HE who a few months ago was so lighthearted and bright with hope now
rose at daybreak for a work of Herculean toil as usual, but no longer
with the spirit that makes labor light. The same strength, the same
dogged perseverance were there, but the sense of lost money, lost
time, and invincible ill-luck oppressed him; then, too, he was
alone--everything had deserted him but misfortune.
“I have left my Susan and I have lost her--left the only friend I had or
ever shall have in this hard world.” This was his constant thought,
as doggedly but hopelessly he struggled against the pestilence.
Single-handed and leaden-hearted he had to catch a sheep, to fling
her down, to hold her down, to rub the ointment into her, and to catch
another that had been rubbed yesterday and take her to the pool and
fling her in and keep her in till every part of her skin was soaked.
Four hours of this drudgery had George gone through single-handed and
leaden-hearted, when as he knelt over a kicking, struggling sheep, he
became conscious of something gliding between him and the sun; he looked
up and there was Jacky grinning.
George uttered an exclamation: “What, come back! Well, now that is very
good of you I call. How do you do?” and he gave him a great shake of the
hand.
“Jacky very well, Jacky not at all uncomfortable after him hunt a
little.”
“Then I am very glad you have had a day's sport, leastways a night's, I
call it, since it has made you comfortable, Jacky.”
“Oh! yes, very comfortable now,” and his white teeth and bright eye
proclaimed the relief and satisfaction his little trip had afforded his
nature.
“There, Jacky, if the ointment is worth the trouble it gives me rubbing
of it in, that sheep won't ever catch the scab, I do think. Well,
Jacky, seems to me I ought to ask your pardon--I did you wrong. I never
expected you would leave the kangaroos and opossums for me once you were
off. But I suppose fact is you haven't quite forgotten Twofold Bay.”
“Two fool bay!” inquired Jacky, puzzled.
“Where I first fell in with you. You made one in a hunt that day, only
instead of hunting you was hunted and pretty close, too, and if I hadn't
been a good cricketer and learned to fling true--Why, I do declare I
think he has forgotten the whole thing, shark and all!”
At the word shark a gleam of intelligence came to the black's eye; it
was succeeded by a look of wonder. “Shark come to eat me--you throw
stone--so we eat him. I see him now a little--a very little--dat a long
way off--a very long way off. Jacky can hardly see him when he try a
good deal. White fellow see a long way off behind him back--dat is very
curious.”
George colored. “You are right, lad--it was a long while ago, and I am
vexed for mentioning it. Well, any way you are come back and you are
welcome. Now you shall do a little of the light work, but I'll do all
the heavy work because I'm used to it;” and indeed poor George did work
and slave like Hercules; forty times that day he carried a full-sized
sheep in his hands a distance of twenty yards and flung her into the
water and splashed in and rubbed her back in the water.
The fourth day after Jacky's return George asked him to go all over
the ground and tell him how many sheep he saw give signs of the fatal
disorder.
About four o'clock in the afternoon Jacky returned driving before
him with his spear a single sheep. The agility of both the biped and
quadruped were droll; the latter every now and then making a rapid bolt
to get back to the pasture and Jacky bounding like a buck and pricking
her with a spear.
For the first time he found George doing nothing. “Dis one scratch um
back--only dis one.”
“Then we have driven out the murrain and the rest will live. A hard
fight! Jacky, a hard fight! but we have won it at last. We will rub this
one well; help me put her down, for my head aches.”
After rubbing her a little George said, “Jacky, I wish you would do it
for me, for my head do ache so I can't abide to hold it down and work,
too.”
After dinner they sat and looked at the sheep feeding. “No more dis,”
said Jacky gayly, imitating a sheep rubbing against a tree.
“No! I have won the day; but I haven't won it cheap. Jacky, that fellow,
Abner, was a bad man--an ungrateful man.”
These words George spoke with a very singular tone of gravity.
“Never you mind you about him.”
“No! I must try to forgive him; we are all great sinners; is it cold
to-day?”
“No! it is a good deal hot
“I thought it must, for the wind is in a kindly quarter. Well, Jacky, I
am as cool as ice.”
“Dat very curious.”
“And my head do ache so I can hardly bear myself.”
“You ill a little--soon be well.”
“I doubt I shall be worse before I am better.”
“Never you mind you. I go and bring something I know. We make it hot
with water, den you drink it; and after dat you a good deal better.”
“Do, Jacky. I won't take doctor's stuff; it is dug out of the ground and
never was intended for man's inside. But you get me something that grows
in sight and I'll take that; and don't be long, Jacky--for I am not
well.”
Jacky returned toward evening with a bundle of simples. He found George
shivering over a fire. He got the pot and began to prepare an infusion.
“Now you soon better,” said he.
“I hope so, Jacky,” said George very gravely, “thank you, all the same.
Jacky, I haven't been not to say dry for the last ten days with me
washing the sheep, and I have caught a terrible chill--a chill like
death; and, Jacky, I have tried too much--I have abused my strength. I
am a very strong man as men go, and so was my father; but he abused his
strength--and he was took just as I am took now, and in a week he was
dead. I have worked hard ever since I came here, but since Abner left
me at the pinch it hasn't been man's work, Jacky; it has been a
wrestling-match from dawn to dark. No man could go on so and not break
down; but I wanted so to save the poor sheep. Well, the sheep are saved;
but--”
When Jacky's infusion was ready he made George take it and then lie
down. Unfortunately the attack was too violent to yield to this simple
remedy. Fever was upon George Fielding--fever in his giant shape; not
as he creeps over the weak, but as he rushes on the strong. George had
never a headache in his life before. Fever found him full of blood and
turned it all to fire. He tossed--he raged--and forty-eight hours after
his first seizure the strong man lay weak as a child, except during
those paroxysms of delirium which robbed him of his reason while they
lasted, and of his strength when they retired.
On the fourth day---after a raging paroxysm--he became suddenly calm,
and looking up saw Jacky seated at some little distance, his bright eye
fixed upon him.
“You better now?” inquired he, with even more than his usual gentleness
of tone. “You not talk stupid things any more?”
“What, Jacky, are you watching me?” said the sick man. “Now I call that
very kind of you. Jacky, I am not the man I was--we are cut down in a
day like the ripe grass. How long is it since I was took ill?”
“One, one, one, and one more day.”
“Ay! Ay! My father lasted till the fifth day, and then--Jacky!”
“Here Jacky! what you want?”
“Go out on the hill and see whether any of the sheep are rubbing
themselves.”
Jacky went out and soon returned.
“Not see one rub himself.”
A faint gleam lighted George's sunken eye. “That is a comfort. I hope I
shall be accepted not to have been a bad shepherd, for I may say 'I have
given my life for my sheep.' Poor things.”
George dozed. Toward evening he awoke, and there was Jacky just where he
had seen him last. “I didn't think you had cared so much for me, Jacky,
my boy.”
“Yes, care very much for you. See, um make beef-water for you a good
deal.”
And sure enough he had boiled down about forty pounds of beef and filled
a huge calabash with the extract, which he set by George's side.
“And why are you so fond of me, Jacky? It isn't on account of my saving
your life, for you had forgotten that. What makes you such a friend to
me?”
“I tell you. Often I go to tell you before, but many words dat a good
deal trouble. One--when you make thunder the bird always die. One--you
take a sheep so and hold him up high. Um never see one more white fellow
able do dat. One--you make a stone go and hit thing; other white fellow
never hit. One--little horse come to you; other white fellow go to
horse--horse run away. Little horse run to you, dat because you so good.
One--Carlo fond of you. All day now he come in and go out, and say so
(imitating a dog's whimper). He so uncomfortable because you lie down
so. One--when you speak to Jacky you not speak big like white fellow,
you speak small and like a fiddle--dat please Jacky's ear.
“One--when you look at Jacky always your face make like a hot day when
dere no rain--dat please Jacky's eye; and so when Jacky see you stand up
one day a good deal high and now lie down--dat makes him uncomfortable;
and when he see you red one day and white dis day--dat make him
uncomfortable a good deal; and when he see you so beautiful one day and
dis day so ugly--dat make him so uncomfortable, he afraid you go away
and speak no more good words to Jacky--and dat make Jacky feel a thing
inside here (touching his breast), no more can breathe--and want to do
like the gin, but don't know how. Oh, dear! don't know how!”
“Poor Jacky! I do wish I had been kinder to you than I have. Oh, I am
very short of wind, and my back is very bad!”
“When black fellow bad in um back he always die,” said Jacky very
gravely.
“Ay,” said George quietly. “Jacky, will you do one or two little things
for me now?”
“Yes, do um all.”
“Give me that little book that I may read it. Thank you. Jacky, this
is the book of my religion; and it was given to me by one I love better
than all the world. I have disobeyed her--I have thought too little of
what is in this book and too much of this world's gain. God forgive me!
and I think He will, because it was for Susan's sake I was so greedy of
gain.”
Jacky looked on awestruck as George read the book of his religion. “Open
the door, Jacky.”
Jacky opened the door; then coming to George's side, he said with an
anxious, inquiring look and trembling voice, “Are you going to leave me,
George?”
“Yes, Jacky, my boy,” said George, “I doubt I am going to leave you. So
now thank you and bless you for all kindness. Put your face close down
to mine-there--I don't care for your black skin--He who made mine made
yours; and I feel we are brothers, and you have been one to me. Good-by,
dear, and don't stay here. You can do nothing more for your poor friend
George.”
Jacky gave a little moan. “Yes, um can do a little more before he go and
hide him face where there are a good deal of trees.”
Then Jacky went almost on tiptoe, and fetched another calabash full
of water and placed it by George's head. Then he went very softly and
fetched the heavy iron which he had seen George use in penning sheep,
and laid it by George's side; next he went softly and brought George's
gun, and laid it gently by George's side down on the ground.
This done he turned to take his last look of the sick man now feebly
dozing, the little book in his drooping hand. But as he gazed nature
rushed over the poor savage's heart and took it quite by surprise. Even
while bending over his white brother to look his last farewell, with a
sudden start he turned his back on him, and sinking on his hams he burst
out crying and sobbing with a wild and terrible violence.