Nagging

“ In another harbour not far distant, a woman, who was suckling a recently-born child, came one day alongside the vessel, and remained there out of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed on her naked bosom, and on the skin of her naked baby! These poor wretches were stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their hair entangled, their voices discordant, and their gestures violent. Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world. ”

“ She began to stab me, not deeply, but with a quick, pecking motion, so her fiery dagger seemed to dart as if it were a sewing-machine needle, or the tool of a tattooist. Deliberately, as though she found the task pleasant and meant to savor every possible delight in it, she drove her dagger through my ear-lobes, pierced my left nostril, then, speeding up her strokes, traced a swirling line of arabesques across my cheeks, over my chest, up and down my arms and legs and stomach. ”

“ I jes’ let go yell on yell, until a faintness came over me, and the sound leg which had been all on a tremble gave way, and I sot down. The wrench were terrible, and I jes’ grit my teeth, and held on till the weakness went off, when I shifted the trap a bit.”
“Why didn’t you ease the spring?”
“Why don’t a bird fly when its wing’s broken? Ease the spring! Jes’ you put your foot in this yer trap, and see if you can get the spring down with thirty pound o’ iron at the end of your foot and your muscles all turned to water—to liquid fire—with the pain of the hold. ”

“ At last one lady showed me a flea-bite on a very round and shapely arm, which literally jangled with glass bangles and gold bracelets. As this was the most serious symptom I had yet seen, I began to think I had better retire, when tea was brought in by a young negress.
The ladies, the eunuch, and myself, all partook, but the two ladies did so with shrieks of laughter, in which the negress joined.
Suddenly a cry of “Aga! aga!” (the master, the master) was raised, and I saw the Eyn-ul-Molk coming up the garden. The two indiscreet ones became at once staid matrons of the severest type. ”

“ We arrive at the Nag's Head late in the evening, have our tea, go to bed tired with our journey, sleep delightfully till about three o'clock in the morning, and, at that hour, begin to discover that there are actually noises, even in this remote country seclusion. They keep fowls at the Nag's Head; and at three o'clock, the cock begins to crow, and the hen to cluck, under our window. Pastoral, my dear, and suggestive of eggs for breakfast whose reputation is above suspicion ”

“ And although rough in their manners, and not over select in their address, the digger seldom wilfully injures a woman; in fact, a regular Vandemonian will, in his way, play the gallant with as great a zest as a fashionable about town—at any rate, with more sincerity of heart. ”

“ He clasped her close, seeming to rock her with his strong panting. She felt his body lifting into her, and sinking away. It seemed to force a rhythm, a new pulse, in her. Gradually, with a fine, keen thrilling, she melted down on him, like metal sinking on a mould. ”

“ When we had resumed our old position under the hedge, and I had removed my boots, I said:
"Now, then, I think I've earned a pipe and a short nap. You amuse yourself in any way you like."
"Do what with myself?" ”

“ He stood, his long dagger in his right hand, eyeing me through his whitened mask.
"Ah," he went on. "You hesitate. You can pass me easily, descend by the bracket, the rope the cornice, and the rain-spout. You will not? Then you will pardon me if I leave you. You will find it warm here before long. Nevertheless, if this place is more to your liking than the street, I do not dispute your right of choice. A good night to you. I am tempted indeed to put this dagger into you before I go. ”

“ But when I raised the lantern o'er my head,
I saw a naked boy upon the bed,
Who crouched and shuddered on the folded sheet;
And, on his face, before my feet,
A naked man, who lay as if quite dead,
Though on his broken knuckles blood was red:
And all my wits awakened at the sight. ”

“ And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,—the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each and all in motion at the same time, with feathers waving, tails of monkeys and wild beasts dangling, and shields beating, accompanied with whistling, shouting, and leaping. ”

“ Are diggers dogs or savages, that they are to be hunted on the diggings, commanded, in Pellissier's African style, to come out of their holes, and summoned from their tents by these hounds of the executive? ”

“ Now one of them has his leg thrust out from under bed, so the lad brings his sword down and cuts it off. Then another thrusts his arm out at other side of the bed, and the lad cuts that off. So at last he had maimed them all, and they all went crying and wailing off, and forgot the ball, but he took it from under the bed, and went to seek his truelove.
Now the lass was taken to York to be hanged; she was brought out on the scaffold, and the hangman said, "Now, lass, thou must hang by the neck till thou be'st dead." But she cried out:
"Stop, stop, I think I see my mother coming! ”

“ As we turn the leaf, there is a full-blooded negress with a striped napkin twisted gracefully turban-wise round her hair, and coils of beads, large and small, sinuously dangling on her breast, like the chains over the Debtor's Door at Newgate. A very fine animal indeed, this negress, with power in her strong shiny features; a nose of courage, thin in the nostrils, and cheek-bones high, but not so high as those of a Red Indian. ”

“ Upon the next movements of your lips it depends whether that body you love shall be stretched upon the rack, whether those eyes which you find pleasant shall grow blind with agony in the darkness of a dungeon, and whether that flesh which you think desirable shall scorch and wither in the furnace. ”

“ Always when I flounder into the midst of bushes, which cross and intertwine themselves about my legs, and brush my face, and seize hold of my clothes, with their multitudinous grip,—always, in such a difficulty, I feel as if it were almost as well to lie down and die in rage and despair as to go one step farther. ”

“ How he would be astonished, if any one should say to him, that the fall, which brought with it the consciousness of nakedness, has become the very foundation of all the enjoyment that comes from weaving, making, and sewing clothes. ”

“ A mother, then, should always bear in mind, that a rupture of the navel is often caused by much crying, and that it occasions much crying, indeed, it is a frequent cause of incessant crying. A child, therefore, who, without any assignable cause, is constantly crying, should have his navel carefully examined. ”

“ The numbness of death steals upon my soul. The floor is cold and clammy, the gnawing grows louder and nearer, and I am filled with dread lest the starving rats attack my bare feet. I snatch a few unconscious moments leaning against the door; and then again I pace the cell, striving to keep awake, wondering whether it be night or day, yearning for the sound of a human voice.
Utterly forsaken! Cast into the stony bowels of the underground, the world of man receding, leaving no trace behind.... Eagerly I strain my ear—only the ceaseless, fearful gnawing. ”

“ Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your weight. ”

“ A more desolate, poverty-stricken, wretched object, can hardly be conceived. The immense importance of his head and beak and gray whiskers, with the abject nakedness—more than nakedness, pluckedness—of his body was quite beyond laughing at. ”

“ All the camp was sleeping. Most of the diggers had made a night of it the night before in anticipation of the holiday, and now were sleeping off the effects, so that I had it all to myself, and spite of the havoc wrought by the diggers, the gully was pretty still. We were all camped on the flat that bordered the banks of the creek, and away beyond on all sides stretched the hills, standing out clearly now in the brilliant morning sunlight, range upon range, in a series of blue ridges, till they faded away in the bluer distance. ”

“ In another five minutes everybody was up, though it required kicks to rouse most of the bearers from their slumbers. They, poor men, were accustomed to the presence of Death and did not suffer him to disturb their sleep. ”

“ Whenever any loud noise was made, one of these instruments was demanded, and gagging commenced at once. I have known many instances, and sometimes five or six nuns gagged at once. Sometimes, they would become so much excited before they could be bound and gagged, that considerable force was necessary to be exerted; and I have seen the blood flowing from mouths into which the gag had been thrust with violence. ”

“ During the long, dreary watches of the night, the poor fellow, to escape from some imaginary foe, had scooped out with his nails a hole large and deep enough in which to hide, and there he found him, crouching like a wild beast in his lair. ”

“ In an hour you begin to wonder why Nature has been so foolish as to make men who will carry swags; bad language seems to slip out 'quite in a casual way,' and you begin to bend forward and do the 'lift.' But the 'lift' does not seem to fulfil quite all that is said in its praise, for soon the torturing burden settles down again and drags on to your shoulders more heavily than ever. After a bit of nice balancing over loose moraine the swag triumphs. ”

“ As the inconvenience may be suffered to last, he sweats immoderately at the least extra exertion, his eyes lose their wonted brightness, his mouth becomes hot, and his manner is languid. All these evils may be prevented by timely physicking, whenever the dung is seen to fall upon the ground without the pellets breaking. ”

“ There are very few women at the first opening of new diggings, the life is too rough and rude; and some of those who do come, rock the cradle—but not the household one—with the men. The diggers, however genteel the life they may have led before, soon acquire a dirty, rough, unshaven look. Their coarse clothes are all of a colour, being that of the clay and gravel in which they work, and the mud with which they become covered when digging. ”

“ Whoever has suffered that severest of all spankings, the water spanking incident to a clumsy dive, or a wrongly-calculated somersault into the water from a wharf, or from a natatorium springboard, will remember that the pain of it is not half so hard to bear as the form of parental correction called by the same name, that in itself is not nearly so severe. ”

“ To take a nap during the day with one's ordinary clothing on means always a terrible drenching from perspiration, and an after-feeling of exhaustion almost indescribable—best expressed, perhaps, by the local term: corps écrasé. ”

“ The uses of digging having been thus explained, it is now necessary to say something of its practice, and particularly of its applicability to ladies. It must be confessed that digging appears, at first sight, a very laborious employment, and one peculiarly unfitted to small and delicately formed hands and feet; but, by a little attention to the principles of mechanics and the laws of motion, the labour may be much simplified and rendered comparatively easy. ”

“ Can't you imagine the delightful [Pg 161] results of a formal wigging administered by a youngish and austere elder who was not accustomed to make allowances for the natural dancing instincts of the young of the human animal? The hot irons that are held forth to scare may also sear, as those who have ever lain under an unfortunate exposition of the old Faith can attest. ”

“ The very poorest have a favorite nook, a recollection of the bygone year to be revived and renewed; a sheltered corner that invited sleep, a glade where the shade was grateful, a spot beside the river's brink where the fish used to bite. ”

“ The feat of nocking, not notching, an arrow, or splitting that of an adversary with your own, which he so carefully describes, is mere fable, never performed: the nock of a shaft, being about the thickness of a goose-quill, is invisible to the eye at thirty paces, let alone the distance they were shooting, nearly the eighth part of a mile. ”

“ I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars—and kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he would a done at home—better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I was, with both of ’m on my hands, and there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep ”

“ Sometimes they would rise and walk a few paces with outstretched arms, till the arms closed as though they clasped something invisible, to which they bent their heads to babble awhile. Then they walked back to their rugs again, where they remained silent. ”

“ The flesh, entrails, blood and skin of an animal are eaten—in fact, practically everything except the hair. The men who went to France with the Naga Labour Corps thought our method of cleaning an animal and throwing away the offal most wasteful. ”