metimes you'd think the whole coach
was going out of sight in 'em, and chargin' round the stumps up to the
axle was considered nothink. We had more pluck in them days! Well,
that night the roads was that slippery the brake gave me all I could
do, an' a new horse in the back had no more notion of hangin' in the
breechin' than a cow; so I took no notice to the lawyer, only told him
to hold his mag once or twice an' not be such a blitherer, but it was
no use, he took a mean advantage off of me. You can imagine it was
easy w'en I had five horses in a coach goin' round slippery sidlin's
pitch dark an' rainin'. He put his arms 'round me waist an' that
raised me blood, an' I tell you things hummed a little. You'll see
Dawn in a tantrum one of these days, but she ain't a patch on me w'en
me dander was up in me young days." Looking at the fine old flashing
eyes and the steel in her still, it was easy to see the truth of this.

"I jored him to take his hands off me or I'd pull up the coach an'
call the inside passengers out to knock him off. He gamed me to do it,
an' laughed an' squeezed me harder, an' the cowardly crawler actually
made to kiss me; but I bit him on the nose and spat at him, an took
the horses over a bad gutter round a fallen tree at the same time--an'
some people is afraid to let their blessed daughters out in a doll's
sulky with a tiddy little pony no bigger than a dog. If I had children
like that I'd give 'em all the chances goin' of breaking their neck,
as they wouldn't be worth savin' for anythink but sausage meat. Well,
this cur still kep' on at his larks, so soon as I got the team on the
level,--it was at Sapling Sidin', runnin' into Ti-tree creek; I could
hear the creek gurgling above the sound of the rain, and the white
froth on the water I can see it plain now,--I pulled sudden and said
'Woa!' an' it was beautiful the way they'd stop dead. The passengers
all suspected there must be a accident, or the bushrangers must have
bailed us up, for they was around in full blast in them days. Well,
w'en I pulled up I got nervous an' ashamed, an' bust out crying, an'
the passengers didn't know what to make of it; but Jim Clay, it
appears, had his eye an' ear cocked all the time, an' before any one
knew what had happened he had the lawyer feller welted off of the
coach an' was goin' into him right an' left. That's what give me a
feelin' to Jim Clay all of a sudden, like I never had to no one else
before or since. He