Free Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction by James Doig Page A

£1000. Well, this black boy, ‘Boro,’ I did not cotton to. He was all a ‘waddygalo,’ but a ‘waddygalo’ of the worst tribe—Eepai. You can pick out ‘Combo,’ ‘Eepai,’ ‘Murral,’ and ‘Cubbai’. They have the same types of face, that is to say, a ‘Combo’ resembles a ‘Combo,’ a ‘Murrai’ a ‘Murrai,’ and so on; but a ‘Combo’ is the best of all for physique and good intentions. If an ‘Eepai’ learns anything it is roguery or devildom.
    “But with regard to this ‘Eepai’—‘Boro’—I reckoned I would smarten him up a bit before I had done with him.
    “He needed it. One boot, one spur, about a yard of torn blanket for his ‘swag,’ no shirt, a fearful and wonderful hat with no top to it.
    “You know the way some of these ‘myalls’ ride. So did ‘Boro’; one big toe on one side of the stirrup iron—the inside—next toe on the other, and the foot and all the other toes outside; the one boot thrust well home into the opposite iron. Doesn’t look pretty. But then old Harper never did have any ideas about black fellows, never kept them neat and tidy, never had them properly clothed. If one doesn’t keep some sort of hold on these ‘nigs’, and train them properly, they never will be fit to be seen. I’m particular about it, but the untidiness is in them, and therefore, if you don’t keep a good look out on a trained ‘nig’, he will disgrace your teaching if he gets a chance. Why, one of my own boys, ‘Tommy,’ a Tarcoo black, about fifteen, broke out on one occasion—lapsed into savagery, as I should term it. I got him from his mother. She was old Biddy from the station camp. It was my first trip with him and he’s all right now.
    “I was in at Brandyville. Tommy was in charge of my horses. Used to run them up to the town stockyard every morning. I had him nice and neat, riding-breeches and boots, cabbage-tree hat, spurs regular, not one-sided, and a very nice little darkie he looked. Hair properly dressed by the barber, too. He got his meals at the hotel and a small glass of ale with his dinner. He preferred to sleep, however, the first night, at the blacks’ camp without my leave.
    “Next morning up he comes at breakfast time. ‘Horses all right, Tommy?’ ‘Yowi’ (yes). He had someone else’s hat and shirt on—nothing else. Positively indecent. Dirty too. Hair anyway. Face all over wood-ash.
    “‘Where are your breeches, Tommy?’ ‘Mine been break him trous belongin’ to mine!’ Quite a new state of things. The little brute was entirely demoralised. Never had any morals until I took the trouble to instil them. This wouldn’t do. Was I to go about the country with a nigger in this untidy state? Certainly not. ‘Whose hat and shirt have you got on now, Tommy?’ ‘Nother pfeller, black pfeller, Charlie, cousin belongin’ to mine.’ ‘Where are your own clothes?’ ‘Mine been give ’em alonga ’nother pfeller, black pfeller!’
    “Tableau! ‘ Give ’em away.’ The suit had cost me about three guineas, and the cabbage-tree hat another ten-and-sixpence, to say nothing of the spurs and boots. But you know their horribly irresponsible style, and how it riles one.
    “I took him straight down to the blacks’ camp by the car, and demanded instant reparation, under a threat to the old chief that, unless he complied with my wishes immediately, I should ‘yabber alonga policeman’. That ‘fetched’ him!
    “He collared half a dozen youngsters, and brought them up, yelling fit to wake the dead. One had had Tommy’s hat, another his boots, and another his spurs, at one time or another, but had halved or given away the articles to others, every one of the kids wishing to wear something belonging to my black boy.
    “So these young ‘nigs’ were sent to collar the others, and a furious hullabaloo then took place, mixed, with chivies round the gunyahs, over and through the fires, and in and out of the creek; and it wasn’t until we had