India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
"I was a young chap then, an' mostly went wi' 'osses, leadin' coal and
lead ore; but at th' time I'm tellin' on I was drivin' the waggon-team i'
th' big sumph. I didn't belong to that countryside by rights. I went there
because of a little difference at home, an' at fust I took up wi' a rough
lot. One night we'd been drinkin', an' I must ha' hed more than I could
stand, or happen th' ale was none so good. Though i' them days, By for
God, I never seed bad ale." He flung his arms over his head, and gripped a
vast handful of white violets. "Nah," said he, "I never seed the ale I
could not drink, the bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass I could not
kiss. Well, we mun have a race home, the lot on us. I lost all th' others,
an' when I was climbin' ower one of them walls built o' loose stones, I
comes down into the ditch, stones and all, an' broke my arm. Not as I
knawed much about it, for I fell on th' back of my head, an' was knocked
stupid like. An' when I come to mysen it were mornin', an' I were lyin' on
the settle i' Jesse Roantree's house-place, an' 'Liza Roantree was settin'
sewin'. I ached all ower, and my mouth were like a limekiln. She gave me a
drink out of a china mug wi' gold letters--'A Present from Leeds'--as I
looked at many and many a time at after. 'Yo're to lie still while Dr.
Warbottom comes, because your arm's broken, and father has sent a lad to
fetch him. He found yo' when he was goin' to work, an' carried you here on
his back,' sez she. 'Oa!' sez I; an' I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o'
mysen. 'Father's gone to his work these three hours, an' he said he' tell
'em to get somebody to drive the tram.' The clock ticked, an' a bee comed
in the house, an' they rung i' my head like mill-wheels. An' she give me
another drink an' settled the pillow. 'Eh, but yo're young to be getten
drunk an' such like, but yo' won't do it again, will yo'?'--'Noa,' sez I,
'I wouldn't if she'd not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin'.'"
"Faith, it's a good thing to be nursed by a woman when you're sick!" said
Mulvaney. "Dir' cheap at the price av twenty broken heads."
Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had not been nursed by many
women in his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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