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three weeks! die on Thursday! Thatā€™s the way the time runs in my ears like a chime of bells. But itā€™s all mere bosh Iā€™ve been reading these long six months Iā€™ve been chained up hereā ā€”after I was committed for trial. When I came out of the hospital after curing me of that woundā ā€”for I was hit bad by that black trackerā ā€”they gave me some books to read for fear Iā€™d go mad and cheat the hangman. I was always fond of reading, and many a night Iā€™ve read to poor old mother and Aileen before I left the old place. I was that weak and low, after I took the turn, and I felt glad to get a book to take me away from sitting, staring, and blinking at nothing by the hour together. It was all very well then; I was too weak to think much. But when I began to get well again I kept always coming across something in the book that made me groan or cry out, as if someone had stuck a knife in me. A dark chap did onceā ā€”through the ribsā ā€”it didnā€™t feel so bad, a little sharpish at first; why didnā€™t he aim a bit higher? He never was no good, even at that. As I was saying, thereā€™d be something about a horse, or the country, or the spring weatherā ā€”itā€™s just coming in now, and the Indian cornā€™s shooting after the rain, and Iā€™ll never see it; or theyā€™d put in a bit about the cows walking through the river in the hot summer afternoons; or theyā€™d go describing about a girl, until I began to think of sister Aileen again; then Iā€™d run my head against the wall, or do something like a madman, and theyā€™d stop the books for a week; and Iā€™d be as miserable as a bandicoot, worse and worse a lot, with all the devilā€™s tricks and bad thoughts in my head, and nothing to put them away.

I must either kill myself, or get something to fill up my time till the dayā ā€”yes, the day comes. Iā€™ve always been a middling writer, thoā€™ I canā€™t say much for the grammar, and spelling, and that, but Iā€™ll put it all down, from the beginning to the end, and maybe itā€™ll save some other unfortunate young chap from pulling back like a colt when heā€™s first roped, setting himself against everything in the way of proper breaking, making a fool of himself generally, and choking himself down, as Iā€™ve done.

The gaolerā ā€”he looks hardā ā€”he has to do that, thereā€™s more than one or two within here that would have him by the throat, with his heartā€™s blood running, in half a minute, if they had their way, and the warder was off guard. He knows that very well. But heā€™s not a bad-hearted chap.

ā€œYou can have books, or paper and pens, anything you like,ā€ he said, ā€œyou unfortunate young beggar, until youā€™re turned off.ā€

ā€œIf Iā€™d only had you to see after me when I was young,ā€ says Iā āøŗā 

ā€œCome; donā€™t whine,ā€ he said, then he burst out laughing. ā€œYou didnā€™t mean it, I see. I ought to have known better. Youā€™re not one of that sort, and I like you all the better for it.ā€

Well, here goes. Lots of pens, a big bottle of ink, and ever so much foolscap paper, the right sort for me, or I shouldnā€™t have been here. Iā€™m blessed if it doesnā€™t look as if I was going to write copies again. Donā€™t I remember how I used to go to school in old times; the rides there and back on the old pony; and pretty little Grace Storefield that I was so fond of, and used to show her how to do her lessons. I believe I learned more that way than if Iā€™d had only myself to think about. There was another girl, the daughter of the poundkeeper, that I wanted her to beat; and the way we both worked, and I coached her up, was a caution. And she did get above her in her class. How proud we were! She gave me a kiss, too, and a bit of her hair. Poor Gracey! I wonder where she is now, and what sheā€™d think if she saw me here today. If I could have looked ahead, and seen myselfā ā€”chained now like a dog, and going to die a dogā€™s death this day month!

Anyhow, I must make a start. How do people begin when they set to work to write their own sayings and doings? Thereā€™s been a deal more doing than talking in my lifeā ā€”it was the wrong sortā ā€”moreā€™s the pity.

Well, letā€™s see; his parents were poor, but respectable. Thatā€™s what they always say. My parents were poor, and mother was as good a soul as ever broke bread, and wouldnā€™t have taken a shillingā€™s worth that wasnā€™t her own if sheā€™d been starving. But as for father, heā€™d been a poacher in England, a Lincolnshire man he was, and got sent out for it. He wasnā€™t much more than a boy, he said, and it was only for a hare or two, which didnā€™t seem much. But I begin to think, being able to see the right of things a bit now, and having no bad grog inside of me to turn a fellowā€™s head upside down, as poaching must be something like cattle and horse duffingā ā€”not the worst thing in the world itself, but mighty likely to lead to it.

Dad had always been a hardworking, steady-going sort of chap, good at most things, and like a lot more of the Government men, as the convicts were always called round our part, he saved some money as soon as he had done his time, and married mother, who was a simple emigrant girl just out from Ireland. Father was a square-built, good-looking chap, I believe, then; not so tall as I am by three inches, but wonderfully strong and quick on

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