Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/248

228 “Strachan —Strachan!” he cried. “Good heavens! You were right! Look here!”

What had happened will be the better understood when it is explained that the court-house was not a house at all, but a mere ring of weather-board huts, of which the justice-room was one, the lock-up another, the constables’ quarters a third, and a store and a stable a fourth and fifth. The yard thus formed was furthermore enclosed by a brushwood fence, broken only between the stables and the justice-room, where there was a gate instead; and, in the very centre of this open space, blotting the edge of the deep sky, and scoring the dazzling earth with shadows like scars, stood that worse than gallows, at which men were beaten into brutes, and brutes into devils, week after week throughout the year.

A sergeant and two constables formed the garrison of this lodge of law and order in the wilderness. The sergeant was an emancipist; and of the trio, only one had come to the country on his own account. The third was actually a convict at this very time, and a glaring ruffian into the bargain. Originally a butcher-boy (who had robbed his master in the City Road), he still smacked of the slaughter-house, with his raw red face and cruel eye; and on this young felon devolved the congenial task of administering the lash.

In such hands was Tom led to the triangles, with a white face, but quickened eyes. The ticket-of-leave overseer was also of the party, filling his pipe and grinning to himself between his flaming whiskers, like a man prepared to enjoy the thing thoroughly. The sergeant, however, made him stand back a little, though with a wink, as he touched the culprit on the shoulder.