English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
Jale lay on his charpoy in the tent and asked the doctor and the man
who catered to the refreshments--he was the nearest at the time--to
witness his will. "I don't know how long my arms will be workable,"
said Jale, "and we'd better get this business over." The private
arrangements of the will concern nobody but Jale's friends; but there
was one clause that was rather curious. "Who was that man with the
brindled hair who put me up for a night until the tent was ready? The
man who rode down to pick me up when I was smashed. Nice sort of fellow
he seemed." "Hordene?" said the doctor. "Yes, Hordene. Good chap,
Hordene. He keeps Bull whisky. Write down that I give this Johnnie
Hordene _Thurinda_ for his own, if he can sell the other ponies.
_Thurinda's_ a good mare. He can enter her--post-entry--for the All
Horse Sweep if he likes--on the last day. Have you got that down? I
suppose the Stewards'll recognise the gift?" "No trouble about that,"
said the doctor. "All right. Give him the other two ponies to sell.
They're entered for the last day, but I shall be dead then. Tell him to
send the money to----" Here he gave an address. "Now I'll sign and you
sign, and that's all. This deadness is coming up between my shoulders."
Jale lived, dying very slowly, till the third day's racing, and up
till the time of the lotteries on the fourth day's racing. The doctor
was rather surprised. Hordene came in to thank him for his gift, and
to suggest it would be much better to sell _Thurinda_ with the others.
She was the best of them all, and would have fetched twelve hundred on
her looking-over merits only. "Don't you bother," said Jale. "You take
her. I rather liked you. I've got no people, and that Bull whisky was
first-class stuff. I'm pegging out now, I think."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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