Essex Street, close to midnight, I had just completed lancing a boil. Not just any boil, rather a pilonidal sinus the size of my fist which was located directly above the cleft of buttock of a carter.  I extracted at least four cups of foul green yellow pus from the local and surrounding area of infection. The relief he felt was palpable, short lived as it was. Sadly for him routine procedure dictated I irrigate the wound, applying carbolic acid and mercury red iodine.  All much to his discomfort may I add. I then closed the gaping wound as best as the combined light of a candle and failing gas light would allow. A grunted thanks and an unsteady gait was all the payment I received. He tenderly mounted his cart, shook the reins, and his two malnourished nags, toast rack ribs showing greatly, slowly plodded away, taking the carter and his buttocks with him.

Job now complete, I set about collecting my things, when my love caught my eye from a nearby window.  A dull gas light, being more than enough to illuminate his fine features, there in the window. Features I drank in, as one would the headiest of brews.  

It was then that I noticed her reflection in the window, making her appear as if she was within the same room as Jack.  She. She! She was talking to him! Lewdly presenting herself to my betrothed! My Jack! A pillar of a man so beyond the wretched class of those whores and foulest of beasts of the night!

Furious anger engulfed me.  I spun on my heel confronting her.  It was then that she placed her filthy, slovenly, lowly hands upon my forearm!

Without my knowledge, my hand of its own accord took charge.  My longer scalpel, still in hand from my use on the carter, leapt forward toward her, slashing her deeply without remorse.  My hand, still not seeking my approval for its actions, slashed her angrily once more. The filthy beast touching MY arm, to get to MY JACK!  How dare she! HOW DARE SHE!

Anger engulfed me like a torrent of fire, I rounded on Jack.  How dare HE not resist her wiles! Doing no more than to sit in his window seat! He may as well have been my reflection looking back at me.  ME, a woman no matter the attire, to defend HIS honour! The scoundrel deserved horse whipping!

Setting my attentions back upon the defiler, and I dragged her into the gutter in front of a railway workers front yard.  A place more fitting I doubt there was, the revolting wretch! Thereafter, full of thunder I stormed out of Berner Street, without idea nor care for the direction I was headed.

Rage drove my legs and spirit.  Time elapse as a rule was an inaccurate science when it came to my Fremantle by night. I felt that I must have raged for anywhere up to an hour after leaving Essex Street.  Something both of surprise and not, I found myself in the southwest corner of the Pagan and Aboriginal Cemetery. Standing there, fury now subsiding, I spied him, or at least someone very much like him in a window some distance away.  I was not certain it was him until I strode his way, thus confirming my suspicions. We argued from the moment we were in clear eyesight of one another. Squabbling as we had never squabbled before; the beastly cad of little moral fibre and far less spine.  

The moments we fought dulled my wits pertaining to that of my immediate surrounds, as I was consumed with ill spirit and anger.  Hence, I was completely unaware, and all the more thunderous for it, on realising that yet another feral wench was approaching. As she drew nearer, the horrid slag threw a look of such knowing and familiarity past my elbow directly, as I found on turning, into the eyes of my Jack.  The Bastard! Rounding on her with a speed that betrayed my appearance, I struck the foul thing heartily and wholly, dashing her to the ground.

Absolute fury engulfed me for the second time that night.  Finding myself a’top the harlot, I did my best to remove that face that Jack obviously knew so well.  Through my extreme fury I reduced her face to utter mush. Not a bone survived intact beneath the pounding of my Hawthorn walking stick.

Once more I set to work.  Anger driving me. Supine as she was, I beat her chest, ribs soon showing red through the thin cloth that covered her. Lastly, I beat her pelvis, specifically the region of her uterus.  Never will Jack fill that void with child.

Gore covered as I was, wiping blood and bodily fluid from myself, I took a scalpel from my bag, and removed one of her kidneys.  For the cat.

After wrapping our wee cat ‘Sardine’s’ dinner in my handkerchief, I swept up my tools of trade and stalked away to Mrs. Fox; leaving Jack to his thoughts under the hail of profanity I cast at him as I went.  He could deal with the wench that obviously knew him so well.

On my return to John St., Mrs. Fox kindly cut up the kidney for the cat. Sardine did enjoy it so.  Another night over for Jolly Jack.

Click the link beneath the picture, tunes should follow.

N.

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