“Well, I kept watch over this Dr. Carter very well for a fortnight or more, and he seemed to go on all right; but after that time he got very restless, and I used to hear him walking about at night as if he could not sleep, and through the day he could not settle to his book as he used to do at first, or go to take a quiet walk, or ride not over far from the house, but took little starts and turned back, as if something was on his mind.

“I misdoubted him, but with all my watching I could see nothing.  As ill luck would have it, the night the mistress was taken ill, and I went to call him up, there I found this man Carter as drunk as he could be, to be able to stand, with an empty brandy bottle beside him that he had knocked the head off.  The keys were in my pocket, and not a bottle missing out of the press.  There never was much kept in the house, for Mr. Phillips was a most moderate man, and tea is the great drink in the bush; but in case of sickness we aye had some brandy by us.  But the poor deluded man had got one of the men about the place to ride forty miles to get him this brandy that had just come at the time when he was especially needed to be sober.  I told him the lady was wanting him, and Mr. Phillips and me shook him up; and he half came to himself; and if the mistress had not smelt the drink so strong upon him, she might not have known.  She had another fine lassie, and all was going on very well, for the mistress was more reasonable.  She had bought her experience very dear the time before, and would take a telling.  When the doctor had got over his drinking fit he was very penitent, and spoke quite feelingly on the subject.  Mr. Phillips turned off the man that had fetched him the brandy, and told all the men on the station the reason why.  The man Carter did not want for skill, nor for kindness either, when he was sober; so, as we were more fearful for the fortnight after than the fortnight before the birth, we just kept him on.  Little Harriett was a fortnight old, and the mistress was doing so nicely that Mr. Phillips thought he might leave us for one of his out-stations, where he was wanted, and said he would not be home for two or three days.  And then the poor demented creature of a drunken doctor contrived again to get hold of drink, and was far more outrageous this time.  Mrs. Phillips was lying on the sofa in the parlour, when he came in and terrified her by roaring for more brandy; and when I came in to settle him, he grippit me by the arm and threatened me with I don’t know what, if I refused him.  The mistress entreated me to turn him out of doors—­and so I did.  He got on a horse of the master’s—­I marvelled how he kept his seat—­and set off, and I felt easy in my mind.

“But I had just got the mistress quieted down, when the native boy Jim, that was always doing odd jobs about the place, came running past the window with such a look of terror on his face that I saw something was wrong.  I ran out quick but quietly, to ask what was the matter.