Bush Studies/Billy Skywonkie
BILLY SKYWONKIE.
The line was unfenced, so with due regard to the possibility of the drought-dulled sheep attempting to chew it, the train crept cautiously along, stopping occasionally, without warning, to clear it from the listless starving brutes. In the carriage nearest the cattle-vans, some drovers and scrub-cutters were playing euchre, and spasmodically chorusing the shrill music from an uncertain concertina. When the train stopped, the player thrust his head from the carriage window. From one nearer the engine, a commercial traveller remonstrated with the guard, concerning the snail's pace and the many unnecessary halts.
"Take yer time, ole die-'ard," yelled the drover to the guard. "Whips er time—don't bust yerself fer no one. Wot's orl the worl' to a man w'en his wife's a widder." He laughed noisily and waved his hat at the seething bagGo an' 'ave a snooze. I'll wake yer up ther day after termorrer."
He craned his neck to see into the nearest cattle-van. Four were down, he told his mates, who remarked, with blasphemous emphasis, that they would probably lose half before getting them to the scrub country.
The listening woman passenger, in a carriage between the drover and the bagman, heard a thud soon after in the cattle-truck, and added another to the list of the fallen. Before dawn that day the train had stopped at a siding to truck them, and she had watched with painful interest these drought-tamed brutes being driven into the crowded vans. The tireless, greedy sun had swiftly followed the grey dawn, and in the light that even now seemed old and worn, the desolation of the barren shelterless plains, that the night had hidden, appalled her. She realized the sufferings of the emaciated cattle. It was barely noon, yet she had twice emptied the water bottle "shogging" in the iron bracket.
The train dragged its weary length again, and she closed her eyes from the monotony of the dead plain. Suddenly the engine cleared its throat in shrill welcome to two iron tanks, hoisted twenty feet and blazing like evil eyes from a vanished face.
Beside them it squatted on its hunkers, placed a blackened thumb on its pipe, and hissed through its closed teeth like a snared wild-cat, while gulping yards of water. The green slimy odour penetrated to the cattle. The lustiest of these stamped feebly, clashing their horns and bellowing a hollow request.
A long-bearded bushman was standing on the few slabs that formed a siding, with a stockwhip coiled like a snake on his arm. The woman passenger asked him the name of the place.
"This is ther Never-Never—ther lars' place Gord made," answered one of the drovers who were crowding the windows.
"Better'n ther 'ell 'ole yous come from, any'ow," defended the bushman. "Breakin' ther 'earts, an' dyin' from suerside, cos they lef' it," he added derisively, pointing to the cattle.
In patriotic anger he passed to the guard-van without answering her question, though she looked anxiously after him. At various intervals during the many halts of the train, she had heard some of the obscene jokes, and with it in motion, snatches of lewd songs from the drovers' carriage. But the language used by this bushman to the guard, as he helped to remove a ton of fencing-wire topping his new saddle, made her draw back her head. Near the siding was a spring cart, and she presently saw him throw his flattened saddle into it and drive off. There was no one else in sight, and in nervous fear she asked the bagman if this was Gooriabba siding. It was nine miles further, he told her.
The engine lifted its thumb from its pipe "Well—well to—be sure; well—well—to—be—sure," it puffed, as if in shocked remembrance of its being hours late for its appointment there.
She saw no one on the next siding, but a buggy waited near the sliprails. It must be for her. According to Sydney arrangements she was to be met here, and driven out twelve miles. A drover inquired as the train left her standing by her portmanteau, "Are yer travellin' on yer lonesome, or on'y goin' somew'ere!" and another flung a twist of paper towards her, brawling unmusically, that it was "A flowwer from me angel mother's gerrave."
She went towards the buggy, but as she neared it the driver got in and made to drive off. She ran and called, for when he went she would be alone with the bush all round her, and only the sound of the hoarse croaking of the frogs from the swamp near, and the raucous "I'll—'ave—'is—eye—out", of the crows.
Yes, he was from Gooriabba Station, and had come to meet a young "piece" from Sydney, who had not come.
She was ghastly with bilious sickness—the result of an over-fed brain and an under-fed liver. Her face flushed muddily. "Was it a housekeeper?"
He was the rouseabout, wearing his best clothes with awful unusualness. The coat was too long in the sleeve, and wrinkled across the back with his bush slouch. There was that wonderful margin of loose shirt between waistcoat and trousers, which all swagger bushies affect. Subordinate to nothing decorative was the flaring silk handkerchief, drawn into a sailor's knot round his neck.
He got out and fixed the winkers, then put his hands as far as he could reach into his pockets—from the position of his trousers he could not possibly reach bottom. It was apparently some unknown law that suspended them. He thrust forward his lower jaw, elevated his pipe, and squirted a little tobacco juice towards his foot that was tracing semicircles in the dust. "Damned if I know," he said with a snort, "but there'll be a 'ell of a row somew'ere."
She noticed that the discoloured teeth his bush grin showed so plainly, were worn in the centre, and met at both sides with the pipe between the front. Worn stepping-stones, her mind insisted.
She looked away towards the horizon where the smoke of the hidden train showed faintly against a clear sky, and as he was silent, she seemed to herself to be intently listening to the croak of the frogs and the threat of the crows. She knew that, from under the brim of the hat he wore over his eyes, he was looking at her sideways.
Suddenly he withdrew his hands and said again, "Damned if I know. S'pose it's all right! Got any traps? Get up then an' 'ole the Neddy while I get it." They drove a mile or 60 in silence; his pipe was still in his mouth though not alight.
She spoke once only. "What a lot of frogs seem to be in that lake!"
He laughed. "That's ther Nine Mile Dam!" He laughed again after a little—an intelligent, complacent laugh.
"It used ter be swarmin' with teal in a good season, but Gord A'mighty knows w'en it's ever goin' ter rain any more! I dunno!" This was an important admission, for he was a great weather prophet. "Lake!" he sniggered and looked sideways at his companion. "Thet's wot thet there bloke, the painter doodle, called it. An' 'e goes ter dror it, an' 'e sez wot 'e 'll give me five bob if I'll run up ther horses, an' keep 'em so's 'e ken put 'em in ther picshure An' 'e drors ther Dam an' ther trees, puts in thet there ole dead un, an' 'e puts in ther 'orses right clost against ther water w'ere the frogs is. 'E puts them in too, an' damned if 'e don't dror ther 'orses drinkin' ther water with ther frogs, an' ther frogs' spit on it! Likely yarn ther 'orses ud drink ther water with ther blanky frogs' spit on it! Fat lot they know about ther bush! Blarsted nannies!"
Presently he inquired as to the place where they they kept pictures in Sydney, and she told him, the Art Gallery.
"Well some of these days I'm goin' down ter Sydney," he continued, "an' I'll collar thet one 'cos it's a good likerness of ther 'orses—you'd know their 'ide on a gum-tree—an' that mean mongrel never paid me ther five bob."
Between his closed teeth he hissed a bush tune for some miles, but ceased to look at the sky, and remarked, "No sign er rain! No lambin' this season; soon as they're dropt we'll 'ave ter knock 'em all on ther 'ead!" He shouted an oath of hatred at the crows following after the tottering sheep that made in a straggling line for the water. "Look at 'em!" he said. "Scoffin' out ther eyes!" He pointed to where the crows hovered over the bogged sheep. "They putty well lives on eyes! 'Blanky bush Chinkies!' I call 'em. No one carn't tell 'em apart!"
There was silence again, except for a remark that he could spit all the blanky rain they had had in the last nine months.
Away to the left along a side track his eyes travelled searchingly, as they came to a gate. He stood in the buggy and looked again.
"Promised ther 'Konk' t' leave 'im 'ave furst squint at yer," he muttered, "if 'e was 'ere t' open ther gate! But I'm not goin' t' blanky well wait orl day!" He reluctantly got out and opened the gate, and he had just taken his seat when a "Coo-ee" sounded from his right, heralded by a dusty pillar. He snorted resentfully. "'Ere 'e is; jes' as I got out an' done it!"
The "Konk" cantered to them, his horse's hoofs padded by the dust-cushioned earth. The driver drew back, so as not to impede the newcomer's view. After a moment or two, the "Konk", preferring closer quarters, brought his horse round to the left. Unsophisticated bush wonder in the man's face met the sophisticated in the girl's.
Never had she seen anything so grotesquely monkeyish. And the nose of this little hairy horror, as he slewed his neck to look into her face, blotted the landscape and dwarfed all perspective. She experienced a strange desire to extend her hand. When surprise lessened, her mettle saved her from the impulse to cover her face with both hands, to baffle him.
At last the silence was broken by the driver drawing a match along his leg, and lighting his pipe. The hairy creature safely arranged a pair of of emu eggs, slung with bush skill round his neck.
"Ain't yer goin' to part?" enquired the driver, indicating his companion as the recipient.
"Wot are yer givin' us; wot do yer take me fur?" said the "Konk" indignantly, drawing down his knotted veil.
"Well, give 'em ter me fer Lizer."
"Will yer 'ave 'em now, or wait till yer get 'em?"
"Goin' ter sit on 'em yerself?" sneered the driver.
"Yes, an' I'll give yer ther first egg ther cock lays," laughed the "Konk".
He turned his horse's head back to the gate "I say, Billy Skywonkie! Wot price Sally Ah Too, eh?" he asked, his gorilla mouth agape.
Billy Skywonkie uncrossed his legs, took out the whip. He tilted his pipe and shook his head as he prepared to drive, to show that he understood to a fraction the price of Sally Ah Too. The aptness of the question took the sting out of his having had to open the gate. He gave a farewell jerk.
"Goin' ter wash yer neck?" shouted the man with the nose, from the gate
"Not if I know it."
The "Konk" received the intimation incredulously. "Stinkin' Roger!" he yelled. In bush parlance this was equal to emphatic disbelief.
This was a seemingly final parting, and both started, but suddenly the "Konk" wheeled round.
"Oh, Billy!" he shouted.
Billy stayed his horse and turned expectantly.
"W'en's it goin' ter rain?"
The driver's face darkened. "Your blanky jealersey 'll get yer down, an' worry yer yet," he snarled, and slashing his horse he drove rapidly away.
"Mickey ther Konk," he presently remarked to his companion, as he stroked his nose.
This explained her earlier desire to extend her hand. If the "Konk" had been a horse she would have stroked his nose.
"Mob er sheep can camp in the shadder of it," he said. Boundless scope for shadows on that sun-smitten treeless plain!
"Make a good plough-shere," he continued, "easy plough a cultivation paddock with it!"
At the next gate he seemed in a mind and body conflict. There were two tracks; he drove along one for a few hundred yards. Then stopping, he turned, and finding the "Konk" out of sight, abruptly drove across to the other. He continually drew his whip along the horse's back, and haste seemed the object of the movement, though he did not flog the beast.
After a few miles on the new track, a blob glittered dazzlingly through the glare, like a fallen star. It was the iron roof of the wine shanty—the Saturday night and Sunday resort of shearers and rouseabouts for twenty miles around. Most of its spirits was made on the premises from bush recipes, of which bluestone and tobacco were the chief ingredients. Every drop had the reputation of "bitin' orl ther way down".
A sapling studded with broken horse-shoes seemed to connect two lonely crow stone trees. Under their scanty shade groups of dejected fowls stood with beaks agape. Though the buggy wheels almost reached them, they were motionless but for quivering gills. The ground both sides of the shanty was decorated with tightly-pegged kangaroo-skins. A dog, apathetically blind and dumb, lay on the veranda, lifeless save for eyelids blinking in antagonism to the besieging flies.
"Jerry can't be far off," said Billy Skywonkie, recognizing the dog. He stood up in the buggy. "By cripes, there 'e is—goosed already, an' 'e on'y got 'is cheque lars' night."
On the chimney side of the shanty a man lay in agitated sleep beside his rifle and swag. There had been a little shade on that side in the morning, and he had been sober enough to select it, and lay his head on his swag. He had emptied the bottle lying at his feet since then. His swag had been thoroughly "gone through", and also his singlet and trouser-pockets. The fumes from the shanty grog baffled the flies. But the scorching sun was conquering; the man groaned, and his hands began to search for his burning head.
Billy Skywonkie explained to his companion that it was "thet fool, Jerry ther kangaroo-shooter, bluein' 'is cheque fer skins". He took the water bag under the buggy, and poured the contents into the open mouth and over the face of the "dosed" man, and raised him into a sitting posture. Jerry fought this friendliness vigorously, and, staggering to his feet, picked up rifle, and took drunken aim at his rescuer, then at the terrified woman in the buggy.
The rouseabout laughed unconcernedly. "'E thinks we're blanky kangaroos," he said to her. "Jerry, ole cock, yer couldn't 'it a woolshed! Yer been taking ther sun!"
He took the rifle and pushed the subdued Jerry into the chimney corner.
He tilted his hat, till, bush fashion, it "'ung on one 'air", and went inside the shanty. "Mag!" he shouted, thumping the bar (a plank supported by two casks).
The woman in the buggy saw a slatternly girl with doughy hands come from the back, wiping the flour from her face with a kitchen towel. They made some reference to her she knew, as the girl came to the door and gave her close scrutiny. Then, shaking her head till her long brass earrings swung like pendulums, she laughed loudly.
"Eh?" enquired the rouseabout.
"My oath! Square dinkum!" she answered, going behind the bar.
He took the silk handkerchief from his neck, and playfully tried to flick the corner into her eye. Mag was used to such delicate attentions and well able to defend herself. With the dirty kitchen towel she succeeded in knocking off his hat, and round and round the house she ran with it dexterously dodging the skin-pegs. He could neither overtake nor outwit her with any dodge. He gave in, and ransomed his hat with the "shouts" she demanded.
From the back of the shanty, a bent old woman, almost on all fours, crept towards the man, again prostrate in the corner. She paused, with her ear turned to where the girl and the rouseabout were still at horse-play. With cat-like movements she stole on till within reach of Jerry's empty pockets. She turned her terrible face to the woman in the buggy, as if in expectation of sympathy. Keeping wide of the front door, she came to the further side of the buggy. With the fascination of horror the woman looked at this creature, whose mouth and eyes seemed to dishonour her draggled grey hair. She was importuning for something, but the woman in the buggy could not understand till she pointed to her toothless mouth (the mission of which seemed to be, to fill its cavernous depths with the age-loosened skin above and below). A blue bag under each eye aggressively ticked like the gills of the fowls, and the sinews of the neck strained into basso-rilievo. Alternately she pointed to her mouth, or laid her knotted fingers on the blue bags in pretence of wiping tears. Entrenched behind the absorbed skin-terraces, a stump of purple tongue made efforts at speech. When she held out her claw, the woman understood and felt for her purse. Wolfishly the old hag snatched and put into her mouth the coin, and as the now merry driver, followed by Mag, came, she shook a warning claw at the giver, and flopped whining in the dust, her hands ostentatiously open and wiping dry eyes.
"'Ello Biddy, on ther booze again!"
The bottle bulging from his coat pocket made speech with him intelligible, despite the impeding coin.
He placed the bottle in the boot of the buggy, and, turning to Mag, said "Give ther poor ole cow a dose!"
"Yes, one in a billy; anything else might make her sick!" said Mag. "I caught 'er jus' now swiggin' away with ther tap in 'er mug!"
He asked his companion would she like a wet. She asked for water, and so great was her need, that, making a barricade of closed lips and teeth to the multitude of apparently wingless mosquitoes thriving in its green tepidity, she moistened her mouth and throat.
"Oh, I say, Billy!" called Mag as he drove off. Her tones suggested her having forgotten an important matter, and he turned eagerly. "W'en's it goin' ter rain?" she shrieked, convulsed with merriment.
"Go an' crawl inter a 'oller log!" he shouted angrily.
"No, but truly, Billy." Billy turned again. "Give my love to yaller Lizer; thet slues yer!"
They had not gone far before he looked round again. "Gord!" he cried excitedly. "Look at Mag goin' through 'er ole woman!"
Mag had the old woman's head between her knees, dentist—fashion, and seemed to concentrate upon her victim's mouth, whose feeble impotence was soon demonstrated by the operator releasing her, and triumphantly raising her hand.
What the finger and thumb held the woman knew and the other guessed.
"By Gord. Eh! thet's prime; ain't it? No flies on Mag; not a fly!" he said, admiringly.
"See me an' 'er?" he asked, as he drove on.
His tone suggested no need to reply, and his listener did not. A giddy unreality took the sting from everything, even from her desire to beseech him to turn back to the siding, and leave her there to wait for the train to take her back to civilization. She felt she had lost her mental balance. Little matters became distorted, and the greater shrivelled.
He was now more communicative, and the oaths and adjectives so freely used were surely coined for such circumstances. "Damned" the wretched, starving, and starved sheep looked and were; "bloody" the beaks of the glutted crows; "blarsted" the whole of the plain they drove through!
Gaping cracks suggested yawning graves, and the skeleton fingers of the drooping myalls seemingly pointed to them.
"See me an' Mag?" he asked again. "No flies on Mag; not a wink 'bout 'er!" He chuckled in tribute. "Ther wus thet damned flash fool, Jimmy Fernatty," he continued "—ther blanky fool; 'e never 'ad no show with Mag. An' yet 'e'd go down there! It wus two mile furder this way, yet damned if ther blanky fool wouldn't come this way every time, 'less ther boss 'e wus with 'im, 'stead er goin' ther short cut—ther way I come this mornin'. An' every time Mag ud make 'im part 'arf a quid! I was on'y there jus' 'bout five minits meself, an' I stuck up nea'ly 'arf a quid! An' there's four gates" (he flogged the horse and painted them crimson when he remembered them) "this way, more'n on ther way I come this mornin'."
Presently he gave her the reins with instructions to drive through one. It seemed to take a long time to close it, and he had to fix the back of the buggy before he opened it, and after it was closed.
After getting out several times in quick succession to fix the back of the buggy when there was no gate, he seemed to forget the extra distance. He kept his hand on hers when she gave him the reins, and bade her "keep up 'er pecker". "Someone would soon buck up ter 'er if their boss wusn't on." But the boss it seemed was a "terrer for young uns. Jimmy Fernatty 'as took up with a yaller piece an' is livin' with 'er. But not me; thet's not me! I'm like ther boss, thet's me! No yeller satin for me!"
He watched for the effect of this degree of taste on her.
Though she had withdrawn her hand, he kept winking at her, and she had to move her feet to the edge of the buggy to prevent his pressing against them. He told her with sudden anger that any red black-gin was as good as a half chow any day, and it was no use gammoning for he knew what she was.
"If Billy Skywonkie 'ad ter string onter yaller Lizer, more 'air on 'is chest fer doin' so" (striking his own). "I ken get as many w'ite gins as I wanter, an' I'd as soon tackle a gin as a chow anyways!"
On his next visit to the back of the buggy she heard the crash of glass breaking against a tree. After a few snatches of song he lighted his pipe, and grew sorrowfully reminiscent.
"Yes s'elp me, nea'ly 'arf a quid! An' thet coloured ole 'og of a cow of a mother, soon's she's off ther booze, 'll see thet she gets it!" Then he missed his silk handkerchief. "Ghost!" he said, breathing heavily, "Mag's snavelled it! Lizer 'll spot thet's gone soon's we get 'ithin coo-ee of 'er!"
Against hope he turned and looked along the road; felt every pocket, lifted his feet, and looked under the mat. His companion, in reply, said she had not seen it since his visit to the shanty.
"My Gord!" he said, "Mag's a fair terror!" He was greatly troubled till the braggart in him gave an assertive flicker. "Know wot I'll do ter Lizer soon's she begins ter start naggin' at me?" He intended this question as an insoluble conundrum, and waited for no surmises. "Fill 'er mug with this!" The shut fist he shook was more than a mugful. "'Twouldn' be ther first time I done it, nor ther lars'." But the anticipation seemed little comfort to him.
The rest of the journey was done in silence, and without even a peep at the sky. When they came to the homestead gate he said his throat felt as though a "goanner" had crawled into it and died. He asked her for a pin and clumsily dropped it in his efforts to draw the collar up to his ears, but had better luck with a hair-pin.
He appeared suddenly subdued and sober, and as he took his seat after closing the gate, he offered her his hand, and said, hurriedly, "No 'arm done, an' no 'arm meant; an' don't let on ter my missus—thet's 'er on the verander—thet we come be ther shanty."
It was dusk, but through it she saw that the woman was dusky too.
"Boss in, Lizer?" There was contrition and propitiation in his voice.
"You've bin a nice blanky time," said his missus, "an' lucky fer you, Billy Skywonkie, 'e ain't."
With bowed head, his shoulders making kindly efforts to hide his ears, he sat silent and listening respectfully. The woman in the buggy thought that the volubility of the angry half-caste's tongue was the nearest thing to perpetual motion. Under her orders both got down, and from a seat under the open window in the little room to which Lizer had motioned, she gave respectful attention to the still rapidly flowing tirade. The offence had been some terrible injustice to a respectable married woman, "slavin' an' graftin' an' sweatin' from mornin' ter night, for a slungin' idlin' lazy blaggard." In an indefinable way the woman felt that both of them were guilty, and to hide from her part of the reproof was mean and cowardly. The half-caste from time to time included her, and by degrees she understood that the wasted time of which Lizer complained was supposed to have been dissipated in flirtation. Neither the shanty nor Mag had mention.
From a kitchen facing the yard a Chinaman came at intervals, and with that assumption of having mastered the situation in all its bearings through his thorough knowledge of the English tongue, he shook his head in calm, shocked surprise. His sympathies were unmistakably with Lizer, and he many times demonstrated his grip of the grievance by saying, "By Cli' Billy, it's a bloo'y shame!"
Maybe it was a sense of what was in his mind that made the quivering woman hide her face when virtuous Ching Too came to look at her. She was trying to eat when a dog ran into the dining-room, and despite the violent beating of her heart, she heard the rouseabout tell the boss as he unsaddled his horse, "The on'y woman I see was a 'alf chow, an' she ses she's the one, an' she's in ther dinin'room 'avin' a tuck-in."
She was too giddy to stand when the boss entered, but she turned her mournful eyes on him, and, supporting herself by the table, stood and faced him.
He kept on his hat, and she, watching, saw curiosity and surprise change into anger as he looked at her.
"What an infernal cheek you had to come! Who sent you?" he asked stormily.
She told him, and added that she had no intention of remaining.
"How old?" She made no reply. His last thrust, as in disgust he strode out, had the effect of a galvanic bakery on her dying body.
Her bedroom was recking with a green heavy scent. Empty powder-boxes and rouge-pots littered the dressing-table, and various other aids to nature evidenced her predecessor's frailty. From a coign in its fastness a black spider eyed her malignantly, and as long as the light lasted she watched it.
The ringing of a bell slung outside in the fork of a tree awoke her before dawn. It was mustering—bush stocktaking—and all the stationhands were astir. There was a noise of galloping horses being driven into the stockyard, and the clamour of the men as they caught and saddled them. Above the clatter of plates in the kitchen she could hear the affected drawl of the Chinaman talking to Lizer. She trod heavily along the passage, preparing the boss's breakfast. This early meal was soon over, and with the dogs snapping playfully at the horses' heels, all rode off.
Spasmodic bars of "A Bicycle Built for Two" came from the kitchen, "Mayly, Mayly, give me answer do!" There was neither haste nor anxiety in the singer's tones. Before the kitchen fire, oblivious to the heat, stood the Chinaman cook, inert from his morning's opium. It was only nine, but this was well on in the day for Ching, whose morning began at four.
He ceased his song as she entered. "You come Sydiney? Ah! You mally? Ah! Sydiney welly ni' place. This placee welly dly—too muchee no lain—welly dly."
She was watching his dog. On a block lay a flitch of bacon, and across the freshly cut side the dog drew its tongue, then snapped at the flies. "That dog will eat the bacon," she said.
"No!" answered the cook. "'E no eat 'em—too saw."
It was salt; she had tried it for breakfast.
He began energetically something about, "by an' by me getty mally. By Cli' no 'alf cas—too muchee longa jlaw." He laughed and shook his head, reminiscent of "las' a night", and waited for applause. But, fascinated, she still watched the dog, who from time to time continued to take "saw" with his flies.
"Go ou' si', Sir," said the cook in a spirit of rivalry. The dog stood and snapped. "Go ou' si', I say!" No notice from the dog "Go ou' si', I tella you!" stamping his slippered feet and taking a fire-stick. The dog leisurely sat down and looked at his master with mild reproof. "Go insi' then, any bloo'y si' you li'!" but pointing to their joint bedroom with the lighted stick. The dog went to the greasy door, saw that the hens sitting on the bed were quietly laying eggs to go with the bacon, and came back.
She asked him where was the rouseabout who had driven her in yesterday.
"Oh, Billy Skywonkie, 'e mally alri'! Lizer 'im missie!" He went on to hint that affection there was misplaced, but that he himself was unattached.
She saw the rouseabout rattle into the yard in a spring cart. He let down the backboard and dumped three sheep under a light gallows. Their two front feet were strapped to one behind.
He seemed breathless with haste. "Oh, I say!" he called out to her. "Ther boss 'e tole me this mornin' thet I wus ter tell you, you wus ter sling yer 'ook. To do a get," he explained. "So bundle yer duds tergether quick an' lively! Liza's down at ther tank, washin'. Le'ss get away afore she sees us, or she'll make yer swaller yer chewers." Lowering his voice, he continued: "I wanter go ter ther shanty—on'y ter get me 'ankerchief."
He bent and strained back a sheep's neck, drew the knife and steel from his belt, and skilfully danced an edge on the knife.
She noticed that the sheep lay passive, with its head back till its neck curved in a bow, and that the glitter of the knife was reflected in its eye