It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 91

* Long ago.

** Opossum.

"One more. You do him good things--he do you bad things; he know nothing with these (indicating his arms and legs as the seat of moral action), so den because you not shoot him long ago now you cry; den because you cry Jacky angry. Yes, Jacky very good. Jacky a little good before he live with you. Since den very good--but when dat fellow know nothing, and now you cry at the bottom* part Jacky a little angry, and Jacky go hunting a little not much direckly."

* At last.

With these words the savage caught up his tomahawk and two spears, and was going across country without another word, but George cried out in dismay, "Oh, stop a moment! What! to-day, Jacky? Jacky, Jacky, now don't ye go to-day. I know it is very dull for the likes of you, and you will soon leave me, but don't ye go to-day; don't set me against flesh and blood altogether."

"I come back when the sun there," pointing to the east, "but must hunt a little, not much. Jacky uncomfortable," continued he, jumping at a word which from its size he thought must be of weight in any argument, "a good deal uncomfortable suppose I not hunt a little dis day."

"I say no more, I have no right--goodby, take my hand, I shall never see you any more.

"I shall come back when the sun there."

"Ah! well I daresay you think you will. Good-by, Jacky; don't you stay to please me."

Jacky glided away across country. He looked back once and saw George watching him. George was sitting sorrowful upon a stone, and as this last bit of humanity fell away from him and melted away in the distance his heart died within him. "He thinks he will come back to me, but when he gets in the open and finds the track of animals to hunt he will follow them wherever they go, and his poor shallow head won't remember this place nor me; I shall never see poor Jacky any more!"

The black continued his course for about four miles until a deep hollow hid him from George. Arrived here he instantly took a line nearly opposite to his first, and when he had gone about three miles on this tack he began to examine the ground attentively and to run about like a hound. After near half an hour of this he fell upon some tracks and followed them at an easy trot across the country for miles and miles, his eye keenly bent upon the ground.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

OUR story has to follow a little way an infinitesimal personage.

Abner, the ungratefulish one, with a bundle tied up in a handkerchief, strode stoutly away toward Mr. Meredith's grazing ground. "I am well out of that place," was his reflection. As he had been only once over the ground before, he did not venture to relax his pace lest night should overtake him in a strange part. He stepped out so well that just before the sun set he reached the head of a broad valley that was all Meredith's. About three miles off glittered a white mansion set in a sea of pasture, studded with cattle instead of sails. "Ay! ay!" thought the ungratefulish one, no fear of the scab breaking up this master--"I'm all right now." As he chuckled over his prospects a dusky figure stole noiselessly from a little thicket--an arm was raised behind him--crosss.h.!.+ a hard weapon came down on his skull, and he lay on his face with the blood trickling from his mouth and ears.

CHAPTER XL.

HE who a few months ago was so lighthearted and bright with hope now rose at daybreak for a work of Herculean toil as usual, but no longer with the spirit that makes labor light. The same strength, the same dogged perseverance were there, but the sense of lost money, lost time, and invincible ill-luck oppressed him; then, too, he was alone--everything had deserted him but misfortune.

"I have left my Susan and I have lost her--left the only friend I had or ever shall have in this hard world." This was his constant thought, as doggedly but hopelessly he struggled against the pestilence.

Single-handed and leaden-hearted he had to catch a sheep, to fling her down, to hold her down, to rub the ointment into her, and to catch another that had been rubbed yesterday and take her to the pool and fling her in and keep her in till every part of her skin was soaked.

Four hours of this drudgery had George gone through single-handed and leaden-hearted, when as he knelt over a kicking, struggling sheep, he became conscious of something gliding between him and the sun; he looked up and there was Jacky grinning.

George uttered an exclamation: "What, come back! Well, now that is very good of you I call. How do you do?" and he gave him a great shake of the hand.

"Jacky very well, Jacky not at all uncomfortable after him hunt a little."

"Then I am very glad you have had a day's sport, leastways a night's, I call it, since it has made you comfortable, Jacky."

"Oh! yes, very comfortable now," and his white teeth and bright eye proclaimed the relief and satisfaction his little trip had afforded his nature.

"There, Jacky, if the ointment is worth the trouble it gives me rubbing of it in, that sheep won't ever catch the scab, I do think. Well, Jacky, seems to me I ought to ask your pardon--I did you wrong. I never expected you would leave the kangaroos and opossums for me once you were off. But I suppose fact is you haven't quite forgotten Twofold Bay."

"Two fool bay!" inquired Jacky, puzzled.

"Where I first fell in with you. You made one in a hunt that day, only instead of hunting you was hunted and pretty close, too, and if I hadn't been a good cricketer and learned to fling true--Why, I do declare I think he has forgotten the whole thing, shark and all!"

At the word shark a gleam of intelligence came to the black's eye; it was succeeded by a look of wonder. "Shark come to eat me--you throw stone--so we eat him. I see him now a little--a very little--dat a long way off--a very long way off. Jacky can hardly see him when he try a good deal. White fellow see a long way off behind him back--dat is very curious."

George colored. "You are right, lad--it was a long while ago, and I am vexed for mentioning it. Well, any way you are come back and you are welcome. Now you shall do a little of the light work, but I'll do all the heavy work because I'm used to it;" and indeed poor George did work and slave like Hercules; forty times that day he carried a full-sized sheep in his hands a distance of twenty yards and flung her into the water and splashed in and rubbed her back in the water.

The fourth day after Jacky's return George asked him to go all over the ground and tell him how many sheep he saw give signs of the fatal disorder.

About four o'clock in the afternoon Jacky returned driving before him with his spear a single sheep. The agility of both the biped and quadruped were droll; the latter every now and then making a rapid bolt to get back to the pasture and Jacky bounding like a buck and p.r.i.c.king her with a spear.

For the first time he found George doing nothing. "Dis one scratch um back--only dis one."

"Then we have driven out the murrain and the rest will live. A hard fight! Jacky, a hard fight! but we have won it at last. We will rub this one well; help me put her down, for my head aches."

After rubbing her a little George said, "Jacky, I wish you would do it for me, for my head do ache so I can't abide to hold it down and work, too."

After dinner they sat and looked at the sheep feeding. "No more dis,"

said Jacky gayly, imitating a sheep rubbing against a tree.

"No! I have won the day; but I haven't won it cheap. Jacky, that fellow, Abner, was a bad man--an ungrateful man."

These words George spoke with a very singular tone of gravity.

"Never you mind you about him."

"No! I must try to forgive him; we are all great sinners; is it cold to-day?"

"No! it is a good deal hot

"I thought it must, for the wind is in a kindly quarter. Well, Jacky, I am as cool as ice."

"Dat very curious."

"And my head do ache so I can hardly bear myself."

"You ill a little--soon be well."

"I doubt I shall be worse before I am better."

"Never you mind you. I go and bring something I know. We make it hot with water, den you drink it; and after dat you a good deal better."

"Do, Jacky. I won't take doctor's stuff; it is dug out of the ground and never was intended for man's inside. But you get me something that grows in sight and I'll take that; and don't be long, Jacky--for I am not well."

Jacky returned toward evening with a bundle of simples. He found George s.h.i.+vering over a fire. He got the pot and began to prepare an infusion.

"Now you soon better," said he.