Read Online Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction by James Doig - Free Book Online
Authors: James Doig
Tags: Terror, Fiction, Horror, supernatural, Occult & Supernatural, Ghosts, 19th century, Ghost, Desert, hauntings, Australian Fiction, bugs, outback, ants
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a mob of cattle ahead of ours. So we chummed up and had a game of whist.”
“McIlwaine plays whist everywhere, anywhere and where he can, so beware,” remarked Jemmy uproariously.
“You bide awee, ma fren, and I’ll knock spots out till ye,” rejoined Mcllwaine.
Jemmy made a pantomimic gesture, expressive of contempt, and Mcllwaine resumed:
“Well, as I was after saying, if that infant hadn’t interrupted a man of my age, the name of the place was Bylo. The usual far-back sort of a township, only the hotel and public stockyard. And the hotel was combined with an all-round store, where you could get a variation from a suit of clothes to a frying-pan, haberdashery and hardware mixed. The police had not yet arrived, though there were any amount of long, loafing crawlers in the district, the usual sort who stay about a place of this description, that promises to be a town some day. They usually get cleared out in time, before decent people come. And there is generally a death or two before that happens—innocent and guilty alike. The police were wanted. I tell you, and not very long after our arrival either. We tied our horses up to the verandah posts, along with a lot of others, on first arriving, and it was there I noticed the concertina. We stayed about an hour playing whist with the drovers, and taking an occasional glass together.
“You must know that in the big knock-about room, next to the one we were in, a lot of young fellows weregambling, and drinking pretty freely also. Some of them I noticed were jackeroos, ‘jaast like ma young fren, Innocence, here,”’ laying a mighty paw upon Master Jemmy’s shrinking flesh and causing an awful hullabaloo, so that we had to wait until things assumed an aspect of order again.
“Well, these jackeroos that I was telling you about were mixed and various ‘poddies,’ ‘cleanskins,’ ‘two tooth,’ some of them ‘four,’ and maybe one or two just lambs unshorn, like Jemmy; knew just enough to say ‘baa’. It was a wild, Godforsaken sort of district, right out on the back blocks beyond the New South Wales border, and young fellows learn bad things quick enough, unless they stick to their work like men.
“One fellow amongst this lot who were gambling looked pretty ‘old in the horn’. I spotted him when I passed the door, for I went out once to look if the horses were all right. He was the concertina player. Sort of sharp, by his appearance. He might have been anything from a cattle-duffer to a horse thief, but he looked like a ‘spieler’. He was pretty hard bitten.
“All of a sudden, whilst we were going on with our game (I had the ace, four, five and three of hearts, trumps, I mind, in my hand, and it was my turn to play), there was a fearful shindy! Shouting, swearing, stamping, chairs and tables knocked down and a rush. We jumped up and, just as we got to the door, the very man I have been describing tore out like a maniac, took the first horse he came to and galloped off. The rush of the others coming out after him all of a heap frightened the other horses to such an extent that they all pulled back at once and broke every individual bridle in that crowd. My word, that fellow on the horse did scratch away past the pine ridge on the up-river road.
“Tom was a pretty hot-tempered fellow. He managed to catch his horse somehow, got a bridle from somewhere, and was away after the fugitive before I could say ‘Jack Robinson’. We had seen a still form lying in that other room as we came out, and some of the fellows were shouting ‘Murder!’
“At last I got my horse, and a fresh bridle out of the store, and one of the drovers, another young fellow and myself, started in pursuit. Off we went. The tracks kept on the road, and after a hard ride of about six miles we suddenly came upon two dead bodies—the spieler-looking concertina man and poor Tom! The first had a bullet through his head, as near the centre of the forehead as it well could
“McIlwaine plays whist everywhere, anywhere and where he can, so beware,” remarked Jemmy uproariously.
“You bide awee, ma fren, and I’ll knock spots out till ye,” rejoined Mcllwaine.
Jemmy made a pantomimic gesture, expressive of contempt, and Mcllwaine resumed:
“Well, as I was after saying, if that infant hadn’t interrupted a man of my age, the name of the place was Bylo. The usual far-back sort of a township, only the hotel and public stockyard. And the hotel was combined with an all-round store, where you could get a variation from a suit of clothes to a frying-pan, haberdashery and hardware mixed. The police had not yet arrived, though there were any amount of long, loafing crawlers in the district, the usual sort who stay about a place of this description, that promises to be a town some day. They usually get cleared out in time, before decent people come. And there is generally a death or two before that happens—innocent and guilty alike. The police were wanted. I tell you, and not very long after our arrival either. We tied our horses up to the verandah posts, along with a lot of others, on first arriving, and it was there I noticed the concertina. We stayed about an hour playing whist with the drovers, and taking an occasional glass together.
“You must know that in the big knock-about room, next to the one we were in, a lot of young fellows weregambling, and drinking pretty freely also. Some of them I noticed were jackeroos, ‘jaast like ma young fren, Innocence, here,”’ laying a mighty paw upon Master Jemmy’s shrinking flesh and causing an awful hullabaloo, so that we had to wait until things assumed an aspect of order again.
“Well, these jackeroos that I was telling you about were mixed and various ‘poddies,’ ‘cleanskins,’ ‘two tooth,’ some of them ‘four,’ and maybe one or two just lambs unshorn, like Jemmy; knew just enough to say ‘baa’. It was a wild, Godforsaken sort of district, right out on the back blocks beyond the New South Wales border, and young fellows learn bad things quick enough, unless they stick to their work like men.
“One fellow amongst this lot who were gambling looked pretty ‘old in the horn’. I spotted him when I passed the door, for I went out once to look if the horses were all right. He was the concertina player. Sort of sharp, by his appearance. He might have been anything from a cattle-duffer to a horse thief, but he looked like a ‘spieler’. He was pretty hard bitten.
“All of a sudden, whilst we were going on with our game (I had the ace, four, five and three of hearts, trumps, I mind, in my hand, and it was my turn to play), there was a fearful shindy! Shouting, swearing, stamping, chairs and tables knocked down and a rush. We jumped up and, just as we got to the door, the very man I have been describing tore out like a maniac, took the first horse he came to and galloped off. The rush of the others coming out after him all of a heap frightened the other horses to such an extent that they all pulled back at once and broke every individual bridle in that crowd. My word, that fellow on the horse did scratch away past the pine ridge on the up-river road.
“Tom was a pretty hot-tempered fellow. He managed to catch his horse somehow, got a bridle from somewhere, and was away after the fugitive before I could say ‘Jack Robinson’. We had seen a still form lying in that other room as we came out, and some of the fellows were shouting ‘Murder!’
“At last I got my horse, and a fresh bridle out of the store, and one of the drovers, another young fellow and myself, started in pursuit. Off we went. The tracks kept on the road, and after a hard ride of about six miles we suddenly came upon two dead bodies—the spieler-looking concertina man and poor Tom! The first had a bullet through his head, as near the centre of the forehead as it well could
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