GEORGE heard of a farmer who was selling off his sheep about fifty miles
off near the coast. George put money in his purse, rose at three, and
walked the fifty miles with Carlo that day. The next he chaffered with
the farmer, but they did not quite agree. George was vexed, but he knew
it would not do to show it, so he strolled away carelessly toward the
water. In this place the sea comes several miles inland, not in one
sheet, but in a series of salt-water lakes very pretty.
George stood and admired the water and the native blacks paddling along
in boats of bark no bigger than a cocked hat. These strips of bark are
good for carriage and bad for carriage; I mean they are very easily
carried on a man's back ashore, but they won't carry a man on the water
so well, and sitting in them is like balancing on a straw. These absurd
vehicles have come down to these blockheads from their fathers, so they
won't burn them and build according to reason. They commonly paddle in
companies of three; so then whenever one is purled the other two come on
each side of him, each takes a hand and with amazing skill and delicacy
they reseat him in his cocked hat, which never sinks--only purls.
Several of these triads passed in the middle of the lake, looking to
George like inverted capital “T's.” They went a tremendous pace--with
occasional stoppages when a purl occurred.
Presently a single savage appeared nearer the land and George could see
his lithe, sinewy form and the grace and rapidity with which he urged
his gossamer bark along. It was like a hawk--half a dozen rapid strokes
of his wings and then a smooth glide for ever so far.
“Our savages would sit on the blade of a knife, I do think,” was
George's observation.
Now as George looked and admired blackee, it unfortunately happened that
a mosquito flew into blackee's nostrils, which were much larger and more
inviting--to a gnat--than ours. The aboriginal sneezed, and over went
the ancestral boat.
The next moment he was seen swimming and pushing his boat before him. He
was scarce a hundred yards from the shore when all of a sudden down he
went. George was frightened and took off his coat, and was unlacing his
boots--when the black came up again. “Oh, he was only larking,” thought
George. “But he has left his boat--and why, there he goes down again!”
The savage made a dive and came up ten yards nearer the shore, but he
kept his face parallel to it, and he was scarce a moment in sight before
he dived again. Then a horrible suspicion flashed across George--“There
is something after him!”
This soon became a fearful certainty. Just before he dived next time,
a dark object was plainly visible on the water close behind him. George
was wild with fear for poor blackee. He shouted at the monster, he
shouted and beckoned to the swimmer; and last, snatching up a stone, he
darted up a little bed of rock elevated about a yard above the shore.
The next dive the black came up within thirty yards of this very place,
but the shark came at him the next moment. He dived again, but before
the fish followed him George threw a stone with great precision and
force at him. It struck the water close by him as he turned to follow
his prey; George jumped down and got several more stones, and held one
foot advanced and his arm high in air. Up came the savage panting for
breath. The fish made a dart, George threw a stone; it struck him with
such fury on the shoulders that it span off into the air and fell into
the sea forty yards off. Down went the man, and the fish after him.
The next time they came up, to George's dismay, the sea-tiger showed no
signs of being hurt and the man was greatly distressed. The moment he
was above water George heard him sob, and saw the whites of his eyes,
as he rolled them despairingly; and he could not dive again for want of
breath. Seeing this, the shark turned on his back, and came at him with
his white belly visible and his treble row of teeth glistening in a
mouth like a red grave.
Rage as well as fear seized George Fielding, the muscles started on his
brawny arm as he held it aloft with a heavy stone in it. The black was
so hard pressed the last time, and so dead beat, that he could make but
a short duck under the fish's back and come out at his tail. The shark
did not follow him this time, but cunning as well as ferocious slipped
a yard or two inshore, and waited to grab him; not seeing him, he gave
a slap with his tail-fin, and reared his huge head out of water a moment
to look forth. Then George Fielding, grinding his teeth with fury, flung
his heavy stone with tremendous force at the creature's cruel eye. The
heavy stone missed the eye by an inch or two, but it struck the fish on
the nose and teeth with a force that would have felled a bullock.
“Creesh!” went the sea-tiger's flesh and teeth, and the blood squirted
in a circle. Down went the shark like a lump of lead, literally felled
by the crashing stroke.
“I've hit him! I've hit him!” roared George, seizing another stone.
“Come here, quick! quick! before he gets the better of it.”
The black swam like a mad thing to George. George splashed into the
water up to his knee, and taking blackee under the arm-pits, tore him
out of the water and set him down high and dry.
“Give us your hand over it, old fellow,” cried George, panting and
trembling. “Oh dear, my heart is in my mouth, it is!”
The black's eye seemed to kindle a little at George's fire, but all the
rest of him was as cool as a cucumber. He let George shake his hand and
said quietly, “Thank you, sar! Jacky thank you a good deal!” he added in
the same breath; “suppose you lend me a knife, then we eat a good deal.”
George lent him his knife, and to his surprise the savage slipped into
the water again. His object was soon revealed; the shark had come up
to the surface and was floating motionless. It was with no small
trepidation George saw this cool hand swim gently behind him and
suddenly disappear; in a moment, however, the water was red all round,
and the shark turned round on his belly. Jacky swam behind, and pushed
him ashore. It proved to be a young fish about six feet long; but it
was as much as the men could do to lift it. The creature's nose was
battered, and Jacky showed this to George, and let him know that a blow
on that part was deadly to them. “You make him dead for a little while,”
said he, “so then I make him dead enough to eat;” and he showed where he
had driven the knife into him in three places.
Jacky's next proceeding was to get some dry sticks and wood, and prepare
a fire, which to George's astonishment he lighted thus. He got a block
of wood, in the middle of which he made a little hole; then he cut and
pointed a long stick, and inserting the point into the block, worked
it round between his palms for some time and with increasing rapidity.
Presently there came a smell of burning wood, and soon after it burst
into a flame at the point of contact. Jacky cut slices of shark and
toasted them. “Black fellow stupid fellow--eat 'em raw; but I eat 'em
burn't, like white man.”
He then told George he had often been at Sydney, and could “speak the
white man's language a good deal,” and must on no account be confounded
with common black fellows. He illustrated his civilization by eating the
shark as it cooked; that is to say, as soon as the surface was brown he
gnawed it off, and put the rest down to brown again, and so ate a series
of laminae instead of a steak; that it would be cooked to the center if
he let it alone was a fact this gentleman had never discovered; probably
had never had the patience to discover.
George, finding the shark's flesh detestable, declined it, and watched
the other. Presently he vented his reflections. “Well you are a cool
one! half an hour ago I didn't expect to see you eating him--quite the
contrary.” Jacky grinned good-humoredly in reply.
When George returned to the farmer, the latter, who had begun to fear
the loss of a customer, came at once to terms with him. The next day
he started for home with three hundred sheep. Jacky announced that he
should accompany him, and help him a good deal. George's consent was not
given, simply because it was not asked. However, having saved the man's
life, he was not sorry to see a little more of him.
It is usual in works of this kind to give minute descriptions of
people's dress. I fear I have often violated this rule. However I will
not in this case.
Jacky's dress consisted of, in front, a sort of purse made of rat-skin;
behind, a bran new tomahawk and two spears.
George fancied this costume might be improved upon; he therefore bought
from the farmer a second-hand coat and trousers and his new friend
donned them with grinning satisfaction. The farmer's wife pitied George
living by himself out there, and she gave him several little luxuries; a
bacon-ham, some tea, and some orange-marmalade, and a little lump-sugar
and some potatoes.
He gave the potatoes to Jacky to carry. They weighed but a few pounds.
George himself carried about a quarter of a hundredweight. For all that
the potatoes worried Jacky more than George's burden him. At last he
loitered behind so long that George sat down and lighted his pipe.
Presently up comes Niger with the sleeves of his coat hanging on
each side of his neck and the potatoes in them. My lord had taken his
tomahawk and chopped off the sleeves at the arm-pit; then he had sewed
up their bottoms and made bags of them, uniting them at the other end by
a string which rested on the back of his neck like a milkmaid's balance.
Being asked what he had done with the rest of the coat, he told George
he had thrown it away because it was a good deal hot.
“But it won't be hot at night, and then you will wish you hadn't been
such a fool,” said George, irate.
No, he couldn't make Jacky see this; being hot at the time Jacky could
not feel the cold to come. Jacky became a hanger-on of George, and if he
did little he cost little; and if a beast strayed he was invaluable, he
could follow the creature for miles by a chain of physical evidence no
single link of which a civilized man would have seen.
A quantity of rain having fallen and filled all the pools, George
thought he would close with an offer that had been made him and swap
one hundred and fifty sheep for cows and bullocks. He mentioned this
intention to McLaughlan one Sunday evening. McLaughlan warmly approved
his intention. George then went on to name the customer who was disposed
to make the exchange in question. At this the worthy McLaughlan showed
some little uneasiness and told George he might do better than deal with
that person.
George said he should be glad to do better, but did not see how.
“Humph!” said McLaughlan, and fidgeted.
McLaughlan then invited George to a glass of grog, and while they were
sipping he gave an order to his man.
McLaughlan inquired when the proposed negotiation was likely to take
place. “To-morrow morning,” said George. “He asked me to go over about
it this afternoon, but I remembered the lesson you gave me about making
bargains on this day, and I said 'To-morrow, farmer.'”
“Y're a guid lad,” said the Scot demurely; “y're just as decent a body
as ever I forgathered wi'--and I'm thinking it's a sin to let ye gang
twa miles for mairchandeeze whan ye can hae it a hantle cheaper at your
ain door.”
“Can I? I don't know what you mean.”
“Ye dinna ken what I mean? Maybe no.”
Mr. McLaughlan fell into thought a while, and the grog being finished he
proposed a stroll. He took George out into the yard, and there the first
thing they saw was a score and a half of bullocks that had just been
driven into a circle and were maintained there by two men and two dogs.
George's eye brightened at the sight and his host watched it. “Aweel,”
said he, “has Tamson a bonnier lot than yon to gie ye?”
“I don't know,” said George dryly. “I have not seen his.”
“But I hae--and he hasna a lot to even wi' them.”
“I shall know to-morrow,” said George. But he eyed McLaughlan's cattle
with an expression there was no mistaking.
“Aweel,” said the worthy Scot, “ye're a neebor and a decent lad ye are,
sae I'll just speer ye ane question. Noo, mon,” continued he in a most
mellifluous tone and pausing at every word, “gien it were Monday--as it
is the Sabba day--hoo mony sheep wud ye gie for yon bonnie beasties?”
George, finding his friend in this mind, pretended to hang back and to
consider himself bound to treat with Thomson first. The result of all
which was that McLaughlan came over to him at daybreak and George made a
very profitable exchange with him.
At the end of six months more George found himself twice as rich in
substance as at first starting; but instead of one hundred pounds cash
he had but eighty. Still if sold up he would have fetched five hundred
pounds. But more than a year was gone since he began on his own account.
“Well,” said George, “I must be patient and still keep doubling on,
and if I do as well next year as last I shall be worth eight hundred
pounds.”
A month's dry hot weather came and George had arduous work to take
water to his bullocks and to drive them in from long distances to his
homestead, where, by digging enormous tanks, he had secured a constant
supply. No man ever worked for a master as this rustic Hercules worked
for Susan Merton. Prudent George sold twenty bullocks and cows to the
first bidder. “I can buy again at a better time,” argued he.
He had now one hundred and twenty-five pounds in hand. The drought
continued and he wished he had sold more.
One morning Abner came hastily in and told him that nearly all the
beasts and cows were missing. George flung himself on his horse and
galloped to the end of his run. No signs of them--returning disconsolate
he took Jacky on his crupper and went over the ground with him. Jacky's
eyes were playing and sparkling all the time in search of signs. Nothing
clear was discovered. Then at Jacky's request they rode off George's
feeding-ground altogether and made for a little wood about two miles
distant. “Suppose you stop here, I go in the bush,” said Jacky.
George sat down and waited. In about two hours Jacky came back. “I've
found 'em,” said Jacky coolly.
George rose in great excitement and followed Jacky through the stiff
bush, often scratching his hands and face. At last Jacky stopped and
pointed to the ground, “There!”
“There? ye foolish creature,” cried George; “that's ashes where somebody
has lighted a fire; that and a bone or two is all I see.”
“Beef bone,” replied Jacky coolly. George started with horror. “Black
fellow burn beef here and eat him. Black fellow a great thief. Black
fellow take all your beef. Now we catch black fellow and shoot him
suppose he not tell us where the other beef gone.”
“But how am I to catch him? How am I even to find him?”
“You wait till the sun so; then black fellow burn more beef. Then I
see the smoke; then I catch him. You go fetch the make-thunder with two
mouths. When he see him that make him honest a good deal.”
Off galloped George and returned with his double-barreled gun in about
an hour and a half. He found Jacky where he had left him at the foot of
a gumtree tall and smooth as an admiral's main-mast.
Jacky, who was coiled up in happy repose like a dog in warm weather,
rose and with a slight yawn said, “Now I go up and look.”
He made two sharp cuts on the tree with his tomahawk, and putting his
great toe in the nick, rose on it, made another nick higher up, and
holding the smooth stem put his other great toe in it, and so on till in
an incredibly short time he had reached the top and left a staircase of
his own making behind him. He had hardly reached the top when he slid
down to the bottom again and announced that he had discovered what they
were in search of.
George haltered the pony to the tree and followed Jacky, who struck
farther into the wood. After a most disagreeable scramble at the other
side of the wood Jacky stopped and put his finger to his lips. They both
went cautiously out of the wood, and mounting a bank that lay under its
shelter they came plump upon a little party of blacks, four male and
three female. The women were seated round a fire burning beef and
gnawing the outside laminae, then putting it down to the fire again. The
men, who always serve themselves first, were lying gorged--but at sight
of George and Jacky they were on their feet in a moment and their spears
poised in their hands.
Jacky walked down the bank and poured a volley of abuse into them.
Between two of his native sentences he uttered a quiet aside to George,
“Suppose black fellow lift spear you shoot him dead,” and then abused
them like pickpockets again and pointed to the make-thunder with two
mouths in George's hand.
After a severe cackle on both sides the voices began to calm down like
water going off the boil, and presently soft low gutturals passed in
pleasant modulation. Then the eldest male savage made a courteous signal
to Jacky that he should sit down and gnaw. Jacky on this administered
three kicks among the gins and sent them flying, then down he sat and
had a gnaw at their beef--George's beef, I mean. The rage of hunger
appeased, he rose, and with the male savages took the open country. On
the way he let George know that these black fellows were of his
tribe, that they had driven off the cattle and that he had insisted on
restitution--which was about to be made; and sure enough, before they
had gone a mile they saw some beasts grazing in a narrow valley. George
gave a shout of joy, but counting them he found fifteen short. When
Jacky inquired after the others the blacks shrugged their shoulders.
They knew nothing more than this, that wanting a dinner they had driven
off forty bullocks; but finding they could only eat one that day they
had killed one and left the others, of whom some were in the place they
had left them; the rest were somewhere, they didn't know where--far less
care. They had dined, that was enough for them.
When this characteristic answer reached George he clinched his teeth and
for a moment felt an impulse to make a little thunder on their slippery
black carcasses, but he groaned instead and said, “They were never
taught any better.”
Then Jacky and he set to work to drive the cattle together. With
infinite difficulty they got them all home by about eleven o'clock at
night. The next day up with the sun to find the rest. Two o'clock--and
only one had they fallen in with, and the sun broiled so that lazy Jacky
gave in and crept in under the beast for shade, and George was fain to
sit on his shady side with moody brow and sorrowful heart.
Presently Jacky got up. “I find one,” said he.
“Where? where?” cried George, looking all round. Jacky pointed to a
rising ground at least six miles off.
George groaned, “Are you making a fool of me? I can see nothing but a
barren hill with a few great bushes here and there. You are never taking
those bushes for beasts?”
Jacky smiled with utter scorn. “White fellow stupid fellow; he see
nothing.”
“Well and what does black fellow see?” snapped George.
“Black fellow see a crow coming from the sun, and when he came over
there he turned and went down and not get up again a good while. Then
black fellow say, 'I tink.' Presently come flying one more crow from
that other side where the sun is not. Black fellow watch him, and when
he come over there he turn round and go down, too, and not get up a good
while. Then black fellow say, 'I know.'”
“Oh, come along!” cried George.
They hurried on; but when they came to the rising ground and bushes
Jacky put his finger to his lips. “Suppose we catch the black fellows
that have got wings; you make thunder for them?”
He read the answer in George's eye. Then he took George round the back
of the hill and they mounted the crest from the reverse side. They came
over it and there at their very feet lay one of George's best bullocks,
with tongue protruded, breathing his last gasp. A crow of the country
was perched on his ribs, digging his thick beak into a hole he had made
in his ribs, and another was picking out one of his eyes. The birds rose
heavily, clogged and swelling with gore. George's eyes flashed, his gun
went up to his shoulder, and Jacky saw the brown barrel rise slowly for
a moment as it followed the nearest bird wobbling off with broad back
invitingly displayed to the marksman. Bang! the whole charge shivered
the ill-omened glutton, who instantly dropped riddled with shot like a
sieve, while a cloud of dusky feathers rose from him into the air. The
other, hearing the earthly thunder and Jacky's exulting whoop, gave a
sudden whirl with his long wing and shot up into the air at an angle and
made off with great velocity; but the second barrel followed him as he
turned and followed him as he flew down the wind. Bang! out flew two
handfuls of dusky feathers, and glutton No. 2 died in the air, and its
carcass and expanded wings went whirling like a sheet of paper and fell
on the top of a bush at the foot of the hill.
All this delighted the devil-may-care Jacky, but it may be supposed it
was small consolation to George. He went up to the poor beast, who died
even as he looked down on him.
“Drought, Jacky! drought!” said he--“it is Moses, the best of the herd.
Oh, Moses, why couldn't you stay beside me? I'm sure I never let you
want for water, and never would--you left me to find worse friends!”
and so the poor simple fellow moaned over the unfortunate creature,
and gently reproached him for his want of confidence in him that it was
pitiful. Then suddenly turning on Jacky he said gravely, “Moses won't be
the only one, I doubt.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before a loud moo proclaimed the
vicinity of cattle. They ran toward the sound, and in a rocky hollow
they found nine bullocks; and alas! at some little distance another lay
dead. Those that were alive were panting with lolling tongues in the
broiling sun. How to save them; how to get them home a distance of eight
miles. “Oh! for a drop of water.” The poor fools had strayed into the
most arid region for miles round.
Instinct makes blunders as well as reason.--Bestiale est errare.
“We must drive them from this, Jacky, though half of them die by the
way.”
The languid brutes made no active resistance. Being goaded and beaten
they got on their legs and moved feebly away.
Three miles the men drove them, and then one who had been already
staggering more than the rest gave in and lay down, and no power could
get him up again. Jacky advised to leave him. George made a few steps
onward with the other cattle, but then he stopped and came back to the
sufferer and sat down beside him disconsolate.
“I can't bear to desert a poor dumb creature. He can't speak, Jacky, but
look at his poor frightened eye; it seems to say have you got the heart
to go on and leave me to die for the want of a drop of water. Oh! Jacky,
you that is so clever in reading the signs of Nature, have pity on the
poor thing and do pray try and find us a drop of water. I'd run five
miles and fetch it in my hat if you would but find it. Do help us,
Jacky.” And the white man looked helplessly up to the black savage, who
had learned to read the small type of Nature's book and he had not.
Jacky hung his head. “White fellow's eyes always shut; black fellow's
always open. We pass here before and Jacky look for water--look for
everything. No water here. But,” said he languidly, “Jacky will go up
high tree and look a good deal.” Selecting the highest tree near he
chopped a staircase and went up it almost as quickly as a bricklayer
mounts a ladder with a hod. At the top he crossed his thighs over the
stem, and there he sat full half an hour; his glittering eye reading the
confused page, and his subtle mind picking out the minutest syllables
of meaning. Several times he shook his head. At last all of a sudden he
gave a little start, and then a chuckle, and the next moment he was on
the ground.
“What is it?”
“Black fellow stupid fellow--look too far off,” and he laughed again for
all the world like a jackdaw.
“What is it?”
“A little water; not much.”
“Where is it? Where is it? Why don't you tell me where it is?”
“Come,” was the answer.
Not forty yards from where they stood Jacky stopped and thrusting his
hand into a tuft of long grass pulled out a short blue flower with a
very thick stem. “Saw him spark from the top of the tree,” said Jacky
with a grin. “This fellow stand with him head in the air but him foot
in the water. Suppose no water he die a good deal quick.” Then taking
George's hand he made him press the grass hard, and George felt moisture
ooze through the herb.
“Yes, my hand is wet, but, Jacky, this drop won't save a beast's life
without it is a frog's.”
Jacky smiled and rose. “Where that wet came from more stay behind.”
He pointed to other patches of grass close by, and following them showed
George that they got larger and larger in a certain direction. At last
he came to a hidden nook, where was a great patch of grass quite a
different color, green as an emerald. “Water,” cried Jacky, “a good deal
of water.” He took a jump and came down flat on his back on the grass,
and sure enough, though not a drop of surface water was visible, the
cool liquid squirted up in a shower round Jacky.
Nature is extremely fond of producing the same things in very different
sizes. Here was a miniature copy of those large Australian lakes which
show nothing to the eye but rank grass. You ride upon them a little
way, merely wetting your horse's feet, but after a while the sponge
gets fuller and fuller, and the grass shows symptoms of giving way, and
letting you down to “bottomless perdition.”
They squeezed out of this grass sponge a calabash full of water, and
George ran with it to the panting beast. Oh! how he sucked it up, and
his wild eye calmed, and the liquid life ran through all his frame!
It was hardly in his stomach before he got up of his own accord, and
gave a most sonorous moo, intended no doubt to express the sentiment of
“never say die.”
George drove them all to the grassy sponge, and kept them there till
sunset. He was three hours squeezing out water and giving it them before
they were satisfied. Then in the cool of the evening he drove them safe
home.
The next day one more of his strayed cattle found his way home. The
rest he never saw again. This was his first dead loss of any importance;
unfortunately, it was not the last.
The brutes were demoralized by their excursion, and being active as deer
they would jump over anything and stray.
Sometimes the vagrant was recovered--often he was found dead; and
sometimes he went twenty miles and mingled with the huge herds of
some Croesus, and was absorbed like a drop of water and lost to George
Fielding. This was a bitter blow. This was not the way to make the
thousand pounds.
“Better sell them all to the first comer, and then I shall see the end
of my loss. I am not one of your lucky ones. I must not venture.”
A settler passed George's way driving a large herd of sheep and ten
cows. George gave him a dinner and looked over his stock. “You have but
few beasts for so many sheep,” said he.
The other assented.
“I could part with a few of mine to you if you were so minded.”
The other said he should be very glad, but he had no money to spare.
Would George take sheep in exchange?
“Well,” drawled George, “I would rather it had been cash, but such as
you and I must not make the road hard to one another. Sheep I'll take,
but full value.”
The other was delighted, and nearly all George's bullocks became his for
one hundred and fifty sheep.
George was proud of his bargain, and said, “That is a good thing for you
and me, Susan, please God.”
Now the next morning Abner came in and said to George, “I don't like
some of your new lot--the last that are marked with a red V.”
“Why, what is wrong about them?”
“Come and see.”
He found more than one of the new sheep rubbing themselves angrily
against the pen, and sometimes among one another.
“Oh dear!” said George, “I have prayed against this on my knees every
night of my life, and it is come upon me at last. Sharpen your knife,
Abner.”
“What! must they all--”
“All the new lot. Call Jacky, he will help you; he likes to see blood. I
can't abide it. One hundred and fifty sheep; eighteen-pennorth of wool,
and eighteen-pennorth of fat when we fling 'em into the pot--that is all
that is left to me of yesterday's deal.”
Jacky was called.
“Now, Jacky,” said George, “these sheep have got the scab of the
country; if they get to my flock and taint it I am a beggar from that
moment. These sheep are sure to die, so Abner and you are to kill them.
He will show you how. I can't look on and see their blood and my means
spilled like water. Susan, this is a black day for us!”
He went away and sat down upon a stone a good way off, and turned his
back upon his house and his little homestead. This was not the way to
make the thousand pounds.
The next day the dead sheep were skinned and their bodies chopped up and
flung into the copper. The grease was skimmed as it rose, and set aside,
and when cool was put into rough barrels with some salt and kept up
until such time as a merchant should pass that way and buy it.
“Well!” said George, with a sigh, “I know my loss. But if the red
scab had got into the large herd, there would have been no end to the
mischief.”
Soon after this a small feeder at some distance offered to change with
McLaughlan. That worthy liked his own ground best, but willing to do his
friend George a good turn he turned the man over to him. George examined
the new place, found that it was smaller but richer and better watered,
and very wisely closed with the proposal.
When he told Jacky that worthy's eyes sparkled.
“Black fellow likes another place. Not every day the same.”
And in fact he let out that if this change had not occurred his
intention had been to go a-hunting for a month or two, so weary had he
become of always the same place.
The new ground was excellent, and George's hopes, lately clouded,
brightened again. He set to work and made huge tanks to catch the next
rain, and as heretofore did the work of two.
It was a sad thing to have to write to Susan and tell her that after
twenty months' hard work he was just where he had been at first
starting. One day, as George was eating his homely dinner on his knee
by the side of his principal flock, he suddenly heard a tremendous
scrimmage mixed with loud, abusive epithets from Abner. He started up,
and there was Carlo pitching into a sheep who was trying to jam herself
into the crowd to escape him. Up runs one of the sheep-dogs growling,
but instead of seizing Carlo, as George thought he would, what does he
do but fall upon another sheep, and spite of all their evasions the two
dogs drove the two sheep out of the flock and sent them pelting down the
hill. In one moment George was alongside Abner.
“Abner,” said he, “how came you to let strange sheep in among mine?”
“Never saw them till the dog pinned them.”
“You never saw them,” said George reproachfully. “No, nor your dog
either till my Carlo opened your eyes. A pretty thing for a shepherd
and his dog to be taught by a pointer. Well,” said George, “you had eyes
enough to see whose sheep they were. Tell me that, if you please?”
Abner looked down.
“Why, Abner?”
“I'd as lieve bite off my tongue as tell you.”
George looked uneasy and his face fell.
“A 'V.' Don't ye take on,” said Abner. “They couldn't have been ten
minutes among ours, and there were but two. And don't you blow me up,
for such a thing might happen to the carefulest shepherd that ever was.”
“I won't blow ye up, Will Abner,” said George. “It is my luck not yours
that has done this. It was always so. From a game of cricket upward I
never had my neighbor's luck. If the flock are not tainted I'll give you
five pounds, and my purse is not so deep as some. If they are, take your
knife and drive it into my heart. I'll forgive you that as I do this.
Carlo! let me look at you. See here, he is all over some stinking
ointment. It is off those sheep. I knew it. 'Twasn't likely a pointer
dog would be down on strange sheep like a shepherd's dog by the sight.
'Twas this stuff offended him. Heaven's will be done.”
“Let us hope the best, and not meet trouble half way.”
“Yes” said George feebly. “Let us hope the best.”
“Don't I hear that Thompson has an ointment that cures the red scab?”
“So they say.”
George whistled to his pony. The pony came to him. George did not treat
him as we are apt to treat a horse--like a riding machine. He used to
speak to him and caress him when he fed him and when he made his bed,
and the horse followed him about like a dog.
In half an hour's sharp riding they were at Thompson's, an invaluable
man that sold and bought animals, doctored animals, and kept a huge
boiler in which bullocks were reduced to a few pounds of grease in a
very few hours.
“You have an ointment that is good for the scab, sir?”
“That I have, farmer. Sold some to a neighbor of yours day before
yesterday.”
“Who was that?”
“A newcomer. Vesey is his name.”
George groaned. “How do you use it, if you please?”
“Shear 'em close, rub the ointment well in, wash 'em every two days, and
rub in again.”
“Give me a stone of it.”
“A stone of my ointment! Well! you are the wisest man I have come across
this year or two. You shall have it, sir.”
George rode home with his purchase.
Abner turned up his nose at it, and was inclined to laugh at George's
fears. But George said to himself, “I have Susan to think of as well as
myself. Besides,” said he a little bitterly, “I haven't a grain of
luck. If I am to do any good I must be twice as prudent and thrice as
industrious as my neighbors or I shall fall behind them. Now, Abner,
we'll shear them close.”
“Shear them! Why it is not two months since they were all sheared.”
“And then we will rub a little of this ointment into them.”
“What! before we see any sign of the scab among them? I wouldn't do that
if they were mine.”
“No more would I if they were yours,” replied George almost fiercely.
“But they are not yours, Will Abner. They are unlucky George's.”
During the next three days four hundred sheep were clipped and anointed.
Jacky helped clip, but he would not wear gloves, and George would not
let him handle the ointment without them, suspecting mercury.
At last George yielded to Abner's remonstrances, and left off shearing
and anointing.
Abner altered his opinion when one day he found a sheep rubbing like mad
against a tree, and before noon half a dozen at the same game. Those two
wretched sheep had tainted the flock.
Abner hung his head when he came to George with this ill-omened news. He
expected a storm of reproaches. But George was too deeply distressed for
any petulances of anger. “It is my fault,” said he, “I was the master,
and I let my servant direct me. My own heart told me what to do, yet I
must listen to a fool and a hireling that cared not for the sheep. How
should he? they weren't his, they were mine to lose and mine to save. I
had my choice, I took it, I lost them. Call Jacky and let's to work and
save here and there one, if so be God shall be kinder to them than I
have been.”
From that hour there was but little rest morning, noon or night. It was
nothing but an endless routine of anointing and washing, washing and
anointing sheep. To the credit of Mr. Thompson it must be told that of
the four hundred who had been taken in time no single sheep died; but
of the others a good many. There are incompetent shepherds as well as
incompetent statesmen and doctors, though not so many. Abner was one
of these. An acute Australian shepherd would have seen the more subtle
signs of this terrible disease a day or two before the patient sheep
began to rub themselves with fury against the trees and against each
other; but Abner did not; and George did not profess to have a minute
knowledge of the animal, or why pay a shepherd? When this Herculean
labor and battle had gone on for about a week, Abner came to George, and
with a hang-dog look begged him to look out for another shepherd.
“Why, Will! surely you won't think to leave me in this strait? Why three
of us are hardly able for the work, and how can I make head against this
plague with only the poor sav--with only Jacky, that is first-rate at
light work till he gets to find it dull--but can't lift a sheep and
fling her into the water, as the like of us can?”
“Well, ye see,” said Abner, doggedly, “I have got the offer of a place
with Mr. Meredith, and he won't wait for me more than a week.”
“He is a rich man, Will, and I am a poor one,” said George in a faint,
expostulating tone. Abner said nothing, but his face showed he had
already considered this fact from his own point of view.
“He could spare you better than I can; but you are right to leave a
falling house that you have helped to pull down.”
“I don't want to go all in a moment. I can stay a week till you get
another.”
“A week! how can I get a shepherd in this wilderness at a week's notice?
You talk like a fool.”
“Well, I can't stay any longer. You know there is no agreement at all
between us, but I'll stay a week to oblige you.”
“You'll oblige me, will you?” said George, with a burst of indignation;
“then oblige me by packing up your traps and taking your ugly face out
of my sight before dinner-time this day. Stay, my man, here are your
wages up to twelve o'clock to-day, take 'em and out of my sight, you
dirty rascal. Let me meet misfortune with none but friends by my side.
Away with you, or I shall forget myself and dirty my hands with your
mean carcass.”
The hireling slunk off, and as he slunk George stormed and thundered
after him, “And wherever you may go, may sorrow and sickness--no!”
George turned to Jacky, who sat coolly by, his eyes sparkling at the
prospect of a row. “Jacky!” said he, and then he seemed to choke, and
could not say another word.
“Suppose I get the make-thunder, then you shoot him.”
“Shoot him! what for?”
“Too much bungality,* shoot him dead. He let the sheep come that have my
two fingers so on their backs;” here Jacky made a V with his middle
and forefinger, “so he kill the other sheep--yet still you not shoot
him--that so stupid I call.”
* Stupidity.
“Oh Jacky, hush! don't you know me better than to think I would kill
a man for killing my sheep. Oh fie! oh fie! No, Jacky, Heaven forbid I
should do the man any harm; but when I think of what he has brought on
my head, and then to skulk and leave me in my sore strait and trouble,
me that never gave him ill language as most masters would; and then,
Jacky, do you remember when he was sick how kind you and I were to
him--and now to leave us. There, I must go into the house, and you come
and call me out when that man is off the premises--not before.”
At twelve o'clock selfish Abner started to walk thirty miles to Mr.
Meredith's. Smarting under the sense of his contemptibleness and of
the injury he was doing his kind, poor master, he shook his fist at the
house and told Jacky he hoped the scab would rot the flock, and that
done fall upon the bipeds, on his own black hide in particular. Jacky
only answered with his eye. When the man was gone he called George.
George's anger had soon died. Jacky found him reading a little book in
search of comfort, and when they were out in the air Jacky saw that his
eyes were rather red.
“Why you cry?” said Jacky. “I very angry because you cry.”
“It is very foolish of me,” said George, apologetically, “but three is a
small company, and we in such trouble; I thought I had made a friend of
him. Often I saw he was not worth his wages, but out of pity I wouldn't
part with him when I could better have spared him than he me, and
now--there--no more about it. Work is best for a sore heart, and mine is
sore and heavy, too, this day.”
Jacky put his finger to his head, and looked wise. “First you listen
me--this one time I speak a good many words. Dat stupid fellow know
nothing, and so because you not shoot him a good way* behind--you very
stupid. One,” counted Jacky, touching his thumb, “he know nothing with
these (pointing to his eyes). Jacky know possum,** Jacky know kangaroo,
know turkey, know snake, know a good many, some with legs like dis (four
fingers), some with legs like dis (two flngers)--dat stupid fellow
know nothing but sheep, and not know sheep, let him die too much. Know
nothing with 'um eyes. One more (touching his forefinger). Know nothing
with dis (touching his tongue). Jacky speak him good words, he speak
Jacky bad words. Dat so stupid--he know nothing with dis.
* Long ago.
** Opossum.
“One more. You do him good things--he do you bad things; he know nothing
with these (indicating his arms and legs as the seat of moral action),
so den because you not shoot him long ago now you cry; den because you
cry Jacky angry. Yes, Jacky very good. Jacky a little good before he
live with you. Since den very good--but when dat fellow know nothing,
and now you cry at the bottom* part Jacky a little angry, and Jacky go
hunting a little not much direckly.”
* At last.
With these words the savage caught up his tomahawk and two spears, and
was going across country without another word, but George cried out in
dismay, “Oh, stop a moment! What! to-day, Jacky? Jacky, Jacky, now don't
ye go to-day. I know it is very dull for the likes of you, and you will
soon leave me, but don't ye go to-day; don't set me against flesh and
blood altogether.”
“I come back when the sun there,” pointing to the east, “but must hunt a
little, not much. Jacky uncomfortable,” continued he, jumping at a word
which from its size he thought must be of weight in any argument, “a
good deal uncomfortable suppose I not hunt a little dis day.”
“I say no more, I have no right--goodby, take my hand, I shall never see
you any more.
“I shall come back when the sun there.”
“Ah! well I daresay you think you will. Good-by, Jacky; don't you stay
to please me.”
Jacky glided away across country. He looked back once and saw George
watching him. George was sitting sorrowful upon a stone, and as this
last bit of humanity fell away from him and melted away in the distance
his heart died within him. “He thinks he will come back to me, but
when he gets in the open and finds the track of animals to hunt he will
follow them wherever they go, and his poor shallow head won't remember
this place nor me; I shall never see poor Jacky any more!”
The black continued his course for about four miles until a deep hollow
hid him from George. Arrived here he instantly took a line nearly
opposite to his first, and when he had gone about three miles on this
tack he began to examine the ground attentively and to run about like
a hound. After near half an hour of this he fell upon some tracks and
followed them at an easy trot across the country for miles and miles,
his eye keenly bent upon the ground.