"Your arrival, Smithers," said the other, as Bob entered the store, "is very opportune. I have just discovered a blackguardly black fellow stealing tobacco, and it appears from my storekeeper's account, he is a servant of Mr. Ferguson. What would you propose we should do with him?"
"I would say flog him," replied Smithers; "take him into the bush, so that his voice cannot be heard at the house, and tie him up to a tree; give him a taste of the stock-whip, and send him home to his master, with a request that if he takes a fancy to the brutes, he either keeps them on his run, or teaches them to exhibit better propensities when they visit his neighbours."
"A capital idea, by Jove! Smithers," exclaimed Rainsfield; "we will certainly give him a tickling. I have got a fellow on the station that would cut a piece clean out of the hide of a bullock with his stock-whip. I will get him to manipulate; and I calculate, our darkie here will not trouble us with his presence again." As he said this he joined his companion in a burst of merriment at the wonder depicted in the countenance of their almost unconscious victim, who evidently anticipated rough usage, though perfectly ignorant of the nature of the sentence passed upon him. Rainsfield then called one of the men, and directed him to get Smith, the stock-man, to take the black fellow into the bush for a few hundred yards, and tie him up to a tree with his back bared, and take a stock-whip with him, and await the coming of himself and Mr. Smithers.
"You surely, gentlemen, do not intend putting your threat into execution," cried Billing, who was standing amazed at the coolness of their preparations. "I appeal, sir, to your sense of honour, to your love of justice, to your charitableness, to induce you to desist from the perpetration of so vile an outrage on humanity. How can you punish, sirs, with such severity a poor, ignorant black, whose offence has been so trifling, that no honourable man would notice it? Besides, gentlemen, I maintain it is unjust to punish a poor aboriginal for an action in which he perceives or knows no wrong. If you persist in the fulfilment of this barbarity, and violation of your charge as Justices of the Peace, let your own consciences be your accusers."
The result of this harangue was only the production of an inordinate burst of laughter from both Rainsfield and Smithers; who, without any further notice of the philanthropic storekeeper, than a forcible request from the latter to visit certain regions, the utterance of which would be unpleasant to ears polite, they followed the men to the place of punishment.
We will not accompany them to witness this scene, the disgusting and unfeeling nature of which we cannot sufficiently condemn, but merely state that for some minutes the air was rent by the shrieks of the victim; while the two gentlemen and J.P. watched the process, and then returned arm in arm to the house in high glee. Upon reaching the domicile, and discovering that the pic-nic party had come back, Smithers drew his companion away, and told him he wished to have a few minutes conversation with him privately; whereupon Rainsfield, first ascertaining that Eleanor had retired to bed, that his wife was with her, and that his brother and Ferguson had gone to Fern Vale, returned with his companion to the store: in which they locked themselves. What was the nature of their conversation we can pretty correctly conjecture; as also, no doubt, can our readers. It will, therefore, be unnecessary for us to trespass on their privacy; to the full enjoyment of which we will leave them.
CHAPTER XII.
"Then come, my sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress." Wordsworth.