How He Died

by John Farrell

"Take my horse,” cried the Squatter to Nabbage, "'tis thirty long miles at the least;
Ride as if all Hell's devils rode after, and don't spare yourself or the beast,
And just mark me, my cove — if I hear that you've stopped for as much as a nip,
I will hide you while God lets me stand, and then pass Curly Johnson the whip!

"Give the doctor this letter and tell him to get his best horses and drive
As he never has driven before if he hopes to find Freddy alive:
Say I'll pay for the pair twenty times if he flogs them until they drop dead,
And be there in two hours, or, by God!" — there is no need to add what he said.

There was no need of threats to urge Nabbage; one instant, and firm on the back
Of the boss's blood horse he was racing away down the dimly marked track,
Far away in the thickening night, with the hand of an icy despair
On his heart, for the help that was vain for a life that was past even prayer.

Not a man on the station liked Nabbage; he held himself coldly aloof
From the boys in the hut, with his eyes mostly fixed on the floor or the roof:
He was wrinkled, and pock-marked, and stooped, and at meal times sat silent, apart,
As though nursing some scorn of them all which grew deep in the shade of his heart.

For awhile all the crowd thought him sulky and said he was "putting it on,
Then the sense of the hut, being taken, decided him just "a bit gone,"
But Old Stumpy, the cook, held the view that the man was a natural skunk;
And to add to the public disfavour, he oft went alone and got drunk.

Curly Johnson, the super, despised him, and never neglected a chance
To annoy or degrade the poor wretch who replied not with even a glance:
He was general drudge at the station, and toiled in a spiritless way
At whatever they told him to do, for whatever they fancied to pay.

Strange that Freddie, the Squatter's one darling, the golden-haired impudent boy,
With the slang of the bush on his lips, and the great eyes of Helen of Troy,
He, the eager imperious young master whose talk was of yearlings and brands,
Should pick out this strange slouch for a chum from among the more sociable hands;

But it was so, and often and often, from morning till set of the sun
Rode these two through the light of the summer far out on the plains of the run,
Freddie taking his favourite pony, and Nabbage — I think you can guess
That the steed Curly Johnson let him have was not of the build of Black Bess.

And everyone noticed that Nabbage was gentle and kind with the child,
And a rumour spread widely abroad that one night in the hut he had smiled
As a man might whose thoughts were away in the grave of one cherished and kissed,
While his comrades grew heated at euchre, or smoked their unspeakable twist.

And in this way things went on till one day, when the gum-leaves hung lifelessly down
In the haze of a ring of bush fires that at night made each hill seem a town,
They had yarded some steers to be branded—a wild-looking, dangerous lot,
And young Freddie had lighted the fire, and the iron was just getting hot,

When Joe Smith, the new boundary rider, whose conduct was painfully flash,
Passed along down the front of the yard, hitching in his red silk-woven sash;
All at once came a rush as of water, and Joe made one spring past the gate
Which withstood for a moment, then crashed with the strain of the multiplied weight.

Just then Freddie, poor Freddie, looked up with a laugh to see what had gone wrong,
When a score of mad steers burst upon him, and trampled and tossed him along—
Every man rushed at once to his help, and they lifted him, silent and white,
And that was the reason why Nabbage was riding away through the night.

Every light on the hills out of view, in the dim solemn glens not a light,
Not a sound or a stir in the depths of the marvellous hush of the night,
Not a pulse or a heart-beat of Nature, no break in the infinite rest,
Not a star with the eyelight of God to be seen from the east to the west.

Half a mile from a town wrapped in midnight a broken-necked horse at a creek,
And a man with death's dews on his forehead, and blood on his coat and his cheek;
"I am dying — I feel death upon me — but yet, even yet, if God wills
I may crawl on my knees to the doctor's — yes, this is the last of the hills!

"To the left is the way I am certain; God grant that it be not too late!
Heaven send that my life may be paid for the life of my poor little mate!
Darling child of the woman I loved in the days when — Oh, God! is it vain?
No! for your sake, my dead sweetheart's boy, I can fight yet a while with this pain!

"Years ago when the Curse overtook me, when drink brought the shame of my lot,
She recoiled with a shudder of loathing and scorn from the pitiful sot,
But to-night may be large with atonement; to-night, if her spirit can know
How and why I am wrestling with death, may redeem all the lost long ago!

"Not two hundred yards now! if I reach it, though even to die at the door,
Here's the letter to tell him — Oh, Heaven! the thought never struck me before!
He will see I am dying and stop for awhile to attend me! What way
Can I think of in time, to prevent half a moment of needless delay?

"Ha! I have it! He knows, like the rest, that whenever I can I get tight,
I'll pretend that I stopped out at Brown's and got drunk — for the last time — to-night,
I can muffle this handkerchief well round my face and he'll not see the mark
Of the rock on my head where I fell with the horse when we leaped in the dark."

So the man, like a serpent disabled, writhes on with low agonised moans,
And just here and there touches with blood fallen logs, and dry twigs, and sharp stones,
Till he wearily drags round a corner and finds a warm light in the gloom,
Then creeps further and beats with faint strength on the door of the young doctor's room.

A strange man, most decidedly drunk, with a letter held out in his hand —
For a moment the doctor can't quite make it out, and proceeds to demand
Who he is? What he wants? — but the drunkard, half-rolling away from the door,
Curls up just where the light cannot reach him, and calmly commences to snore.

Then the doctor tears open the letter and shouts to the stableman, "Dick!
Fix up Starlight and Fan in the buggy and have them around pretty quick,"
Then indignantly kicks the fallen drunkard, and seizing the drugs he may need,
Drives away up the street with the greys at the utter-most reach of their speed!

And the drunkard half-rises, and listens, a wistful, sad smile on his face,
As he mutters, "Thank God I deceived him! in three hours he'll be at the place;
And whether poor Freddie lives yet or has gone where the blessed abide
I have triumphed an hour over Death for the child of my love!" So he died.