He was beginning to think her squeamish. He asked her whether she had not had enough. She would not admit it, and took another shot to prove her spirit. This time she failed, and bore her failure with an equanimity which (in Missy) amounted almost to apathy. That she was neither squeamish nor apathetic, however, was demonstrated very suddenly while the night was still young.
A ring-tailed opossum had been brought to earth by a charge from the muzzle-loader of that stunted young colonial whose eyes were as sharp as his voice—he who had “mooned” the native cat. The others called him Geordie. The three of them were kneeling over the dead “ringy,” and Missy was taking no more notice of them than she could help; only Geordie's was a voice that made itself heard. Missy had taken little stock of what the kneeling men were doing or saying until suddenly she heard:
“Young'uns it is! I told you there was young 'uns! That little beggar's as dead as his mother, but this one ain't. 'Ere, come off 'er back, can't yer? She ain't no more good to you now, do you 'ear?”
This was Geordie's manner of speech to the bunch of breathing fur that stuck tight to the dead doe's back, whence his fingers were busy disengaging it; but Geordie suddenly found himself on his back in the grass, and when he picked himself up it was Miss Oliver herself who was kneeling where he had knelt, and even going on with his work. It took her some moments, and when done her hands were bloody in the moonshine. Then, first she took that bit of warm fur and nursed it in her neck, stroking it with her chin. And next she turned a calm face up to her companions, and said distinctly to them all, “I call this a damned shame, so I tell you straight!” Indeed she was anything but squeamish.
She lowered her eyes immediately, undid three buttons, and slipped the small opossum into her bosom. There she fixed it, with great care, but not the smallest fuss; and looking up once more, saw the three hirelings walking off together through the trees.
“I tell you,” she called after them—shaking her fist at their backs—“I tell you it's the damnedest shame that ever was!”
The words rang clear through the clear night, then found an answer at Missy's side. “You are quite right. It is. And now won't you get up and come back home, Missy?”
“Jack!” cried the girl faintly, as she stumbled to her feet. “I'd quite forgotten you were there.”
“I have been here all the time,” said John William.
“Then do tell me what I've been saying,” said Missy, anxiously, as she took his arm and they started homeward. “I couldn't see no more and keep my scalp fixed. I hope to God I haven't been swearing, have I?”