Old Mac used to sleep in his wagon in fine weather, when he had no load,
on his blankets spread out on the feed-bags; but one time he struck
Croydon, flush from a lucky and good back trip, and looked in at the
(say) Royal Hotel to wet his luck--as some men do with their sorrow--and
he “got there all right.” Next morning he had breakfast in the
dining-room, was waited on as a star boarder, and became thoroughly
demoralized; and his mind was made up (independent of himself, as it
were) to be a gentleman for once in his life. He went over to the store
and bought the sloppiest suit of reach-me-downs of glossiest black, and
the stiffest and stickiest white shirt they had to show--also four bone
studs, two for the collar and two for the cuffs. Then he gave his
worn “larstins” to the stable-boy (with half a crown) to clean,
and--proceeded. He put the boots on during the day, one at a time
between drinks, gassing all the time, and continued. He concluded about
midnight, after a very noisy time and interviews with everyone on sight
(slightly interrupted by drinks) concerning “his room.” It was show
time, you see, and all the rooms were as full as he was--he was too full
even to share the parlour or billiard room with others; but he consented
at last to a shake-down on the balcony, the barmaid volunteering to
spread the couch with her own fair hands.
Towards daylight he woke, for one of the reasons why men do wake. It is
well known, to people who know, that old campers-out (and young men new
to it, too) will wake _once_--if in a party, each at different times--to
tend to their cattle, or listen for the hobbles of their horses, or
simply to rise on their elbows and have a look round--the last, I
suppose, from an instinct born in old dangerous times. Mac woke up, and
it was dark. He reached out and his hand fell, instinctively, on the
rail of the balcony, which was to him (instinctively--and that shows
how instinct errs) the rail of the side of his wagon, in which as I have
said, he was wont to sleep. So he drew himself up on his knees and to
his feet, with the instinctive intention of getting down to (say) put
some chaff and corn in the feed-bags stretched across the shafts for
the horses; for he intended, by instinct, to make an early start. Which
shows how instinct can never be trusted to travel with memory, but
will get ahead of it--or behind it. (Say it was instinct mixed with
or adulterated by drink.) He got a long, hairy leg over and felt
(instinctively) for the hub of the wheel; his foot found and rested on
the projecting ledge of the balcony floor outside, and that, to him,
was the hub all right. He swung his other leg over and expected to drop
lightly on to the grass or dust of the camp; but, being instinctively
rigid, he fell heavily some fifteen feet into a kerbed gutter.
As a result of his howls lights soon flickered in windows and fanlights;
and with prompt, eager, anxious, and awed bush first-aid and assistance,
they carried a very sober, battered and blasphemous driver inside and
spread mattresses on the floor. And, some six weeks afterwards, an
image, mostly of plaster-of-Paris and bandages, reclined, much against
its will, on a be-cushioned cane lounge on the hospital veranda; and,
from the only free and workable corner of its mouth, when
the pipe was removed, came shockingly expressed opinions of
them--newfangled--two-story--! “night houses” (as it called them).
And, thereafter, when he had a load on, or the weather was too bad for
sleeping in or under his wagon, the veranda of a one-storied shanty (if
he could get to it) was good enough for MacSomething, the carrier.