Settling Day - Nat Gould (best novels to read to improve english .TXT) 📗

was more sinned against than sinning. He had heard strange stories of this lonely man, and he had more than once had a stand-up fight on his account. He liked Jim more than anyone about Swamp Creek, and he was very fond of the little chap, as Willie was called.

He meant to save the child if possible, and he had fought many a fight with grim Death and beaten him. Nothing gave Dr Tom more satisfaction than to rescue a patient from danger. It was not so much that he loved his profession as that he desired to overcome obstacles.

'Get up!' said the doctor, and laid the lash across the backs of his horses. 'It will ruin my pair, but I don't mind that. They are not accustomed to this pace.'

'You can take the best pair I have,' said Jim.

'I know that. You are not like the bulk of my patients. Cross words is the most I get from some of them,' said the doctor.

Jim Dennis smiled faintly. He knew Dr Tom did not exaggerate.

The buggy swayed from side to side and bumped up and down in a manner suggestive of an early turn over.

It was a rough country and there was only a track, made by the mail coach, which ran past Jim Dennis's place twice a week.

The doctor's buggy, however, was made to bear plenty of wear and tear, and, although it looked anything but elegant, it could stand a lot of knocking about. The last time it had been washed the Swamp Creek folk were so surprised that they turned out en masse to look at the unfamiliar operation. Dr Tom, who said he disliked publicity, had not since repeated the operation. The harness had several suspicions of bits of rope about it, and the horses were accustomed to do most of their own grooming by rolling in the stable yard. Altogether the turnout was not one to inspire confidence, but it was, nevertheless, a welcome sight to many a sufferer round Swamp Creek.

'We'll be there soon, Jim. Cheer up, old man. Don't let the little chap see you with a downcast face. Whom have you left with him?'

'Sal!'

'What! the half-caste?'

'Yes. She's a good sort.'

'Humph!' said the doctor.

'Who else could I leave?'

'No one, of course,' and Dr Tom applied the whip vigorously.

A cloud of dust rose around the buggy and they came to a stop; the sudden jerk nearly threw them out.

One of the horses was down. With a muttered curse, Jim Dennis jumped out and urged the animal to rise. The tired horse struggled to his feet and, as Jim sprang into the buggy, moved on again.

'Dead beat,' said Dr Tom; 'but he'll last to your place.'

In half an hour they saw Dennis's homestead in the distance, and again the lash came down on the horses' backs, wielded by Dr Tom's vigorous arm.

It was a moment of terrible suspense to Jim Dennis when the buggy pulled up, and Dr Tom, springing out with more activity than might have been expected, hurried into the cottage.

Jim was almost afraid to follow him.

If the little chap was dead he felt he could not bear the blow.

The minute or two he stood outside waiting seemed an eternity.

Then came a relief that was well-nigh as insupportable. It was Dr Tom who called out,—

'Come in, Jim, the little chap's alive. I'll pull him through. He's not so bad after all.'

'Thank God!' said Jim Dennis, whose prayers had been few and far between.

CHAPTER II

BLACK SAL

Jim Dennis's homestead was anything but an enticing place. He had built the bulk of it himself, and said it was good enough. The boards were fairly weather-beaten and the galvanised iron roof was torn at the ends by wind and rain. A small verandah in front was reached by five rickety steps, and some of the piles on which the house was built afforded a fine refuge for white ants. These insects were so industrious that one stump was a crumbling mass, so laboriously had it been honeycombed.

Around the homestead was the stable yard, a dull, dreary-looking place, consisting of two or three sheds hurriedly run up, a heap of refuse, a dirty old dog kennel, home made, a sheep pen, and a few etceteras, that men who have known such places will imagine.

For all that, however, Jim Dennis had a fair station. He had purchased it in the rough from the Government and obtained it on easy terms. All payments had been kept up and the land was his own.

Jim Dennis was never known to repudiate debts. His name was 'good' with the storekeepers for miles round, but he was more feared than respected. No one seemed able to understand him. He had an inscrutable face, and was seldom seen to smile except when the little chap was with him.

'He's a bad lot,' was the Swamp Creek opinion.

'And let me tell you, you "bounders,"' said Dr Tom, 'that half of you are not fit to black Jim Dennis's boots.'

'He never has 'em blacked, doc.'

'Then you're not fit to scrape the dirt off 'em, never mind the blacking,' was the retort.

Inside Wanabeen, the name of Jim's place, the little chap lay gasping on a camp bedstead, with the half-caste Sal crooning near him.

Sal was not so black as the aborigine, and had been brought up on a mission station. She was not a bad-looking woman, about four or five-and-twenty.

How came she there?

It happened in this wise. Sal was the offspring of a rich squatter. Her only disgrace was her birth, not to her, but to the man who begot her. She lived with the blacks on the station for several years. She grew up in wild, unrestricted freedom. She was lithe and active as any young black on the run, and her fleetness of foot had more than once stood her in good stead.

Sal had dark brown liquid eyes, a nose somewhat too large for her face, but not unprepossessing, full cheeks, a forehead well set on, small ears, thickish lips, and a mass of dark curly hair that never seemed to be out of order. She had small hands and small feet, and her supple limbs were graceful.

When the 'boss' of the station went to England to spend the money others had made for him, Sal was annexed by the mission people.

Not that these good folk meant any harm, quite the contrary, they took the girl for the good of her health and her soul.

It so happened that Sal did not know the meaning of the word soul, but it was explained to her. She thought it curious that a certain portion of her body when she died would go to regions far away. If she happened to be good her soul would revel above the blue sky in unrestricted freedom for evermore; if she by any chance turned out badly—well, there was another place where her soul would suffer torments suitable to her misdeeds.

Sal argued this matter out with herself, and commenced to take observations. She saw much in the conduct of her preceptors which caused her to wonder whether their souls were destined for the blue skies or the other place.

Having white blood in her veins, Sal had an imagination far beyond her dull, thick-skulled people. She had a mind and a will of her own. The former suggested to her that she ought to run away from the mission, and the latter carried it out. In a word, Sal 'bolted.'

For several years she wandered about with the members of her own tribe, loathing the savage, uncouth part of their nature, yet loving the liberty they enjoyed. She was a curious mixture, a compound of black and white, a study in unharmonies. Half tame, half wild, reasoning yet unreasoning, knowing good from bad, yet undecided on which side lay happiness. The chief of her tribe, King Charlie, who had dreamt the dream and seen the vision of the 'Spirit of the Lilies' and of the bursting of the cloud that turned the great western plain into a lake, understood her.

He protected her and saved her from danger.

King Charlie had a metal plate suspended from his neck, which covered his hard, black, hairy chest—in the shape of a half moon—and on this plate was written the 'order of the garter' of his tribe. King Charlie loved Sal, and she ruled him, as women have ruled those who love them since the day that Adam fell.

There came a time, when the land was parched and food was scarce, when the wandering camp split up and some went one way, some another.

Sal found a resting place at Wanabeen. She crawled, half dead, to the foot of the steps of Jim Dennis's homestead, and, panting, lay down to die.

She stretched out her scantily-clothed limbs and pillowed her black curly head on her shrunken arms.

She commenced to think about her soul and wonder when it would leave her body, and whether it would soar to that bright blue, hot, pitiless sky above. Then she fell asleep, and when Jim Dennis came out of his cottage with the little chap in his arms he stumbled over her.

Jim Dennis did not curse or swear or tell this outcast to 'get out.'

He put the little chap down, who was then three years old, and picked up the sleeping woman. He carried her on to the verandah—he was a big, powerful fellow—and then he went inside, dragged out his own mattress and put her on to it.

The little chap watched him with wondering eyes, and commenced to make three-year-old remarks, such as 'Who's that, daddy? Pitty woman. Whoo's seepy, daddy,' and so on.

Jim Dennis brought water and moistened her lips. Then he stood watching her.

Sal slept right through the night, and when she came round in the morning she saw Jim Dennis before her with the child in his arms. She rubbed her eyes and looked at them. Then she explained what had happened, and Jim said,—

'You can stay here and look after the little chap. Will you?'

Her big brown eyes glistened, and, weak as she was she stretched out her hands for the child.

Jim put him down, and, after a moment's hesitation, he toddled towards her.

From that day, three years ago, black Sal had been devoted to the little boy. In her wild, half-tamed way she loved him more than anything on earth.

It was Sal who sat at the child's bedside when Jim Dennis rode out to Swamp Creek for Dr Tom. The woman watched every movement of the little face, every quiver of the body. Each moan from his lips pierced her like a knife. The child was not her own, and yet she loved him, and worshipped with a dog-like devotion the big man who was his father.

Sal would willingly have submitted to any torture could she by so doing have saved the child a moment's pain.

During the long weary hours when Jim Dennis was absent she felt as though something in her body must snap.

Then she heard, with her keen ears, the low, dull thud of the horses' hoofs, and she knew they were coming, and that help was at hand. She did not leave the bedside to look out, she would not have done that for worlds. When Dr Tom came into the room she gave a gasp, and watched him as he looked at the child. She saw hope in his face and caught his hand.

Dr Tom pressed it and said,—

'Come in, Jim, the little chap's alive. I'll pull him through. It's not so bad after all.'

All that night Dr Tom fought for the child's life, and the dark woman and Jim Dennis looked on in silent agony.

With the first streaks of dawn a change came over the child.