Joe Wilson and His Mates [61]
first an elastic-sided boot, then a red-striped stocking,
then a section of scarlet petticoat.
`Lemme out!' roared Pinter, lurching forward and making
a swimming motion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive.
Kullers was already gone, and Jim well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward,
scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time,
considering she had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings,
and when Dave reached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins,
and the blood ran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue
over the price of a new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush
in the direction of an encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.
`She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night,' said Dave.
`But to-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us.'
`And she's enough, without the neighbourhood,' reflected Pinter.
Some time after dark they returned cautiously, reconnoitred their camp,
and after hiding in a hollow log such things as they couldn't carry,
they rolled up their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.
The Chinaman's Ghost.
`Simple as striking matches,' said Dave Regan, Bushman;
`but it gave me the biggest scare I ever had -- except, perhaps,
the time I stumbled in the dark into a six-feet digger's hole,
which might have been eighty feet deep for all I knew when I was falling.
(There was an eighty-feet shaft left open close by.)
`It was the night of the day after the Queen's birthday.
I was sinking a shaft with Jim Bently and Andy Page
on the old Redclay goldfield, and we camped in a tent on the creek.
Jim and me went to some races that was held at Peter Anderson's pub.,
about four miles across the ridges, on Queen's birthday.
Andy was a quiet sort of chap, a teetotaller, and we'd disgusted him
the last time he was out for a holiday with us, so he stayed at home
and washed and mended his clothes, and read an arithmetic book.
(He used to keep the accounts, and it took him most of his spare time.)
`Jim and me had a pretty high time. We all got pretty tight after the races,
and I wanted to fight Jim, or Jim wanted to fight me --
I don't remember which. We were old chums, and we nearly always
wanted to fight each other when we got a bit on, and we'd fight
if we weren't stopped. I remember once Jim got maudlin drunk
and begged and prayed of me to fight him, as if he was praying for his life.
Tom Tarrant, the coach-driver, used to say that Jim and me must be related,
else we wouldn't hate each other so much when we were tight and truthful.
`Anyway, this day, Jim got the sulks, and caught his horse and went home
early in the evening. My dog went home with him too; I must have been
carrying on pretty bad to disgust the dog.
`Next evening I got disgusted with myself, and started to walk home.
I'd lost my hat, so Peter Anderson lent me an old one of his,
that he'd worn on Ballarat he said: it was a hard, straw, flat,
broad-brimmed affair, and fitted my headache pretty tight.
Peter gave me a small flask of whisky to help me home. I had to go
across some flats and up a long dark gully called Murderer's Gully,
and over a gap called Dead Man's Gap, and down the ridge and gullies
to Redclay Creek. The lonely flats were covered with blue-grey gum bush,
and looked ghostly enough in the moonlight, and I was pretty shaky,
but I had a pull at the flask and a mouthful of water at a creek and felt
right enough. I began to whistle, and then to sing: I never used to sing
unless I thought I was a couple of miles out of earshot of any one.
`Murderer's Gully was deep and pretty dark most times, and of course
it was haunted. Women and children wouldn't go through it after dark;
and even me, when I'd grown up, I'd hold my back pretty holler, and whistle,
and walk quick going along there at night-time. We're all afraid of ghosts,
but we won't let on.
`Some one had skinned a dead calf during the day and left it on the track,
and it gave me a jump, I promise you.
then a section of scarlet petticoat.
`Lemme out!' roared Pinter, lurching forward and making
a swimming motion with his hands in the direction of Dave's drive.
Kullers was already gone, and Jim well on the way. Dave, lanky and awkward,
scrambled up the shaft last. Mrs Middleton made good time,
considering she had the darkness to face and didn't know the workings,
and when Dave reached the top he had a tear in the leg of his moleskins,
and the blood ran from a nasty scratch. But he didn't wait to argue
over the price of a new pair of trousers. He made off through the Bush
in the direction of an encouraging whistle thrown back by Jim.
`She's too drunk to get her story listened to to-night,' said Dave.
`But to-morrow she'll bring the neighbourhood down on us.'
`And she's enough, without the neighbourhood,' reflected Pinter.
Some time after dark they returned cautiously, reconnoitred their camp,
and after hiding in a hollow log such things as they couldn't carry,
they rolled up their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.
The Chinaman's Ghost.
`Simple as striking matches,' said Dave Regan, Bushman;
`but it gave me the biggest scare I ever had -- except, perhaps,
the time I stumbled in the dark into a six-feet digger's hole,
which might have been eighty feet deep for all I knew when I was falling.
(There was an eighty-feet shaft left open close by.)
`It was the night of the day after the Queen's birthday.
I was sinking a shaft with Jim Bently and Andy Page
on the old Redclay goldfield, and we camped in a tent on the creek.
Jim and me went to some races that was held at Peter Anderson's pub.,
about four miles across the ridges, on Queen's birthday.
Andy was a quiet sort of chap, a teetotaller, and we'd disgusted him
the last time he was out for a holiday with us, so he stayed at home
and washed and mended his clothes, and read an arithmetic book.
(He used to keep the accounts, and it took him most of his spare time.)
`Jim and me had a pretty high time. We all got pretty tight after the races,
and I wanted to fight Jim, or Jim wanted to fight me --
I don't remember which. We were old chums, and we nearly always
wanted to fight each other when we got a bit on, and we'd fight
if we weren't stopped. I remember once Jim got maudlin drunk
and begged and prayed of me to fight him, as if he was praying for his life.
Tom Tarrant, the coach-driver, used to say that Jim and me must be related,
else we wouldn't hate each other so much when we were tight and truthful.
`Anyway, this day, Jim got the sulks, and caught his horse and went home
early in the evening. My dog went home with him too; I must have been
carrying on pretty bad to disgust the dog.
`Next evening I got disgusted with myself, and started to walk home.
I'd lost my hat, so Peter Anderson lent me an old one of his,
that he'd worn on Ballarat he said: it was a hard, straw, flat,
broad-brimmed affair, and fitted my headache pretty tight.
Peter gave me a small flask of whisky to help me home. I had to go
across some flats and up a long dark gully called Murderer's Gully,
and over a gap called Dead Man's Gap, and down the ridge and gullies
to Redclay Creek. The lonely flats were covered with blue-grey gum bush,
and looked ghostly enough in the moonlight, and I was pretty shaky,
but I had a pull at the flask and a mouthful of water at a creek and felt
right enough. I began to whistle, and then to sing: I never used to sing
unless I thought I was a couple of miles out of earshot of any one.
`Murderer's Gully was deep and pretty dark most times, and of course
it was haunted. Women and children wouldn't go through it after dark;
and even me, when I'd grown up, I'd hold my back pretty holler, and whistle,
and walk quick going along there at night-time. We're all afraid of ghosts,
but we won't let on.
`Some one had skinned a dead calf during the day and left it on the track,
and it gave me a jump, I promise you.