from the desperate jumps of her till I thought
the girth would go. We topped the gap and were going down into a gully
they called Dead Man's Hollow, and there, at the back of a ghostly clearing
that opened from the road where there were some black-soil springs,
was a long, low, oblong weatherboard-and-shingle building,
with blind, broken windows in the gable-ends, and a wide steep verandah roof
slanting down almost to the level of the window-sills -- there was something
sinister about it, I thought -- like the hat of a jail-bird
slouched over his eyes. The place looked both deserted and haunted.
I saw no light, but that was because of the moonlight outside.
The mare turned in at the corner of the clearing to take a short cut
to the shanty, and, as she struggled across some marshy ground,
my heart kept jerking out the words, `It's deserted! They've gone away!
It's deserted!' The mare went round to the back and pulled up
between the back door and a big bark-and-slab kitchen. Some one shouted
from inside --
`Who's there?'
`It's me. Joe Wilson. I want your sister-in-law -- I've got the boy --
he's sick and dying!'
Brighten came out, pulling up his moleskins. `What boy?' he asked.
`Here, take him,' I shouted, `and let me get down.'
`What's the matter with him?' asked Brighten, and he seemed to hang back.
And just as I made to get my leg over the saddle, Jim's head went back
over my arm, he stiffened, and I saw his eyeballs turned up and glistening
in the moonlight.
I felt cold all over then and sick in the stomach -- but CLEAR-HEADED
in a way: strange, wasn't it? I don't know why I didn't get down
and rush into the kitchen to get a bath ready. I only felt as if
the worst had come, and I wished it were over and gone.
I even thought of Mary and the funeral.
Then a woman ran out of the house -- a big, hard-looking woman.
She had on a wrapper of some sort, and her feet were bare.
She laid her hand on Jim, looked at his face, and then snatched him from me
and ran into the kitchen -- and me down and after her.
As great good luck would have it, they had some dirty clothes on to boil
in a kerosene tin -- dish-cloths or something.
Brighten's sister-in-law dragged a tub out from under the table,
wrenched the bucket off the hook, and dumped in the water,
dish-cloths and all, snatched a can of cold water from a corner,
dashed that in, and felt the water with her hand -- holding Jim up to her hip
all the time -- and I won't say how he looked. She stood him in the tub
and started dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes
between the splashes.
`Here, that tin of mustard -- there on the shelf!' she shouted to me.
She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub,
and went on splashing and spanking Jim.
It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life.
I felt cold-blooded -- I felt as if I'd like an excuse to go outside
till it was all over. I thought of Mary and the funeral --
and wished that that was past. All this in a flash, as it were.
I felt that it would be a great relief, and only wished the funeral
was months past. I felt -- well, altogether selfish.
I only thought for myself.
Brighten's sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard -- hard enough
to break his back I thought, and -- after about half an hour it seemed --
the end came: Jim's limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub,
and the
`Death is riding to-night! . . . Death is racing to-night! . . .
Death is riding to-night!' till the hoofs took that up.
And I believe the old mare felt the black horse at her side
and was going to beat him or break her heart.
I was mad with anxiety and fright: I remember I kept saying,
`I'll be kinder to Mary after this! I'll take more notice of Jim!'
and the rest of it.
I don't know how the old mare got up the last `pinch'.
She must have slackened pace, but I never noticed it:
I just held Jim up to me and gripped the saddle with my knees --
I remember the saddle jerked from the desperate jumps of her till I thought
the girth would go. We topped the gap and were going down into a gully
they called Dead Man's Hollow, and there, at the back of a ghostly clearing
that opened from the road where there were some black-soil springs,
was a long, low, oblong weatherboard-and-shingle building,
with blind, broken windows in the gable-ends, and a wide steep verandah roof
slanting down almost to the level of the window-sills -- there was something
sinister about it, I thought -- like the hat of a jail-bird
slouched over his eyes. The place looked both deserted and haunted.
I saw no light, but that was because of the moonlight outside.
The mare turned in at the corner of the clearing to take a short cut
to the shanty, and, as she struggled across some marshy ground,
my heart kept jerking out the words, `It's deserted! They've gone away!
It's deserted!' The mare went round to the back and pulled up
between the back door and a big bark-and-slab kitchen. Some one shouted
from inside --
`Who's there?'
`It's me. Joe Wilson. I want your sister-in-law -- I've got the boy --
he's sick and dying!'
Brighten came out, pulling up his moleskins. `What boy?' he asked.
`Here, take him,' I shouted, `and let me get down.'
`What's the matter with him?' asked Brighten, and he seemed to hang back.
And just as I made to get my leg over the saddle, Jim's head went back
over my arm, he stiffened, and I saw his eyeballs turned up and glistening
in the moonlight.
I felt cold all over then and sick in the stomach -- but CLEAR-HEADED
in a way: strange, wasn't it? I don't know why I didn't get down
and rush into the kitchen to get a bath ready. I only felt as if
the worst had come, and I wished it were over and gone.
I even thought of Mary and the funeral.
Then a woman ran out of the house -- a big, hard-looking woman.
She had on a wrapper of some sort, and her feet were bare.
She laid her hand on Jim, looked at his face, and then snatched him from me
and ran into the kitchen -- and me down and after her.
As great good luck would have it, they had some dirty clothes on to boil
in a kerosene tin -- dish-cloths or something.
Brighten's sister-in-law dragged a tub out from under the table,
wrenched the bucket off the hook, and dumped in the water,
dish-cloths and all, snatched a can of cold water from a corner,
dashed that in, and felt the water with her hand -- holding Jim up to her hip
all the time -- and I won't say how he looked. She stood him in the tub
and started dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes
between the splashes.
`Here, that tin of mustard -- there on the shelf!' she shouted to me.
She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub,
and went on splashing and spanking Jim.
It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life.
I felt cold-blooded -- I felt as if I'd like an excuse to go outside
till it was all over. I thought of Mary and the funeral --
and wished that that was past. All this in a flash, as it were.
I felt that it would be a great relief, and only wished the funeral
was months past. I felt -- well, altogether selfish.
I only thought for myself.
Brighten's sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard -- hard enough
to break his back I thought, and -- after about half an hour it seemed --
the end came: Jim's limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub,
and the