Jeekie

“ Jeekie see to that while she live. Also better that mean white man go call on Bonsas than Major and Missy Barbara and all porters, and Jeekie—specially Jeekie—get throat cut. No, no, Jeekie nothing to be ashamed of, Jeekie do good day’s work, though Jeekie keep it tight as wax since white folk such silly people, and when Major in a rage, he very nasty customer and see everything upside down. Now, Jeekie quite tired, so say his prayers and have nap. No, think not in tent, though very comfortable. ”

“ Jeekie no one in England, but Jeekie damn big Lord too out here, great medicine man, pal of Little Bonsa. You remember Little Bonsa, eh! These chaps think it great honour to meet Jeekie, so, Major, if he stir, please shoot him through head; Jeekie ’sponsible, not you. Or if you not like do it, I come back and see to job myself and don’t think those fellows cry very much. ”

“ Keep it dark to save them too, ’cause they no like the story. If once they know, it always leave taste in mouth, same as bad oyster. Also Jeekie manage very well, take Major safe Asiki-land (’cause Little Bonsa make him) , give him very interesting time there, get him plenty gold, nurse him when he sick, nobble Mungana, bring him out again, find Miss Barbara, catch hated rival and bamboozle all Asiki army, bring happy pair to coast and marry them, arrange first-class honeymoon on ship—Jeekie do all these things, and lots more he could tell, if he vain and not poor humble nigger. ”

“ Also she tough old woman, take lot kill her.”
“Perhaps you have a pa too,” suggested Alan.
“Think not, Major, my ma always say she forget him. What she mean, she not like talk about him, he such a swell. Why Jeekie so strong, so clever and with such beautiful face? No doubt because he is son of very great man. All this true reason why he want to go with you, Major. Still, p’raps poor old Jeekie make mistake, p’raps he dream ’cause he eat too much supper, p’raps his ma dead, after all. If so, p’raps better stay at home—not know.” ”

“ But how that help poor departed Jeekie who get all kicks, while you have ha’pence?”
“Oh! be quiet,” said Alan; “you are welcome to the halfpence if you would only leave me the kicks. The question is, how am I to get out of this mess? While she was a beautiful savage devil one could deal with the thing, but if she is going to become human it is another matter.”
Jeekie looked at him with pity in his eyes.
“Always thought white man mad at bottom,” he said, shaking his big head. “To benighted black nigger thing so very simple. All you got to do, make love and cut when you get chance. ”

“ He sprang up, snatching at a spear and shield which Jeekie had provided for him, and ran out to find from the position of the moon that dawn was near.
“Come on, Major,” said Jeekie, “Asiki make night attack; they always like do everything at night who love darkness, because their eye evil. Come on quick, Major,” and he began to drag him off toward the rear.
“But that’s the wrong way,” said Alan presently. “They are attacking over there.”
“Do you think Jeekie fool, Major, that he don’t know that? He take you where they not attacking. ”

“ Jeekie erected himself also, and even as the knife began to fall, with one hand he caught the arm that drove it and with the other the murderer’s throat. The Mungana fought like a wild-cat, but Jeekie was too strong for him. His fingers held the man’s windpipe like a vise. He choked and weakened; the knife fell from his hand. He sank to the ground and lay there helpless, whereon Jeekie knelt upon his chest and, possessing himself of the knife, held it within an inch of his heart.
It was at this juncture that Alan woke up and asked sleepily what was the matter. ”

“ Jeekie stood a while in front of the empty tent and if any had been there to note him, they might have seen a shadow as of compunction creep over his powerful black face.
“When he wake up he won’t know where he are,” he reflected, “and when he get to Bonsa Town he’ll wonder where he is, and when he meet Asika! Well, he very big blackguard; try to murder Major, whom Jeekie nurse as baby, the only thing that Jeekie care for—except—Jeekie; try to make love to Miss Barbara against will when he catch her alone in forest, which not playing game. ”

“ Fearing worse things, the much maltreated Jeekie uttered a howl and bolted through the door, while Alan, picking up the necklace, returned it to her with a bow. She took it.
“Stop,” she said. “You are leaving the room without your mask and my women are outside. Come here,” and she tied the thing upon his head, setting it all awry, then pushed him from the place.
“Very poor joke, Major, very poor indeed,” said Jeekie when they had reached their own apartment. “Lady make love to you ”

“ This very ungrateful world. Major there, he not say, ‘Thank you, Jeekie, Jeekie, you great, wonderful man. Brave Jeekie, artful Jeekie. Jeekie smart as paint who make all world believe just what he like, and one too many for Asika herself.’ No, no, he say nothing like that. He say ‘thank Prov’dence,’ not ‘Jeekie,’ as though Prov’dence do all them things. White folk think they clever, but great fools, really, don’t know nothing. Prov’dence all very well in his way—p’raps, but Prov’dence not a patch on Jeekie. ”

“ Instantly every man within hearing prostrated himself and lay still. Then Jeekie strode up and down among them shouting out:
“Little Bonsa has come back and brought to you, Man-eaters, a fat offering, an offering of the dwarf-people whom you hate, of the treacherous dwarf-people who when you walk the ancient forest path, murder you with their poisoned arrows. Praise Little Bonsa who delivers you from your foes, and hearken to her bidding. ”

“ Be careful, too, that he does not escape you, brother, for as you know he is very strong and cunning. Say to the Asika that Jeekie her servant makes his reverence to her, and hopes that she will have many, many happy years with the husband that he sends her; also that she will remember him whom she called ‘black dog,’ and whose face she often smacked, in her prayers to the gods and spirits of our people. ”

“ Then there was confusion and someone went to telephone the doctor, while the deep voice of Jeekie was heard exclaiming:
“That Yellow God at work—oh yes, Little Bonsa on the job. Jeekie Christian man but no doubt she very powerful fetish and can do anything she like to them that worship her, and you see, she sit in office of these gentlemen. ’Spect she make Reverend Austin and me bring her to England because she got eye on firm of Messrs. Aylward & Haswell, London, E.C. Oh, shouldn’t wonder at all, for Bonsa know everything.” ”

“ I have told him to take that ugly mask which has been so often soaked in human blood, and melt it down over the kitchen stove, after picking out the gems in the eyes, that the proceeds may be given to the poor. Note. I had better see to this myself, as where Little Bonsa is concerned, Jeekie is not to be trusted. He says (with some excuse) that it has magic, and that if he melts it down, he will melt down too, and so shall I. How dark and ridiculous are the superstitions of the heathen! ”

“ Moreover, they kept no cattle, it was not the custom of that tribe, except a very few for milk. Alan advised them to increase their herds, since, as he pointed out to them, “dog should not eat dog” or the human being his own kind.
The chief answered that there was a great deal in what he said, which on his return he would lay before his head men. Indeed Alan, to his astonishment, discovered that Jeekie had been quite right when he alleged that these people, so terrible in their mode of life, were yet “kind and gentle at heart.” ”

“ At any rate for my part I never felt so happy in my life; for, dear Alan, we have found what we were born to find, found it once and for always, and the rest is mere etceteras. What would be the use of all the gold of the Asiki people that Jeekie was talking about last night, to either of us, if we had not each other? We can get on without the wealth, but we couldn’t get on apart, or at least I couldn’t and I don’t mind saying so. ”

“ Everybody in the parish and the neighbourhood knew Jeckie and Rushie Farnish. They had always been inseparable, these sisters, yet it needed little particular observation to see that there was a difference of character and temperament between them. Jeckie, at twenty-five, was a tall, handsome, finely-developed young woman, generous in proportion, with a flashing, determined eye, and a mouth and chin which denoted purpose and obstinacy; she was the sort of woman that could love like fire, but whom it would be dangerous to cross in love. ”

“ Jeckie's proposals as to finding her with board, lodging, and all she wanted in the way of clothes and shoe-leather, and giving her a small but sufficient salary, satisfied her well. But at the end of their talk they hit on a difference of opinion.
"And now about that Herbert Binks," said Jeckie suddenly. "He's after you, Rushie, and you're a fool. He's naught but a draper's assistant, when all's said and done. I'll none have him coming here. What do you want wi' young men?" ”

“ Binks. "Until we start a house of our own, we board and lodge, so——"
"A house o' your own!" exclaimed Jeckie. "When and where are you like to get a house o' your own—a twopenny-halfpenny draper's assistant and an idle wench like you, 'at spends her time readin' that soft stuff? You'll be as poor as church mice all t'days o' your life! He'll never be no more than a shopman at two or three pounds a week—where does such like start houses o' their own? Do you know what you've thrown away, you ungrateful thing?" demanded Jeckie, who was now in full torrent and meant to go on her way unchecked. ”

“ Joyce himself."
"Oh, of course you did!" said Lady Hetherington, slightly tossing her head. "Well, of course you're very much grieved. He was such a favourite of yours."
"Just because I like Mr. Joyce very much, or, as you phrase it, because he is a favourite of mine, I'm very pleased to think that he's going away. A man of his abilities is lost in his present position."
"I quite agree with you, Lady Caroline," said Mr. Biscoe. "Sound scholar, Mr. Joyce, clear head, well grounded and quick at picking up—good fellow, too!" ”

“ The first fourteen plates which he etched on his own account were published by himself, but others were sold to publishers, and the whole were eventually collected into a volume of ‘Etchings illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery,’ with explanatory text, and a biographical introduction by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and published in 1833. They were republished with additional plates in 1885. Although deaf and dumb, Geikie possessed great social qualities, and his mirthful spirit and love of mimicry made him a great favourite among his brother artists. ”

“ You see, Jake’s ways are different. He makes folks think, often, I make no doubt, that he’s set on getting things when he isn’t, really. I expect he’d feel quite hurt if you were to lose this place.”
“Unless he got it himself,” was my silent amendment.
“We could buy the ranch where we are,” Mrs. Horton went on, “and I wish Jake was willing to do it; I’m like your father was; I want a home of my own, but Jake says he doesn’t like that place as well as he does another that he has in mind.”
“What place is that?” asked Jessie. ”

“ Jeckie went, grumbling. She had honestly meant to part with twenty pounds. It vexed her, temperamentally, to think of anybody doing something for nothing. She would have liked to pay these two ten pounds each. And she went home feeling deeply injured that they had scorned her.
CHAPTER VI Obsession
Before noon the next day the two Londoners, for whom Jeckie Farnish had no further use, had shaken the Savilestowe dirt from off their feet, to the sorrow of Beckitt and his wife and the frequenters of the bar-parlour, and Jeckie told her partner, Lucilla Grice, of how cleverly she had done them. ”

“ While Jeckie was busied in the village and Farnish, sighing after the key of the beer barrel, was aimlessly wandering about the farm buildings, there came into the kitchen, where Rushie was making ready the dinner, a tall, blue-eyed, broadly-built youngster, whose first action was to glance inquiringly at the clock and whose second was to go to the sink in the corner to wash his brown hands. This was Joe, or Doadie Bartle, about whom nobody in those parts knew more than that he had turned up as a lad of fifteen at Applecroft some six or seven years previously ”

“ Decent fellow Joe when he has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn’t get over that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a licence, says he.
In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. ”

“ I can see this, Lady Hetherington, and I shall mention it once for all! You have never treated that gentleman, Mr. Joyce, as he ought to be treated. He is a gentleman in mind, and thought, and education; and he comes here, and does for poor dear stupid West what West is totally unable to do himself, and yet is most anxious to have the credit of. The position which Mr. Joyce holds is a most delicate one, one which he fills most delicately, but one which any man with a less acute sense of honour and right might use to his own advantage, and to bring ridicule on his employer. ”

“ When she had assured herself that Albert Grice had been duly married to his cousin Lucilla at Nottingham two days previously, she put the paper in her pocket, went back to Finkle Street, and ate an unusually hearty breakfast. She had made it a principle from the beginning of the new order of things to see that Farnish, Rushie, and herself never wanted good food in plenty—folk who work hard, in Jeckie's opinion, must live well, and her own country-bred appetite was still with her. ”