POETRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4792, 8 September 1883, Page 3

POETRY.

» ■ HOW HB DIED. (Ths BulUtin.) "Taka my horse," said tbe squatter to Nabbige— " 'tis fort/ long miles at tbe least • Bide m it all heirs devils rede after, and don't spare yourself or the beast ; And mark me, ny core, it I hear that yon stop for as maoh as a ni>, | I'll hide yon while God gives me strength, and then pass Curly Johnson the whip. • Give the doctor this letter, and tell him to get his best horses and drive Ai he never b&B driven before, if he waste to find Freddie alive ; Bay I'U pay him a. doien times over if he flogs them until they drop dead, 1 And be there in two hours, or by G — " (there is \ no need to add what he said). , There was no need of threats to urge Nabbage - one ' instant, ard finp on the bock * i Of the boss's blood snare, he was flying away down { the dimly-marked track— | Away in tke thickening darkness, with the hand of an awf nl despair On hia soul, for the help that was hopeless for a life that was pa»t even prayer. Kot a man on the station liked Nabbage— he held j himself coldly aloof From the lads in the hat, and hie eyes always dwelt on the floor or the roof ; Be was pock-marked and wrinkled and slouched, and at meal-times sat ever apart, Ab though nursing some scorn untranslated that grew in tbe shade of his heart. At first all hiß mates thought him Bulky, and said he was putting it on; Then, the sense of tbe hnt, being taken, decided him jnst a bit gone) But Stumpy, the cook, held the view that the man was a natnral skunk. And to heighten the publio disfavour be Oft went aforos and goWinmk, Carly Johnson, thi super., despised him, and never neglected a ehaaoe To bully and snmb the poor wretch, who replied not with ev*n a glance; He was general drudge at the homestead, aad slaved in a spiritless way At whatever they told him 'to do, for whatever they f anoied to pay. Btrange tbat Freddie, the master's one darling, the golden-haired, impudent boy, With the slang of the bosh on his lips, and the great eyes of Helen of Troy— The eager imperious yonng master, whose talk was .of yearling and brands— Should pick out this maa for a cham, and ignore tbe more sociable handa. Bnt it was so, and often and eftem from daybreak till set of tbe sun The two rode away, through the summer far ont on tho limitless run— the boy on his favourite pony, and Nabbage— I think yon cen guess That the steed Curly John' en let him have was not of the build of Black Bess. ' And everyone noticed that Nabbage grew gentle and sweet to the child, And a rumour spread wildly abroad that one night in the hut he had smiled Ab a man might whose thoughts were away in the grava of ono oherished and kissed, While hia comrad«B grew heated at euohre, or - amoked their unspeakable twiat. And things went on thus till one day when the gnm leaves hung lifelessly down In the haze of a ring of bußh-flres that by night maie eaoh hill seem a town. They had yarded some steers to be branded, a wildlooking, dangerous lot, And Freddie had kiadled hia fire, and the iron wbb just getting hotWhen Joe, the new boundary-rider whose oonduot was painfully flash. Passed down by his side of tho fence* hitching im his new silk-woven saeh, All at once caflie a tush, aa of water, and Joe made one spring passed the gote Whie* held for a minute, then crashed with the atrain of the multiplied weight — And Freddie, poor Freddie, looked up, with a laugh, to see what bad gone wrong, When thirty mad steers burst npon him, and 'trampled and tossed him along ; Every man rashed at once to his help, and they lifted him, silent ani white - And that was the reason why Kabb'ge Wftfl riding away through the night • ••••• Every light on the hills ont of viow, in the dim solemn glens not a light, Not a sonad or a stir in the depths of the marvellous hush of the night ; Not a puis* or a heartbeat of Nature, no break in the infinite rest, Every Btar with the eyelight ef God, lidded down in the East and tho West. Half a mile from a town wrapped in midnight, a broken-necked horse at a creek, And a man with death's dew on his forehead and blood on his ooat and hia oheek I "I am dying— l feel death upon me, but yet— even j yet— if God wills I may crawl on my knees to the dootor's -yes I thfc ' is the laat ot the UiU?, .'j "To the left is the way I am eertaJn-Qod grant that it be not tOO lßtfl- J * J I Qod grant that my life way be paid for the life of . my poor little mate 1 Burling oUld of the woman I loved in the days *hen-0 Gedl is it vain f No i for yoar sake, my lost angel's boy, I can fight yet awhile with this pain, * "Tears ago, when the enrse Overlook me, wheii drink dunj its ohain round my lot, She turned with a shudder of loathing and scorn from the piti?nl sot s Bat to-night may be large with atonement—tonight, if her spirit may know How and why I am wrestling with Death, may redeem the lore lost long ago !

"Not two hundred yards now I If I reaoh it, though even to die at the door, This letter will tell him -Ob, Heaven, the thought never strnek me before : The doctor will see I am hurted, and stop to attend me 1 What war Can I tlii k of in taao to prevent half a moment ot need ess dtlay f Hal I lave it He knows. Hie the rest, that onehalf of mv time I am • tight,' I'll pretend that I stopped out at Brown's and got drunk- for the last time— to-night; I'll muffle this handkerchief weU round my face, and he'll not see the'mark Of the rock on my head wh-sre I feU with the mare, when we leaped in the dark." So the man, like a serpent disabled, writhes on with deep agonisod moans, And here and there, tinges with blood fallen logs, and dead twigft. and sbarp stones, Till be wearily drag% round a garden, and finds a warm light in the gloom, And crawls up aud beatß with hia hand on the door of the young dootor's room. A man most deoidedly drank, with a letter held out in his hand f lhe dootor oan't quite make it out, and proceeds in stern words to demand What he wants? who is heP but the drunkard, half-rolling away from the door. Curls np where tbe light oannot reach him, and calmly commence*, t<? spore, Then the dootor tears Open the letter, and yells tO the stable-boy : "Dick, Fix np Starlight and Fan in the buggy, and have 'em areund pretty quick." Then angrily kioks the fallen drunkard, and seising the drugs he may need, Drives away up the street with the greys at the uttermost reach of their speed. Then the drunkard half rises and listens, a wistful Btrange smile on his face. And mutters • " Thank God, they believed it I— in two hours the/11 be at the place, And whether he lives or has wandered to dwell with his mother above, I have triumphed awhile over death for the boy with the eyea of my love," »♦*««« So he died. And I oan't well help thinking tbat if, after all they've to say— • I mean Tyndall and Darwin, and snch like, the eighty-ton guns ot a day— Af{er all they have proved about plasma, it chanced BO excessively odd That the levers and springs they lay bare are controlled by the right hand of God. Not a new God with all thtir improvements, but Bimply the old-fashioned Lord Whom our unscientific progenitors knelt to at night and adored— If the backward old fogies who Btill fancy Christ our pre-eminent Friend, In defiance of Science and Season should hold all the trumps in the endIt may be, the rousabout ewiper who rode fer the doctor that night Ib in Heaven with the bishops and priests, robed and sceptred and shining with light j It may be that Freddie and Nabbage roam over plainß pleasant and wide, Where wings take the place of bush horses, and hound'ries are spacious to ride. J. Fa&bxi>i>. Gonlburn, July 18. a". i ii