Read Online The Noon Lady of Towitta by Patricia Sumerling - Free Book Online Page B

Blenkiron’s attractive daughters and wanted revenge of a sort. They went around Mr Blenkiron’s property rattling the fences and shed doors, banging them with their long sticks, like a drum.
    The gang was made up of Carl and Hermann Hartwig and their chums the three Radomi brothers. Their noisy behaviour frightened Mrs Blenkiron and terrified the younger children who ran indoors crying. When Mr Blenkiron strode out and faced the boys, shouting at them to go home, they laughed and jeered at him and threw a mass of little stones at the windows of his house. The gang of boys were well-known troublemakers in the district. They pulled up noticeboards, and removed and opened gates to let stock run loose. They rode recklessly through the streets of Sedan on half-wild horses churning up clouds of red dust. No one seemed able to stop their behaviour.
    To start with we were pleased that Father could put his violent temper to good use to protect us all. But when he took the matter into his own hands, he went too far. The whole matter ran out of control and much to our horror ended up in the Adelaide Supreme Court.
    One of the boys at the party crept out the back door of the farmhouse and ran over to our farm begging Father to come and help sort out the situation. He grabbed his loaded rifle and hurried over. When he stood in front of the larrikins they laughed in his face and threw bigger rocks. One thrown by Carl Hartwig hit Father on the side of his head and instantly drew blood. He never flinched as the blood streamed over his face and beard, but marched to one of the boys and poked him with the barrel of the rifle. When one of the boys ran to his brother’s rescue, Father told them, ‘If you don’t leave I will fire.’
    One of the other boys dared him, ‘Fire away then, old man.’ So Father did.
    Although he fired at the ground to frighten them, the ground was so hard that the bullet ricocheted and hit Carl Hartwig in the leg. He fell to the ground groaning and bleeding heavily. ‘I’ve been hit, don’t let me die,’ he pleaded, but the four remaining boys, now frightened by the shooting, ran for their horses and galloped away. Father and Mr Blenkiron carried the still-bleeding boy onto the verandah of the house.
    One of the children left to fetch Dr Pullen who came some hours later and attended the wound. But when he arrived so too did the local policeman who promptly arrested Father and took him into custody. When we went home without Father we had to explain to Mother what had happened. ‘What do you mean, Father has been arrested?’ she screamed, wringing her hands and then babbling unintelligibly in Wendish. She knew well enough what Father’s violence was like and though it was meant to be only a threat, she admitted that this time he had gone too far and could end up in prison.
    But he didn’t. A month later Father appeared at the Supreme Court in Adelaide charged with having ‘feloniously and unlawfully and maliciously at Towitta shot Carl Hartwig with intent to do grievous bodily harm’. Father was lucky, the judge recognised his attempts to protect a group of law-abiding citizens and was sympathetic. Nevertheless, he let him know that larrikinism must not be quelled with guns. He also stated ‘it was an unlawful act to fire off a loaded gun in a struggle, and if the jury believed the facts as presented then the prisoner, although a very respectable man, had no right to fire the gun, and was guilty of unlawfully wounding’. Although the jury found Father not guilty, the judge gave him a caution. ‘If Hartwig had been killed, Mr Schippan, you would be standing trial for his murder.’
    Father was acquitted but he was humiliated for being arrested. He believed he had acted reasonably to protect innocent people in danger from a threatening gang. After he returned home, humiliation gave way to fury. Inevitably, he took out his rage on the