“Her chimbly might have been smokin’, Dave,” we shouted arter him, but he was too dazed like to ketch on.
Well, in a month or two we was campin’ there agen, an’ we found she’d fenced in a lane to the crick she had no right to, an’ we had to take the bullicks a couple o’ miles round to grass an’ water. Well, the first mornin’ we seen her down in the corner of her paddick near the camp drivin’ some heifers, an’ Billy Grimshaw went up to the fence an’ spoke to her. Billy was the only one of us that dared face her and he was the only one she was ever civil to—p’r’aps because Billy had a squint an’ a wall eye and that put her out of countenance.
Billy took off his hat very respectful an’ sings out, “Mrs Hardwick.” (It was Billy’s bullicks she’d “pounded,” by the way.)
“What is it?” she says.
“I want to speak to you, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy.
“Well, speak,” she says. “I’ve got no time to waste talkin’ to bullick-drivers.”
“Well, the fact is, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy, “that I want to explain somethin’, an’ apologize for that young scamp of a nephew o’ mine, young Tommy. He ain’t here or I’d make him beg your pardon hisself, or I’d cut him to pieces with the bullick-whip. I heard all about Dave Regan sendin’ you that stinkin’ fish, an’ I think it was a damned mean, dirty thing to do—to send stinkin’ fish to a woman, an’ especially to a widder an’ an unprotected woman like you, Mrs Hardwick. I’ve had mothers an’ sisters of me own. An’ I want to tell you that I’m sorry a relation o’ mine ever had anythin’ to do with it. As soon as I heerd of it I give young Tommy a lambastin’ he won’t forgot in a hurry.”
“Did Tommy know the fish was bad?” she says.
“It doesn’t matter a rap,” says Billy; “he had no right to go takin’ messages from nobody to nobody.”
Mrs Hardwick thought a while. Then she says: “P’r’aps arter all Dave Regan didn’t know the fish was bad. I’ve often thought I might have been in too much of a hurry. Things goes bad so quick out here in this weather. An’ Dave was always very friendly. I can’t understand why he’d do a dirty thing on me like that. I never done anything to Dave.”