Jack jumped off, though his knees were weak and his hands trembling. The horse stood dark with sweat. Quickly he unbuckled the saddle and bridle and pulled them off, and gave the horse a clap on its wet neck. Away it went, wild again, and free.
Jack glanced at the Reds, and then at Easu. Red Easu met his eyes, and the two stared at one another. It was the defiance of the hostile colonial, brutal and retrogressive, against the old mastery of the old country. Jack was barely conscious. Yet he was not afraid, inside himself, of the swivel-eyed brute of a fellow. He knew that Easu was not a better man than himself, though he was bigger, older, and on his own ground. But Jack had the pride of his own, old, well-bred country behind him, and he would never go back on his breeding. He was not going to yield in manliness before the colonial way of life: the brutishness, the commonness. Inwardly he would not give in to it. But the best of it, the colonial honesty and simplicity, that he loved.
There are two sides to colonials, as to everything. One side he loved. The other he refused and defied.
These decisions are not mental, but they are critical in the soul of a boy of eighteen. And the destiny of nations hangs on such silent, almost unconscious decisions.
Esau — they called him Easu, but the name was Esau — turned to a black, and bellowed:
“Give master your horse, and carry that bally saddle home.”
Then silently they all turned to the sheep-tallying.
V
Jack was still sewing sacks. It was afternoon. He listened for the sound of the shay, though he did not expect it until nightfall at least.
His ear, training to the Australian alertness, began to detect unusual sounds. Or perhaps it was not his ear. The old bushman seems to have developed a further faculty, a psychic faculty of “sensing” some unusual disturbance in the atmosphere, and reading it. Jack was a very new Australian. Yet he had become aware of this faculty in Tom, and he wanted it for himself. He wanted to be able to hear the inaudible, like a sort of clair-audience.
All he could hear was the audible: and all he could see was, the visible. The children were playing in the yard: he could see them in the dust. Mrs. Ellis was still at the wash-tub: he saw the steam. Katie was upstairs: he had seen her catching a hornet in the window. The men were out ploughing, the horses were away. The pigs were walking round grunting, the cows and poultry were all in the paddock. Gran never made a sound, unless she suddenly appeared on the scene like the Lord in Judgment. And Dr. Rackett was always quiet: often uncannily so.
It was still rainy season, but a warm, mellow, sleepy afternoon, with no real sound at all. He got up and stood on the threshold to stretch himself. And there, coming by the grain-shed, he saw a little cortege in which the first individual he distinguished was Red Easu.
“Go in,” shouted Red, “and tell A’nt as Herbert’s had an accident, and we’re bringin’ him in.”
Sure enough, they were carrying a man on a gate.
Mrs. Ellis clicked:
“Tt-tt-tt-tt-tt! They run to us when they’re in trouble.” But she went at once to the linen closet, and on into the living room.
Gran was sitting in a corner by a little fire.
“Who’s hurt?” she inquired testily. “Not one of the family, I hope and pray.”
“Jack says it’s Red Herbert,” replied Mrs. Ellis.
“Put him in the cubby with the boys, then.”
But Mrs. Ellis thought of her beloved boys, and hesitated.
“Do you think it’s much, Jack?” she asked.
“They’re carrying him on a gate,” said Jack. “It looks bad.”
“Dear o’me!” snapped Gran, in her brittle fashion. “Why couldn’t you say so? — Well then — if you don’t want to put him in the cubby, there’s a bed in my room. Put him there. But I should have thought he could have had Tom’s bed, and Tom could have slept here on the sofa.”
“Poor Tom,” thought Jack.
“Don’t” — Gran banged her stick on the floor — ”stand there like a pair of sawneys! Get to work! Get to work!”
Jack was staring at the ground and twirling his hat. Gran hobbled forward. He noticed to his surprise that she had a wooden leg. And she stamped it at him:
“Go and fetch that rascal of a doctor!” she cried, in a startling loud voice.
Jack went. Dr. Rackett was not in his room, for Jack halloed and knocked at every door. He peeped into the rooms, whose doors were slightly opened. This must be the girls’ room — two beds, neat white quilts, blue bow at the window. When would they be home? Here was the family bed, with two cots in the room as well. He came to a shut door. This must be it. He knocked and halloed again. No sound. Jack felt as if he were bound to come upon a Bluebeard’s chamber. He hated looking in these bedrooms.
He knocked again, and opened the door. A queer smell, like chemicals. A dark room, with the blind down: a few books, a feeling of dark dreariness. But no Doctor. “So that’s that!” thought Jack.
In spite of himself his boots clattered going down, and made him nervous. Why did the inside of the house, where he never went, seem so secret, and rather horrible? He peeped into the dismal little drawing room. Not there of course! Opposite was the dying room, the door wide open. Nobody ever was there.
Rackett was not in the house, that was certain. Jack slunk out, went to the paddock, caught Lucy the saddle-horse; saddled her and cantered aimlessly round, within hearing of the homestead. The afternoon was passing. Not a soul was in sight. The gum-trees hung their sharp leaves like obvious ghosts, with the hateful motionlessness of gum-trees. And though flowers were out, they were queer, scentless, unspeaking sort of flowers, even the red ones that were ragged like fire. Nothing spoke. The distances were clear and mellow and beautiful, but soulless, and nobody alive in the world. The silent, lonely gruesomeness of Australia gave Jack the blues.
It surely was milking time. Jack returned quietly to the yard. Still nobody alive in the world. As if everyone had died. Yes, there was the half-caste Tim in the distance, bringing up the slow, unwilling cows, slowly, like slow dreams.
And there was Dad coming out of the back door, in his shirt sleeves: bluer and puffier than ever, with his usual serene expression, and his look of boss, which came from his waistcoat and watchchain. Dad always wore his waistcoat and watchchain, and seemed almost over-dressed in it.
Came Og and Magog running with quick little steps, and Len slinking round the doorpost, and Harry marching alone, and Katie dragging her feet, and Baby crawling. Jack was glad to see them. They had all been indoors to look at the accident. And it had been a dull, dead, empty afternoon, with all the life emptied out of it. Even now the family, the beloved family, seemed a trifle gruesome to Jack.
He helped to milk: a job he was not good at. Dad even took a stool and milked also. As usual Dad did nothing but supervise. It was a good thing to have a real large family that made supervising worth while. So Tom said, “It’s a good thing to have nine children, you can clear some work with ‘em, if you’re their Dad.” That’s why Jack was by no means one too many. Dad supervised him too.
They got the milking done somehow. Jack changed his boots, washed himself, and put on his coat. He nearly trod on the baby as he walked across to the kitchen in the dying light. He lifted her and carried her in.
Usually “tea” — which meant mutton chops and eggs and steaks as well — was ready when they came in from milking. Today Mr. Ellis was putting eucalyptus sticks under the kettle, making the eternally familiar scent of the kitchen, and Mrs. Ellis was setting the table there. Usually, they lived in the living room from breakfast on. But today, tea was to be in the kitchen, with a silence and a cloud in the air like a funeral. But there was plenty of noise coming from Gran’s room.
Jack had to have Baby beside him for the meal. And she put sticky hands in his hair and leaned over and chewed and sputtered crumbs, wet crumbs in his ear. Then she tried to wriggle down, but the evening was chill and her hands and feet were cold and Mrs. El
lis said to keep her up. Jack felt he couldn’t stand it any longer, when suddenly she fell asleep, the most unexpected thing in the world, and Mrs. Ellis carried off her and Harry, to bed.
Ah, the family! The family! Jack still loved it. It seemed to fill the whole of life for him. He did not want to be alone, save at moments. And yet, on an afternoon like today, he somehow realised that even the family wouldn’t last forever. What then? What then?
He couldn’t bear the thought of getting married to one woman and coming home to a house with only himself and this one woman in it. Then the slow and lonely process of babies coming. The thought of such a future was dreadful to him. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want his own children. He wanted this family: always this family. And yet there was something gruesome to him about the empty bedrooms and the uncanny privacies even of this family. He didn’t want to think of their privacies.
VI
Three of the Reds trooped out through the sitting room, lean, red-faced, hairy, heavy-footed, uncouth figures, for their tea. The Wandoo Ellises were aristocratic in comparison. They asked Jack to go and help hold Herbert down, because he was fractious. “He’s that fractious!”
Jack didn’t in the least want to have to handle any of the Reds, but he had to go. He found himself taking the two steps down into the dark living room, and the two steps up into Gran’s room beyond.
Why need the family be so quiet in the kitchen, when there was such a hubbub in here? Alan Ellis was holding one leg of the injured party, and Ross Ellis the other, and they both addressed the recumbent figure as if it were an injured horse with a Whoa there! Steady on, now! Steady, boy, steady! Whilst Easu, bending terribly over the prostrate figure, clutched both its arms in a vice, and cursed Jack for not coming sooner to take one arm.
Herbert had hurt his head, and turned fractious. Jack took the one arm. Easu was on the other side of the bed, his reddish fair beard glowing. There was a queer power in Easu, which fascinated Jack a little. Beyond, Gran was sitting up in bed, among many white pillows, like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. A bright fire of wood logs was burning in the open hearth, and four or five tallow candles smoked duskily. But a screen was put between Gran’s four-poster and Herbert’s bed, a screen made of a wooden clothes-horse covered with sheets. Jack, however, from his position by Herbert’s pillow, could see beyond the screen to Gran’s section.
His attention was drawn by the patient. Herbert’s movements were sudden and convulsive, and always in a sudden jerking towards the right side of the bed. Easu had given Jack the left arm to hold, and as soon as Herbert became violent, Jack couldn’t hold him. The left arm, lean and hard as iron, broke free, and Easu jumped up and cursed Jack.
Here was a pretty scene! With Gran mumbling to herself on the other side the hideous sheeted screen!
There was nothing for it but to use cool intelligence — a thing the Reds did not possess. Jack had lost his hold again, and Easu like a reddish, glistening demon was gripping the sick man’s two arms and arching over him. Jack called up his old veterinary experience and proceeded to detach himself.
He noticed first: that Herbert was far less fierce when they didn’t resist him. Second, that he stopped groaning when his eyes fell away from the men around him. Third, that all the convulsive jerky movements, which had thrown him out of the bed several times, were towards the right side of the bed.
Then why not bind him to the left?
The left arm had again escaped his grasp, and Easu’s exasperated fury was only held in check by Gran’s presence. Jack went out of the room and found Katie.
“Hunt me out an old sheet,” he said.
“What for?” she asked, but went off to do his bidding. When she came back she said:
“Mother says they don’t want to bandage Herbert, do they?”
“I’m going to try and bind him. I shan’t hurt him,” he replied.
“Oh Jack, don’t let them send for me to sit with him — I hate sickness.”
“You give us a hand then with this sheet.”
Between them they prepared strong bands. Jack noosed one with sailor’s knots round Katie’s hands, and fastened it to the table leg.
“Pull!” he ordered. “Pull as hard as you can.” And as she pulled, “Does it hurt, now?”
“Not a bit,” she said.
Jack went back to the sick room. Herbert was quiet, the three brothers were sulky and silent. They wanted above all things to get out, to get away. You could see that. Easu glanced at Jack’s hand. There was something tense and alert about Easu, like a great, wiry bird with enormous power in its lean, red neck and its lean limbs.
“I thought we’d best bind him so as not to hurt him,” said Jack. “I know how to do it, I think.”
The brothers said not a word, but let him go ahead. And Jack bound the left arm and the left leg, and put a band round the body of the patient. They looked on, rather distantly interested. Easu released the convulsive left arm of his brother. Jack took the sick man’s hand soothingly, held it soothingly, then slipped his hand up the hairy fore-arm and got the band attached just above the elbow. Then he fastened the ends to the bed-head. He felt quite certain he was doing right. While he was busy Mrs. Ellis came in. She watched in silence, too. When it was done, Jack looked at her.
“I believe it’ll do,” she said with a nod of approval. And then, to the cowed, hulking brothers, “You might as well go and get your tea.”
They bumped into one another trying to get through the door. Jack noticed they were in their stocking feet. They stooped outside the door to pick up their boots.
“Good idea!” he thought. And he took off his own boots. It made him feel more on the job.
Mrs. Ellis went round the white bed-sheet screen to sit with Gran. Jack went blowing out the reeking candles on the sick man’s side of the same screen. Then he sat on a hard chair facing the staring, grimacing patient. He felt sorry for him, but repelled by him. Yet as Herbert tossed his wiry, hairy free arm and jerked his hairy, sharp-featured face, Jack wanted to help him.
He remembered the vet’s advice: “Get the creatures’ confidence, lad, and you can do anything with ‘em. Horse or man, cat or canary, get the creature’s confidence, and if anything can be done, you can do it.”
Jack wanted now to proceed to get the creature’s confidence. He knew it was a matter of will: of holding the other creature’s will with his own will. But gently, and in a kindly spirit.
He held Herbert’s hard fingers softly in his own hand, and said softly: “Keep quiet, old man, keep quiet. I’m here. I’ll take care of you. You rest. You go to sleep. I won’t leave you. I’ll take care of you.”
Herbert lay still as if listening. His muscles relaxed. He seemed dreadfully tired — Jack could feel it. He was dreadfully, dreadfully tired. Perhaps the womanless, brutal life of the Reds had made him so tired. He seemed to go to sleep. Then he jerked awake, and the convulsive struggling began again, with the frightful rolling of the eyes.
But the steady bonds that held him seemed to comfort him, and Jack quietly took the clutching fingers again. And the sick man’s eyes, in their rolling, rested on the quiet, abstract face of the youth, with strange watching. Jack did not move. And again Herbert’s tension seemed to relax. He seemed in an agony of desire to sleep, but the agony of desire was so great, that the very fear of it jerked the sick man into horrible wakefulness.
Jack was saying silently, with his will: “Don’t worry! Don’t worry, old man! Don’t worry! You go to sleep. I’ll look after you.”
And as he sat in dead silence, saying these things, he felt as if the fluid of his life ran out of his fingers into the fingers of the hurt man. He was left weak and limp. And Herbert began to go to sleep, really to sleep.
Jack sat in a daze, with the virtue gone out of him. And Herbert’s fingers were soft and childlike again in their relaxation.
The boy started a little, feeling someone pat him on the shoulder. It was Mrs. Ellis, patting him in commenda
tion, because the patient was sunk deep in sleep. Then she went out.
Following her with his eyes, Jack saw another figure in the doorway. It was Red Easu, like a wolf out of the shadow, looking in. And Jack quietly let slip the heavy, sleeping fingers of the sick man. But he did not move his posture.
Then he was aware that Easu had gone again.
VII
It was late, and the noise of rain outside, and weird wind blowing. Mrs. Eilis had been in and whispered that Dr. Rackett was not home yet — that he had probably waited somewhere for the shay. And that she had told the Reds to keep away.
There was dead silence save for the weather outside, and a noise of the fire. The candles were all blown out.
He was startled by hearing Gran’s voice:
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings — ”
“She’s reading,” thought Jack, though there was no light to read by. And he wondered why the old lady wasn’t asleep.
“I knew y’r mother’s father, Jack Grant,” came the thin, petulant voice. “He cut off my leg. Devil of a fella wouldn’t let me die when I wanted to. Cut it off without a murmur, and no chloroform.”
The thin voice was so devilishly awake, in the darkness of the night, like a voice out of the past piercing the inert present.
“What did he care! What did he care! Not a bit,” Gran went on. “And y’re another. You take after him. You’re such another. You’re a throw-back, to your mother’s father. I was wondering what I was going to do with those great galoots in my room all night. I’m glad it’s you.”
Jack thought: “Lord, have I got to sit here all night!”
“You’ve got the night before you,” said Gran’s demonishly wakeful voice, uncanny in its thin alertness, in the deep night. “So come round here to the fireside an’ make y’self comfortable.”
Jack rose obediently and went round the screen. After all, an arm-chair would be welcome.
“Well, say something,” said Gran.
The boy peered at her in the dusk, in a kind of fear.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 391
