第17章 Part I.(16)

Let the strongest man,who isn't used to it,hold a baby in one position for five minutes --and Jim was fairly heavy.But I never felt the ache in my arms that night --it must have gone before I was in a fit state of mind to feel it.And at home I'd often growled about being asked to hold the baby for a few minutes.

I could never brood comfortably and nurse a baby at the same time.

It was a ghostly moonlight night.There's no timber in the world so ghostly as the Australian Bush in moonlight --or just about daybreak.

The all-shaped patches of moonlight falling between ragged,twisted boughs;the ghostly blue-white bark of the `white-box'trees;a dead naked white ring-barked tree,or dead white stump starting out here and there,and the ragged patches of shade and light on the road that made anything,from the shape of a spotted bullock to a naked corpse laid out stark.Roads and tracks through the Bush made by moonlight --every one seeming straighter and clearer than the real one:you have to trust to your horse then.Sometimes the naked white trunk of a red stringy-bark tree,where a sheet of bark had been taken off,would start out like a ghost from the dark Bush.And dew or frost glistening on these things,according to the season.Now and again a great grey kangaroo,that had been feeding on a green patch down by the road,would start with a `thump-thump',and away up the siding.

The Bush seemed full of ghosts that night --all going my way --and being left behind by the mare.Once I stopped to look at Jim:

I just sat back and the mare `propped'--she'd been a stock-horse,and was used to `cutting-out'.I felt Jim's hands and forehead;he was in a burning fever.I bent forward,and the old mare settled down to it again.I kept saying out loud --and Mary and me often laughed about it (afterwards):`He's limp yet!--Jim's limp yet!'(the words seemed jerked out of me by sheer fright)--`He's limp yet!'till the mare's feet took it up.Then,just when I thought she was doing her best and racing her hardest,she suddenly started forward,like a cable tram gliding along on its own and the grip put on suddenly.

It was just what she'd do when I'd be riding alone and a strange horse drew up from behind --the old racing instinct.I FELT the thing too!

I felt as if a strange horse WAS there!And then --the words just jerked out of me by 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-HEADEDin 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.