So we go over. The place is like a furnace, and the glass registers one hundred and twenty-seven degrees.
‘And you’ve been here some years!’ I gasp, sliding off my chair, a wet, limp heap, on to the floor, and staying there.
‘I have, indade, sorr,’ replies he. ‘The first summer I was minded to blow me head off wid me pistol. The second was near as bad; but I don’t fale ’em so much now. Whin the wet do come, ut’s almost as thryin’; for the san’-flies an’ miskitties bangs Banagher. Ay, ut’s dull an’ lonesome like, sure enough, till the b’ys comes in for a change; an’ thin, if ye’ll belave ut, Jillibeejee is as ructious a towneen as is on God’s earth.’
‘Come in from where? Where the deuce can anybody come in from? And who in the world would come [121] ]to such a hole as this ‘for a change?’ I ask irritably, whilst wringing my pocket handkerchief, as the heat proves too trying.
‘Whisht!’ replies my host placidly. ‘Ye’ll mebbe have noticed that there’s not many min in Jillibeejee, knockin’ aroun’ like?’
‘Only the fellow,’ I answer, ‘that we put in the verandah.’
‘Ay, he’s iver wan o’ the fust, is Tim Healy,’ says the Officer in Charge. ‘Whin the others are comin’ in, he’ll be afther going back, stone bruk, so he will, poor divil!’
‘In from where? Back to where?’ I cry impatiently.
‘To an’ fro the big stations on the border, over yander,’ replies he, with a wave of his hand westward. ‘To the back av beyant, where they digs dams, an’ sinks wells, an’ fences an’ fights wid the naygurs, an’ herds cattle, an’ gathers up a cheque, and thin comes back like pilicans to their women and children on the edge o’ the wiltherness here. Good b’ys, in the main,’ he continues; ‘just a little rough, perhaps, when the rum’s in. Ye see, sorr, ye can’t expeck much else from the craturs, for, iv this is bad, ut’s Hell utself out yander in the new counthry, where there’s no law, no polis, no nothin’. D’ye wander at the b’ys, now, wantin’ a change out av ut wanst an’ agin?’
‘Well, perhaps not. But what must that other life be like?’