Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy (philippa perry book txt) 📗
- Author: Joseph Furphy
Book online «Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy (philippa perry book txt) 📗». Author Joseph Furphy
“She never took up with none o’ the fellers. I knowed fellers try to kiss her; but her style was to stiffen them with a clip under the ear, an’ they sort o’ took the hint, an’ never come back. But by-’n’-by a man from the Queensland border, he bought the place next ours but one; an’ our two fam’lies got acquainted. Wonderful clever ole feller he was, in regard o’ findin’ out new gases, an’ smells, an’ cures for snakebites, an’ stuff that would go off like a cannon if you looked at it. This cove had got one son an’ two daughters, an’ his missis was sickly. Well, the son he was a young chap, about my own age at the time—”
“An’ how old was you then?” demanded Mosey.
“About two-an’-twenty. He seemed to be a fine, offhanded, straightforrid, well-edicated young feller; an’ me an’ him we soon got great cronies; an’ by-’n’-by I seen he was collared on Molly, an’ she was collared on him. Well, thank God! he’s got a curse on him that he won’t get rid of in a hurry. Thank God for that much!”
“Ruined her?” queried Mosey briskly.
Cooper passed the question with unconscious dignity, and resumed. “Things went on this way for a couple o’ year; an’ this feller’s people was agreeable; an’, to make a long story short, the time was fixed for two months on ahead.”
“Your father was agreeable, of course?” said Thompson.
“He was dead,” replied Cooper reverently. “Gone to eternity, I hope. He deserved to go there if ever any livin’ man did. He died about a year after these people come to settle near our place.”
“What was the young feller’s name?” queried Mosey.
“Never you mind. Well, to make a long story short, one day pore Molly wanted to go somewhere, an’ she jumped onto a horse I’d just left in the yard, an’ she shoved her foot in the stirrup-leather; an’ the horse he was a reg’lar devil; an’ he played up with her in the yard; an’ her heel went through the loop o’ the leather, an’ she come off an’ hung by her ankle; an’ the horse he was shod all round, an’ he kicked her in the face”—Cooper paused.
“Killed her?” suggested Mosey.
“I caught the horse, an’ got her clear, an’ carried her into the house, all covered with blood, an’ just like a corp; an’ I left her there with the married woman we had, while I went for the doctor. Well, there she laid for weeks, half-ways between dead an’ alive, an’ me like a feller in a dream, thinkin’ an’ thinkin’, an’ not able to rec’lect anything but the hammerin’s I used to give her, an’ the things I used to take off of her, an’ set her cryin’. I wouldn’t go through that lot agen, not if I got a pension for it. Well, by-’n’-by she got her senses complete; an’ this young feller he had been hangin’ about the house every day, sayin’ nothing to nobody; but when she begun to come round, he begun to keep away. At last she was all right in regard o’ health, but she was disfigured for life; she had to wear a crape veil down to her mouth. Then the young feller he used to come sometimes an’ just shake hands with her, but otherways he wouldn’t touch her with a forty-foot pole. Then he begun to stop away altogether; an’ by-’n’-by he suddenly got married to a girl out o’ the lowest pub for ten mile round; an’ his father—real decent ole bloke he was—he told him never to show his face about the place agen. But there was no end o’ go in him. He had an uncle in Sydney, middlin’ rich, a ship-chandler, an’ this—”
“What’s a ship-chandler?” demanded Mosey.
“A man that supplies candles to ships,” I replied.
“This uncle he’d had a sawmill left on his hands, out somewhere south; an’ he give the sawmill to the young feller on sort o’ time-payment; an’ I believe he got on splendid for a couple or three year; an’ his wife had one picaninny—so we come to hear—an’ suddenly he balled her out with some other feller. I on’y got hearsay for it, mind, but I know it’s true; for
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