Free Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White

father's shooting match, when all the other servants were still away at the picnic, he had remained in the grooms' quarters, together with his deafness. That deafness of William's was something Mary had never been able to believe in, because of the thundering of her own emotions on the night in question. Yet, he had remained faithful, and in the days of her mother would take them for little drives in an old buggy that had survived. And on a pittance. Though, of course, he was old, nor ate, nor needed very much. By the time Mrs Hare died, he had practically given up shaving, because of a tender skin, yet was always seen in the same length of stubble, with the same rivulet of spittle in the same white ravine. He had the same smell, too, of most old men. Which again could have been a reason why Miss Hare had not taken to him. Old men, on the whole, are smellier than old women.
    It was William, of course, that his mistress told of Peg's death.
    "Well, yes," he said. "I was reckoning she would die. There was nothing to her."
    He was greasing a strap of harness, for which there was no longer any use, but it helped to keep him in practice.
    "I would not have let myself think," began Mary Hare.
    "That was what all you people was such artists at," said William Hadkin, stroking his leather.
    "What do you mean?" asked Miss Hare.
    She began to tremble, but not with rage.
    "As far as I can see, lookin' back and all," William said, "you was the race of pretenders."
    "Some of us had imagination, if that is what you mean."
    "To set the house on fire without the matches!"
    "That is enough, William," said Mary Hare, as she had heard parents. "You must go about Peg."
    "All right! All right!" he said. "Don't agitate me!"
    He stood looking at the holes in the strap.
    "I wonder you stayed if you could not bear us," his mistress said.
    "I stayed," he said, "because I got used to it. There's a lot of that sort of thing going on, you know."
    Because his mistress was always the first to recognize the truth, there was really nothing for her to say.
    The last and worst encounter with William Hadkin occurred a few weeks after her maid's death. She came across him just after he had killed a cock. There was the bird's head, shamefully detached and dead, while William watched and laughed as the body danced out the last steps of life in a shambles of its own blood.
    Mary Hare stood very still. She could not find the strength to move even when her boots were sprinkled with the cock's blood.
    William observed.
    "Well," he said, laughing, "you've gotta eat, if it's only an old stringy rooster."
    And continued to laugh.
    "See," he said, "what I meant the other day? The rooster got so used to it he can dance without his bally head."
    "The way I see it, you are a murderer," accused Mary Hare.
    "What! To kill a cock for you to eat?"
    "There are ways and ways of killing."
    "That is something you should know."
    "How? I?"
    "Ask your dad."
    Mary Hare turned so pale. She remained standing by the woodshed long after the groom had gone about other business. She was left looking at the wattles of the dead cock.
    Soon after that William Hadkin, without a word, sorted his thoughts apparently, and disappeared from Xanadu. Now, at last, I shall be free, and all to the good, murmured Mary Hare, afraid. But remembered the goat, and at once her spirits were restored.
    The goat had appeared already before Peg's death. From where it had come was never discovered. A white doe heavy in kid, it would follow the women for company, choosing its leaves and grass with a certain finical air. After the doe had been delivered of a dead buck, Peg said they should milk their goat, which Mary Hare proceeded to do. She lived for it. In time her mind grew equal to the tranquil wisdom of the goat-mind, and as she squatted in the evening to milk her doe, after they alone were left, their united shadow would seem positively substantial. So much so, the woman's love began to conflict with her