While the Billy Boils, Henry Lawson [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

his hat forward with one hand and felt the back of his head as though he had not been previously aware of its existence.

We “ran” Malachi to believe that the bricklayer was mad on the subject of phrenology, and was suspected of having killed several persons in order to obtain their skulls for experimental purposes. We further said that he had been heard to say that Malachi’s skull was a most extraordinary one, and so we advised him to be careful.

Malachi occupied a hut some distance from the station, and one night, the last night of the bricklayer’s stay, as Malachi sat smoking over the fire the door opened quietly and the phrenologist entered. He carried a bag with a pumpkin in the bottom of it, and, sitting down on a stool, he let the bag down with a bump on the floor between his feet. Malachi was badly scared, but he managed to stammer out⁠—

“ ’Ello!”

“ ’Ello!” said the phrenologist.

There was an embarrassing silence, which was at last broken by “Bricky” saying:⁠—“How are you gettin’ on, Malachi?”

“Oh, jist right,” replied Malachi.

Nothing was said for a while, until Malachi, after fidgeting a good deal on his stool, asked the bricklayer when he was leaving the station.

“Oh, I’m going away in the morning, early,” said he. “I’ve jist been over to Jimmy Nowlett’s camp, and as I was passing I thought I’d call and get your head.”

“What?”

“I come for your skull.”

“Yes,” the phrenologist continued, while Malachi sat horror-stricken; “I’ve got Jimmy Nowlett’s skull here,” and he lifted the bag and lovingly felt the pumpkin⁠—it must have weighed forty pounds. “I spoilt one of his best bumps with the tomahawk. I had to hit him twice, but it’s no use crying over spilt milk.” Here he drew a heavy shingling-hammer out of the bag and wiped off with his sleeve something that looked like blood. Malachi had been edging round for the door, and now he made a rush for it. But the skull-fancier was there before him.

“Gor-sake you don’t want to murder me!” gasped Malachi.

“Not if I can get your skull any other way,” said Bricky.

“Oh!” gasped Malachi⁠—and then, with a vague idea that it was best to humour a lunatic, he continued, in a tone meant to be offhand and careless⁠—“Now, look here, if yer only waits till I die you can have my whole skelington and welcome.”

“Now Malachi,” said the phrenologist sternly, “d’ye think I’m a fool? I ain’t going to stand any humbug. If yer acts sensible you’ll be quiet, and it’ll soon be over, but if yer⁠—”

Malachi did not wait to hear the rest. He made a spring for the back of the hut and through it, taking down a large new sheet of stringy-bark in his flight. Then he could be heard loudly ejaculating “It’s a caution!” as he went through the bush like a startled kangaroo, and he didn’t stop till he reached the station.

Jimmy Nowlett and I had been peeping through a crack in the same sheet of bark that Malachi dislodged; it fell on us and bruised us somewhat, but it wasn’t enough to knock the fun out of the thing.

When Jimmy Nowlett crawled out from under the bark he had to lie down on Malachi’s bunk to laugh, and even for some time afterwards it was not unusual for Jimmy to wake up in the’ night and laugh till we wished him dead.

I should like to finish here, but there remains something more to be said about Malachi.

One of the best cows at the homestead had a calf, about which she made a great deal of fuss. She was ordinarily a quiet, docile creature, and, though somewhat fussy after calving no one ever dreamed that she would injure anyone. It happened one day that the squatter’s daughter and her intended husband, a Sydney exquisite, were strolling in a paddock where the cow was. Whether the cow objected to the masher or his lady love’s red parasol, or whether she suspected designs upon her progeny, is not certain; anyhow, she went for them. The young man saw the cow coming first, and he gallantly struck a beeline for the fence, leaving the girl to manage for herself. She wouldn’t have managed very well if Malachi hadn’t been passing just then. He saw the girl’s danger and ran to intercept the cow with no weapon but his hands.

It didn’t last long. There was a roar, a rush, and a cloud of dust, out of which the cow presently emerged, and went scampering back to the bush in which her calf was hidden.

We carried Malachi home and laid him on a bed. He had a terrible wound in the groin, and the blood soaked through the bandages like water. We did all that was possible for him, the boys killed the squatter’s best horse and spoilt two others riding for a doctor, but it was of no use. In the last half-hour of his life we all gathered round Malachi’s bed; he was only twenty-two. Once he said:

“I wonder how mother’ll manage now?”

“Why, where’s your mother?” someone asked gently; we had never dreamt that Malachi might have someone to love him and be proud of him.

“In Bathurst,” he answered wearily⁠—“she’ll take on awful, I ’spect, she was awful fond of me⁠—we’ve been pulling together this last ten years⁠—mother and me⁠—we wanted to make it all right for my little brother Jim⁠—poor Jim!”

“What’s wrong with Jim?” someone asked.

“Oh, he’s blind,” said Malachi⁠—“always was⁠—we wanted to make it all right for him agin time he grows up⁠—I⁠—I managed to send home about⁠—about forty pounds a year⁠—we bought a bit of ground, and⁠—and⁠—I think⁠—I’m going now. Tell ’em, Harry⁠—tell ’em how it was⁠—”

I had to go outside then. I couldn’t stand it any more. There was a lump in my throat and I’d have given anything to wipe out my share in the practical jokes, but it was too late now.

Malachi was dead when I went in again,