Robbery under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood — Read

I was right in about a week, as far as being able to walk about and look after myself, but it was nearer a month before my arm was any manner of use to me. Starlight and father set it between them, and didn't make such a bad mend of it, considering there was no doctor handy. We were a hardish crowd, anyhow, and it took a lot to knock us over. But I'd lost a deal of blood, and felt weakish for a good while, and off my regular form. What I got most wild over, when I thought of it, was that poor Aileen must have heard the shots, and that the police would be sure to come back to the place, and ask when she had seen me last. That would torment them all the worse, as long as they weren't sure whether I was badly hurt or not. Thinking how much of it was my own fault didn't make it easier to bear. Some people think it ought to; I can't see how they make that out.

It only made me savager and worse natured than I'd been before. When I left Aileen that morning I felt a better man, and more likely to go in for a square way of living, if I could have got half a chance of leaving the old track. I was doing no harm and not thinking any to a living soul. And here, because there was a warrant out for me, and a price on my head, a couple of young fellows just a year away from the old country must hunt me the moment they set eyes on me, within a mile of the place I was born in, and try and shoot me down with as little mercy as the overseers show to a strange dog on a sheep run. "Of course, it was their duty, in a general way," as Jim said. But I had the feelings of a man for all that. And even if a fellow has done what's wrong and knows it, he don't like to be treated like a wild beast. I didn't say much, but I brooded over things a good deal, and bided my time till something else turned up. It wasn't long before a chance came, and I took it.