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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"


. . . . . . . . .
Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's-whip in the
verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst into ribbons behind
the old Court cells, quietly and without scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst
was sent home in a carriage; and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a man
again.
Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge against
Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with her faint
watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but it wasn't her Teddy's
fault altogether. She would wait till her Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he
had grown tired of her, or she had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn't
cut her any more, and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with
"little Teddy" again. He was so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs.
Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to appear in public, when he
went Home and took his wife with him. According to the latest advices, her
Teddy did "come back to her," and they are moderately happy. Though, of course,
he can never forgive her the thrashing that she was the indirect means of
getting for him.
. . .


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