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A big American negro, who’d been a night watchman in Sydney, stepped into the ring and waved his arms and kept time, and as he got excited he moved his hands up and down rapidly, as if he was hauling down a rope in a great hurry through a pulley block above, and he kept saying, “Come down, Lord!” all through the hymn, like a bass accompaniment, “Come down, Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord!” and the quicker be said it the faster he hauled. He was as good as a drum. And, when the hymn was over, he started to testify.

“My frens!” he said, “I was once black as der coals in der mined! I was once black as der ink in der ocean of sin! But now–thank an’ bless the Lord!–I am whiter dan der dribben snow!”

Tom Hall sat down on the edge of the veranda and leaned his head against a post and cried. He had contributed a bob this evening, and he was getting his money’s worth.

Then the Pretty Girl arrived and was pushed forward into the ring. She looked thinner and whiter than I’d ever seen her, and there was a feverish brightness in her eyes that I didn’t like.

“Men!” she said, “this is Christmas Day-.” I didn’t hear any more for, at the sound of her voice, Jack Moonlight jumped up as if he’d sat on a baby. He started forward, stared at her for a moment as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and then said, “Hannah!” short and sharp. She started as if she was shot, gave him a wild look, and stumbled forward; the next moment he had her in his arms and was steering for the private parlour.

I heard Mrs Bothways calling for water and smelling-salts; she was as fat as Watty, and very much like him in the face, but she was emotional and sympathetic. Then presently I heard, through the open window, the Pretty Girl say to Jack, “Oh, Jack, Jack! Why did you go away and leave me like that? It was cruel!”

“But you told me to go, Hannah,” said Jack.

“That-that didn’t make any difference. Why didn’t you write?” she sobbed.

“Because you never wrote to me, Hannah,” he said.

“That–that was no excuse!” she said. “It was so k-k-k-cruel of you, Jack.”

Mrs Bothways pulled down the window. A new-comer asked Watty what the trouble was, and he said that the Army girl had only found her chap, or husband, or long-lost brother or something, but the missus was looking after the business; then he dozed again.

And then we adjourned to the Royal and took the Army with us.

“That’s the way of it,” said Donald Macdonald. “With a woman it’s love or religion; with a man it’s love or the devil.”

“Or with a man,” said Mitchell, presently, “it’s love and the devil both, sometimes, Donald.”

I looked at Mitchell hard, but for all his face expressed he might only have said, “I think it’s going to rain.”

[The end]

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Some definitions and Australian slangs:

anabranch: A bend in a river that has been cut through by the stream. The main current now runs straight, the anabranch diverges and then rejoins. See billabong.

Barcoo-rot. “Persistent ulceration of the skin, chiefly on the hands, and often originating in abrasions”. (Morris, Australian English). Barcoo is a river in Queensland.

billabong. Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch, but more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely.

blackfellow: condescending for Australian Aboriginal

blackleg: someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a workers’ strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. Also scab.