The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions by William Hope Hodgson Page B

swiftly towards his mother; but the Judge’s wife beat him with her free hand fiercely, pushing him towards the horses. And suddenly, he obeyed, and began to run stiffly towards the animals.
    When he reached them he displayed a little of that sense and ability which I have hinted lay cloaked so securely below his somewhat habitually sullen expression, for, having freed all the reins, he gathered them into his hand, and mounted the finest of the horses, which belonged to the sheriff; then, leading the rest, he went off at a fast trot.
    The line of silent men began to stir uneasily, and old Mrs Judge Barclay steadied them with her voice. For a space of fifteen minutes, timed by her old-fashioned gold watch, she stood on guard. At the end of that time the mother of Jem came-to, and lifted a muddy face, stiffening sharply into terror with suddenly returned memory. She hove herself up giddily on to her knees, and glared upwards and round her, expecting dreadfully to see something that swayed, writhing, above her from the great branch.
    Said Mrs Judge Barclay:
    “Your son’s gone, ma’am. He’ll be well down the trail by this.”
    Her voice began to shake curiously as she spoke; and suddenly she reached her breaking-point, and collapsed, settling all in a heap on the muddy ground. She never heard the dazed, crazy words of fierce gratitude that the other woman gave out as she bent over her, aiding the old Judge to lay her down straight.
    Old Mrs Judge Barclay came round some minutes later, to find her mouth uncomfortably full of bad whisky, and her husband still anxiously loosening garments that Jem’s mother had already loosed quite sufficiently. His clumsy old fingers shook as he fumbled, and she put up a sudden hand of tenderness, and caught the fumbling fingers and held them with an almost hysterical firmness. In a little she rose to a sitting position, and looked round at the ring of men, who stood, each with his whisky-flask in his hand, ready, as it might be thought, to insure that the supply of restorative should not run dry.
    Presently Mrs Judge Barclay spoke:
    “Now,” she said, turning her white, plucky old face towards the sheriff, “if you must hang somebody, hang me; not a bit of a young boy like that!”
    But they hanged neither old Mrs Judge Barclay nor young Jem Turrill; for the latter got clear away. And concerning the former, if the truth must be known, the sheriff and his men entertain for her a respect few women have ever screwed out of their somewhat rugged-natured hearts. Moreover, they kept the affair strictly quiet, for it was not one in which any of them was able to discover undue credit to himself. As for old Judge Barclay, he had nothing of reproach for his wife. In his heart he was unfeignedly thankful that young Jem had got away; and equally glad, in another fashion, that Providence or kind Chance had ordered it that his wife should witness the working of the unmitigated Justice that she had so often upheld.

/* */
    The Getting Even of Tommy Dodd

    I believe the young beggar will, too!” said James, the eldest ’prentice.
    They were in the glory hole of the “Lady Hannibal,” and Dayrin, the youngest ’prentice, aged fourteen, and known aboard by the name of Tommy Dodd, had been expounding a plan “to get level” with everybody in general, it seemed; for Tommy had been tasting another dose of that gross injustice which is dealt out so liberally to the boys in some ships.
    “I’ll fairly make the old man a fool, you’ll see,” he said. “And as for that old bo’sun and the third mate and the steward, I’ll make them wish they’d never been born. Fancy the pig breaking all the stops on the fore, main, and mizzen, just at eight bells as I was coming below to dinner, and then sending me up to put new ones on! It’s taken me two hours, and now the beastly dinner’s cold, and I’ve no time for a sleep, or anything. And he’s done that every day this week for my afternoon watch