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Article CATHERINE CARMICHAEL; on, THREE YEARS RUNNING. ← Page 11 of 15 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Catherine Carmichael; On, Three Years Running.
there had been daylight , and John Carmichael had been there . Now it was pitch dark , though it was in the middle of summer , and the waters were running very strong . The ferryman refused at first to put the buggy on the raft , bidding old Carmichael wait till the next morning . It was Christmas Eve , he said , and he did not care to be drowned on Christmas Eve . Nor was such to be his destiny . But it was the destiny of Peter Carmichael . The waters went him and of his horsesAt three
over one . o ' clock in the morning his body was brought home to Warriwa , lying across the back of the other . The ferryman had been unable to save the man's life , but had got the body , and had brought it home to tho young , widow just twelve months after the day on which she had become a wife .
CHAPTEK III . CHKISTJIAS DAY . NO . 8 . TIUSKIS she was , on the morning of that Christmas Day , with the ferryman and that old woman , with the half-idiot boy , and the body of her dead husband ! She was so stunned that she sat motionless for hours
, with the corpse close to her , lying stretched out on the verandah , with a sheet over it . It is a part of the cruelty of the life which is lived m desolate places , far away , that when death comes , the small incidents of death are not mitigated to the sufferer by the hands of strangers . If the poorest wife here at home becomes a widow , some attendant hands will close the glazed eye and cover up the limbs , and close the coffin which is there at hand ; and then it will be taken and hidden for
away ever . There is an appropriate spot , though it be but under the poorhouse wall . Here there was no appropriate spot , no ready hand , no coffin , no coroner with his authority , no parish officer ready with his directions . She sat there numb , motionless , voiceless , thinking where John Carmichael might be . Could it be that he would come back to her , and take from her that ghastly duty of getting rid of the object that was lying within a yard or two of her arm ? She tried to weep , telling herself that , as a wife now widowed , she was bound to
weep for her husband . But there was not a tear , nor a sob , nor a moan . She argued it with herself , saying that she would grieve for him now that he was dead . But she could not grieve , —not for that ; only for her own wretchedness and desolation . If the waters had gone over her instead of him , then how merciful would heaven have been to her ! The misery of her condition came home to her with its full weight , —her desolation , her powerlessness , her friendlessness , the absence of all interest in life , of all for hvmgbut she could not induce
reason ; herself to say , even to herself , that she was struck with anguish on account of him . That voice , that touch , the eunning leer of that eye , would never trouble her again . She had been freed from something . She became angry with herself because it was in this way that she regarded it but it was thus that she continued to regard it . She had threatened once to kill him —to kill him should he speak a word as to which she bade him to be silent he
. Now was dead , —whether he had spoken that word or not . Then she wondered whether he had spoken it , and she wondered , also , what John Carmichael would say or do when he should hear that his kinsman was no more . So she sat motionless for hours within her room , but with the door open on to the verandah , and the feet of the corpse within a few yards of her chair .
Tho old ferryman took the horse , and went out under the boy ' s guidance in quest of the shepherds . Distances are large on these sheep-runs , and a shepherd with his flock is not always easily found . It was nearly evening before he returned with two of these men , and then they dug the grave , —not very far away , as the body must be earned in their arms ; and then they buried him , putting up a rough palisade around the spot to guard it , if it might be so guarded for a while , from the rats . She
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Catherine Carmichael; On, Three Years Running.
there had been daylight , and John Carmichael had been there . Now it was pitch dark , though it was in the middle of summer , and the waters were running very strong . The ferryman refused at first to put the buggy on the raft , bidding old Carmichael wait till the next morning . It was Christmas Eve , he said , and he did not care to be drowned on Christmas Eve . Nor was such to be his destiny . But it was the destiny of Peter Carmichael . The waters went him and of his horsesAt three
over one . o ' clock in the morning his body was brought home to Warriwa , lying across the back of the other . The ferryman had been unable to save the man's life , but had got the body , and had brought it home to tho young , widow just twelve months after the day on which she had become a wife .
CHAPTEK III . CHKISTJIAS DAY . NO . 8 . TIUSKIS she was , on the morning of that Christmas Day , with the ferryman and that old woman , with the half-idiot boy , and the body of her dead husband ! She was so stunned that she sat motionless for hours
, with the corpse close to her , lying stretched out on the verandah , with a sheet over it . It is a part of the cruelty of the life which is lived m desolate places , far away , that when death comes , the small incidents of death are not mitigated to the sufferer by the hands of strangers . If the poorest wife here at home becomes a widow , some attendant hands will close the glazed eye and cover up the limbs , and close the coffin which is there at hand ; and then it will be taken and hidden for
away ever . There is an appropriate spot , though it be but under the poorhouse wall . Here there was no appropriate spot , no ready hand , no coffin , no coroner with his authority , no parish officer ready with his directions . She sat there numb , motionless , voiceless , thinking where John Carmichael might be . Could it be that he would come back to her , and take from her that ghastly duty of getting rid of the object that was lying within a yard or two of her arm ? She tried to weep , telling herself that , as a wife now widowed , she was bound to
weep for her husband . But there was not a tear , nor a sob , nor a moan . She argued it with herself , saying that she would grieve for him now that he was dead . But she could not grieve , —not for that ; only for her own wretchedness and desolation . If the waters had gone over her instead of him , then how merciful would heaven have been to her ! The misery of her condition came home to her with its full weight , —her desolation , her powerlessness , her friendlessness , the absence of all interest in life , of all for hvmgbut she could not induce
reason ; herself to say , even to herself , that she was struck with anguish on account of him . That voice , that touch , the eunning leer of that eye , would never trouble her again . She had been freed from something . She became angry with herself because it was in this way that she regarded it but it was thus that she continued to regard it . She had threatened once to kill him —to kill him should he speak a word as to which she bade him to be silent he
. Now was dead , —whether he had spoken that word or not . Then she wondered whether he had spoken it , and she wondered , also , what John Carmichael would say or do when he should hear that his kinsman was no more . So she sat motionless for hours within her room , but with the door open on to the verandah , and the feet of the corpse within a few yards of her chair .
Tho old ferryman took the horse , and went out under the boy ' s guidance in quest of the shepherds . Distances are large on these sheep-runs , and a shepherd with his flock is not always easily found . It was nearly evening before he returned with two of these men , and then they dug the grave , —not very far away , as the body must be earned in their arms ; and then they buried him , putting up a rough palisade around the spot to guard it , if it might be so guarded for a while , from the rats . She