The Story of an African Farm
by Olive Schreiner
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by

Ralph Iron

(Olive Schreiner)

Preface.

I have to thank cordially the public and my critics for the reception they
have given this little book.

Dealing with a subject that is far removed from the round of English daily
life, it of necessity lacks the charm that hangs about the ideal
representation of familiar things, and its reception has therefore been the
more kindly.

A word of explanation is necessary. Two strangers appear on the scene, and
some have fancied that in the second they have again the first, who returns
in a new guise. Why this should be we cannot tell; unless there is a
feeling that a man should not appear upon the scene, and then disappear,
leaving behind him no more substantial trace than a mere book; that he
should return later on as husband or lover, to fill some more important
part than that of the mere stimulator of thought.

Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage
method. According to that each character is duly marshalled at first, and
ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that at the right crises each
one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will
stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this, and of
completeness. But there is another method--the method of the life we all
lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going
of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, and pass away. When
the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return. When the
curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are
blown out; and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a
spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the gaslight
cannot hear his breathing. Life may be painted according to either method;
but the methods are different. The canons of criticism that bear upon the
one cut cruelly upon the other.

It has been suggested by a kind critic that he would better have liked the
little book if it had been a history of wild adventure; of cattle driven
into inaccessible kranzes by Bushmen; "of encounters with ravening lions,
and hair-breadth escapes."  This could not be. Such works are best written
in Piccadilly or in the Strand: there the gifts of the creative
imagination, untrammelled by contact with any fact, may spread their wings.

But, should one sit down to paint the scenes among which he has grown, he
will find that the facts creep in upon him. Those brilliant phases and
shapes which the imagination sees in far-off lands are not for him to
portray. Sadly he must squeeze the colour from his brush, and dip it into
the gray pigments around him. He must paint what lies before him.

R. Iron.

...

"We must see the first images which the external world casts upon the dark
mirror of his mind; or must hear the first words which awaken the sleeping
powers of thought, and stand by his earliest efforts, if we would
understand the prejudices, the habits, and the passions that will rule his
life. The entire man is, so to speak, to be found in the cradle of the
child."

Alexis de Tocqueville.

...

Glossary.

Several Dutch and Colonial words occurring in this work, the subjoined
Glossary is given, explaining the principal.

Alle wereld! - Gosh!
Aasvogels - Vultures.
Benauwdheid - Indigestion.
Brakje - A little cur of low degree.
Bultong - Dried meat.
Coop - Hide and Seek.
Inspan - To harness.
Kapje - A sun-bonnet.
Karoo - The wide sandy plains in some parts of South Africa.
Karoo-bushes - The bushes that take the place of grass on these plains.
Kartel - The wooden-bed fastened in an ox-wagon.
Kloof - A ravine.
Kopje - A small hillock, or "little head."
Kraal - The space surrounded by a stone wall or hedged with thorn branches,
into which sheep or cattle are driven at night.
Mealies - Indian corn.
Meerkat - A small weazel-like animal.
Meiboss - Preserved and dried apricots.
Nachtmaal - The Lord's Supper.
Oom - Uncle.
Outspan - To unharness, or a place in the field where one unharnesses.
Pap - Porridge.
Predikant - Parson.
Riem - Leather rope.
Sarsarties - Food.
Sleg - Bad.
Sloot - A dry watercourse.
Spook - To haunt, a ghost.
Stamp-block - A wooden block, hollowed out, in which mealies are placed to
be pounded before being cooked.
Stoep - Porch.
Tant or Tante - Aunt.
Upsitting - In Boer courtship the man and girl are supposed to sit up
together the whole night.
Veld - Open country.
Velschoen - Shoes of undressed leather.
Vrijer - Available man.

Contents.

Part I.

Chapter 1.I. Shadows From Child Life.

Chapter 1.II. Plans and Bushman Paintings.

Chapter 1.III. I Was A Stranger, and Ye Took Me In.

Chapter 1.IV. Blessed is He That Believeth.

Chapter 1.V. Sunday Services.

Chapter 1.VI. Bonaparte Blenkins Makes His Nest.

Chapter 1.VII. He Sets His Trap.

Chapter 1.VIII. He Catches the Old Bird.

Chapter 1.IX. He Sees A Ghost.

Chapter 1.X. He Shows His Teeth.

Chapter 1.XI. He Snaps.

Chapter 1.XII. He Bites.

Chapter 1.XIII. He Makes Love.

Part II.

Chapter 2.I. Times and Seasons.

Chapter 2.II. Waldo's Stranger.

Chapter 2.III. Gregory Rose Finds His Affinity.

Chapter 2.IV. Lyndall.

Chapter 2.V. Tant Sannie Holds An Upsitting, and Gregory Writes A Letter.

Chapter 2.VI. A Boer-wedding.

Chapter 2.VII. Waldo Goes Out to Taste Life, and Em Stays At Home and
Tastes It.

Chapter 2.VIII. The Kopje.

Chapter 2.IX. Lyndall's Stranger.

Chapter 2.X. Gregory Rose Has An Idea.

Chapter 2.XI. An Unfinished Letter.

Chapter 2.XII. Gregory's Womanhood.

Chapter 2.XIII. Dreams.

Chapter 2.XIV. Waldo Goes Out to Sit in the Sunshine.

THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM

Part I.

Chapter 1.I. Shadows From Child-Life.

...

The Watch.

The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the
wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth, with its coating of stunted
karoo bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the
milk-bushes with their long finger-like leaves, all were touched by a weird
and an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light.

In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the
centre a small solitary kopje rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round
ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant's grave. Here and
there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among
its stones, and on the very summit a clump of prickly-pears lifted their
thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their broad
fleshy leaves. At the foot of the kopje lay the homestead. First, the
stone-walled sheep kraals and Kaffer huts; beyond them the dwelling-house--
a square, red-brick building with thatched roof. Even on its bare red
walls, and the wooden ladder that led up to the loft, the moonlight cast a
kind of dreamy beauty, and quite etherealized the low brick wall that ran
before the house, and which inclosed a bare patch of sand and two
straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great open wagon-house, on
the roofs of the outbuildings that jutted from its side, the moonlight
glinted with a quite peculiar brightness, till it seemed that every rib in
the metal was of burnished silver.

Sleep ruled everywhere, and the homestead was not less quiet than the
solitary plain.

In the farmhouse, on her great wooden bedstead, Tant Sannie, the Boer-
woman, rolled heavily in her sleep.

She had gone to bed, as she always did, in her clothes, and the night was
warm and the room close, and she dreamed bad dreams. Not of the ghosts and
devils that so haunted her waking thoughts; not of her second husband the
consumptive Englishman, whose grave lay away beyond the ostrich-camps, nor
of her first, the young Boer; but only of the sheep's trotters she had
eaten for supper that night. She dreamed that one stuck fast in her
throat, and she rolled her huge form from side to side, and snorted
horribly.

In the next room, where the maid had forgotten to close the shutter, the
white moonlight fell in in a flood, and made it light as day. There were
two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellow-haired child, with a
low forehead and a face of freckles; but the loving moonlight hid defects
here as elsewhere, and showed only the innocent face of a child in its
first sweet sleep.

The figure in the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight, for it
was of quite elfin-like beauty. The child had dropped her cover on the
floor, and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs. Presently
she opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight that was bathing her.

"Em!" she called to the sleeper in the other bed; but received no answer.
Then she drew the cover from the floor, turned her pillow, and pulling the
sheet over her head, went to sleep again.

Only in one of the outbuildings that jutted from the wagon-house there was
some one who was not asleep.

The room was dark; door and shutter were closed; not a ray of light entered
anywhere. The German overseer, to whom the room belonged, lay sleeping
soundly on his bed in the corner, his great arms folded, and his bushy grey
and black beard rising and falling on his breast. But one in the room was
not asleep. Two large eyes looked about in the darkness, and two small
hands were smoothing the patchwork quilt. The boy, who slept on a box
under the window, had just awakened from his first sleep. He drew the
quilt up to his chin, so that little peered above it but a great head of
silky black curls and the two black eyes. He stared about in the darkness.
Nothing was visible, not even the outline of one worm-eaten rafter, nor of
the deal table, on which lay the Bible from which his father had read
before they went to bed. No one could tell where the toolbox was, and
where the fireplace. There was something very impressive to the child in
the complete darkness.

At the head of his father's bed hung a great silver hunting watch. It
ticked loudly. The boy listened to it, and began mechanically to count.
Tick--tick--one, two, three, four! He lost count presently, and only
listened. Tick--tick--tick--tick!

It never waited; it went on inexorably; and every time it ticked a man
died! He raised himself a little on his elbow and listened. He wished it
would leave off.

How many times had it ticked since he came to lie down? A thousand times,
a million times, perhaps.

He tried to count again, and sat up to listen better.

"Dying, dying, dying!" said the watch; "dying, dying, dying!"

He heard it distinctly. Where were they going to, all those people?

He lay down quickly, and pulled the cover up over his head: but presently
the silky curls reappeared.

"Dying, dying, dying!" said the watch; "dying, dying, dying!"

He thought of the words his father had read that evening--"For wide is the
gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction and many there be
which go in thereat."

"Many, many, many!" said the watch.

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life,
and few there be that find it."

"Few, few, few!" said the watch.

The boy lay with his eyes wide open. He saw before him a long stream of
people, a great dark multitude, that moved in one direction; then they came
to the dark edge of the world and went over. He saw them passing on before
him, and there was nothing that could stop them. He thought of how that
stream had rolled on through all the long ages of the past--how the old
Greeks and Romans had gone over; the countless millions of China and India,
they were going over now. Since he had come to bed, how many had gone!

And the watch said, "Eternity, eternity, eternity!"

"Stop them! stop them!" cried the child.

And all the while the watch kept ticking on; just like God's will, that
never changes or alters, you may do what you please.

Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead. He climbed out of
bed and lay with his face turned to the mud floor.

"Oh, God, God! save them!" he cried in agony. "Only some, only a few!
Only for each moment I am praying here one!"  He folded his little hands
upon his head. "God! God! save them!"

He grovelled on the floor.

Oh, the long, long ages of the past, in which they had gone over! Oh, the
long, long future, in which they would pass away! Oh, God! the long, long,
long eternity, which has no end!

The child wept, and crept closer to the ground.

...

The Sacrifice.

The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a
weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely covered by dry karoo bushes, that
cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere.
Here and there a milk-bush lifted its pale-coloured rods, and in every
direction the ants and beetles ran about in the blazing sand. The red
walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings, the stone walls
of the kraals, all reflected the fierce sunlight, till the eye ached and
blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or near. The two sunflowers
that stood before the door, out-stared by the sun, drooped their brazen
faces to the sand; and the little cicada-like insects cried aloud among the
stones of the kopje.

The Boer-woman, seen by daylight, was even less lovely than when, in bed,
she rolled and dreamed. She sat on a chair in the great front room, with
her feet on a wooden stove, and wiped her flat face with the corner of her
apron, and drank coffee, and in Cape Dutch swore that the beloved weather
was damned. Less lovely, too, by daylight was the dead Englishman's child,
her little stepdaughter, upon whose freckles and low, wrinkled forehead the
sunlight had no mercy.

"Lyndall," the child said to her little orphan cousin, who sat with her on
the floor threading beads, "how is it your beads never fall off your
needle?"

"I try," said the little one gravely, moistening her tiny finger. "That is
why."

The overseer, seen by daylight, was a huge German, wearing a shabby suit,
and with a childish habit of rubbing his hands and nodding his head
prodigiously when pleased at anything. He stood out at the kraals in the
blazing sun, explaining to two Kaffer boys the approaching end of the
world. The boys, as they cut the cakes of dung, winked at each other, and
worked as slowly as they possibly could; but the German never saw it.

Away, beyond the kopje, Waldo his son herded the ewes and lambs--a small
and dusty herd--powdered all over from head to foot with red sand, wearing
a ragged coat and shoes of undressed leather, through whose holes the toes
looked out. His hat was too large, and had sunk down to his eyes,
concealing completely the silky black curls. It was a curious small
figure. His flock gave him little trouble. It was too hot for them to
move far; they gathered round every little milk-bush, as though they hoped
to find shade, and stood there motionless in clumps. He himself crept
under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the kopje, stretched himself
on his stomach, and waved his dilapidated little shoes in the air.

Soon, from the blue bag where he kept his dinner, he produced a fragment of
slate, an arithmetic, and a pencil. Proceeding to put down a sum with
solemn and earnest demeanour, he began to add it up aloud: "Six and two is
eight--and four is twelve--and two is fourteen--and four is eighteen."
Here he paused. "And four is eighteen--and--four--is--eighteen."  The last
was very much drawled. Slowly the pencil slipped from his fingers, and the
slate followed it into the sand. For a while he lay motionless, then began
muttering to himself, folded his little arms, laid his head down upon them,
and might have been asleep, but for the muttering sound that from time to
time proceeded from him. A curious old ewe came to sniff at him; but it
was long before he raised his head. When he did, he looked at the far-off
hills with his heavy eyes.

"Ye shall receive--ye shall receive--shall, shall, shall," he muttered.

He sat up then. Slowly the dulness and heaviness melted from his face; it
became radiant. Midday had come now, and the sun's rays were poured down
vertically; the earth throbbed before the eye.

The boy stood up quickly, and cleared a small space from the bushes which
covered it. Looking carefully, he found twelve small stones of somewhat
the same size; kneeling down, he arranged them carefully on the cleared
space in a square pile, in shape like an altar. Then he walked to the bag
where his dinner was kept; in it was a mutton chop and a large slice of
brown bread. The boy took them out and turned the bread over in his hand,
deeply considering it. Finally he threw it away and walked to the altar
with the meat, and laid it down on the stones. Close by in the red sand he
knelt down. Sure, never since the beginning of the world was there so
ragged and so small a priest. He took off his great hat and placed it
solemnly on the ground, then closed his eyes and folded his hands. He
prayed aloud:

"Oh, God, my Father, I have made Thee a sacrifice. I have only twopence,
so I cannot buy a lamb. If the lambs were mine, I would give Thee one; but
now I have only this meat; it is my dinner meat. Please, my Father, send
fire down from heaven to burn it. Thou hast said, Whosoever shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea, nothing doubting, it shall be
done. I ask for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen."

He knelt down with his face upon the ground, and he folded his hands upon
his curls. The fierce sun poured down its heat upon his head and upon his
altar. When he looked up he knew what he should see--the glory of God!
For fear his very heart stood still, his breath came heavily; he was half
suffocated. He dared not look up. Then at last he raised himself. Above
him was the quiet blue sky, about him the red earth; there were the clumps
of silent ewes and his altar--that was all.

He looked up--nothing broke the intense stillness of the blue overhead. He
looked round in astonishment, then he bowed again, and this time longer
than before.

When he raised himself the second time all was unaltered. Only the sun had
melted the fat of the little mutton chop, and it ran down upon the stones.

Then, the third time he bowed himself. When at last he looked up, some
ants had come to the meat on the altar. He stood up and drove them away.
Then he put his hat on his hot curls, and sat in the shade. He clasped his
hands about his knees. He sat to watch what would come to pass. The glory
of the Lord God Almighty! He knew he should see it.

"My dear God is trying me," he said; and he sat there through the fierce
heat of the afternoon. Still he watched and waited when the sun began to
slope, and when it neared the horizon and the sheep began to cast long
shadows across the karoo, he still sat there. He hoped when the first rays
touched the hills till the sun dipped behind them and was gone. Then he
called his ewes together, and broke down the altar, and threw the meat far,
far away into the field.

He walked home behind his flock. His heart was heavy. He reasoned so:
"God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire came. I am like Cain--I am not
His. He will not hear my prayer. God hates me."

The boy's heart was heavy. When he reached the kraal gate the two girls
met him.

"Come," said the yellow-haired Em, "let us play coop."  There is still time
before it gets quite dark. You, Waldo, go and hide on the kopje; Lyndall
and I will shut eyes here, and we will not look."

The girls hid their faces in the stone wall of the sheep-kraal, and the boy
clambered half way up the kopje. He crouched down between two stones and
gave the call. Just then the milk-herd came walking out of the cow-kraal
with two pails. He was an ill-looking Kaffer.

"Ah!" thought the boy, "perhaps he will die tonight, and go to hell! I
must pray for him, I must pray!"

Then he thought--"Where am I going to?" and he prayed desperately.

"Ah! this is not right at all," little Em said, peeping between the stones,
and finding him in a very curious posture. "What are you doing Waldo? It
is not the play, you know. You should run out when we come to the white
stone. Ah, you do not play nicely."

"I--I will play nicely now," said the boy, coming out and standing
sheepishly before them; "I--I only forgot; I will play now."

"He has been to sleep," said freckled Em.

"No," said beautiful little Lyndall, looking curiously at him: "he has
been crying."

She never made a mistake.

...

The Confession.

One night, two years after, the boy sat alone on the kopje. He had crept
softly from his father's room and come there. He often did, because, when
he prayed or cried aloud, his father might awake and hear him; and none
knew his great sorrow, and none knew his grief, but he himself, and he
buried them deep in his heart.

He turned up the brim of his great hat and looked at the moon, but most at
the leaves of the prickly pear that grew just before him. They glinted,
and glinted, and glinted, just like his own heart--cold, so hard, and very
wicked. His physical heart had pain also; it seemed full of little bits of
glass, that hurt. He had sat there for half an hour, and he dared not go
back to the close house.

He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in all
the world, and he knew it. He folded his arms and began to cry--not aloud;
he sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched marks where
they fell. He could not pray; he had prayed night and day for so many
months; and tonight he could not pray. When he left off crying, he held
his aching head with his brown hands. If one might have gone up to him and
touched him kindly; poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps his heart was almost
broken.

With his swollen eyes he sat there on a flat stone at the very top of the
kopje; and the tree, with every one of its wicked leaves, blinked, and
blinked, and blinked at him. Presently he began to cry again, and then
stopped his crying to look at it. He was quiet for a long while, then he
knelt up slowly and bent forward. There was a secret he had carried in his
heart for a year. He had not dared to look at it; he had not whispered it
to himself, but for a year he had carried it. "I hate God!" he said. The
wind took the words and ran away with them, among the stones, and through
the leaves of the prickly pear. He thought it died away half down the
kopje. He had told it now!

"I love Jesus Christ, but I hate God."

The wind carried away that sound as it had done the first. Then he got up
and buttoned his old coat about him. He knew he was certainly lost now; he
did not care. If half the world were to be lost, why not he too? He would
not pray for mercy any more. Better so--better to know certainly. It was
ended now. Better so.

He began scrambling down the sides of the kopje to go home.

Better so! But oh, the loneliness, the agonized pain! for that night, and
for nights on nights to come! The anguish that sleeps all day on the heart
like a heavy worm, and wakes up at night to feed!

There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, "Now deal us your
hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we
suffered when we were children."

The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this: its intense
loneliness, its intense agony.

Chapter 1.II. Plans and Bushman Paintings.

At last came the year of the great drought, the year of eighteen-sixty-two.
From end to end of the land the earth cried for water. Man and beast
turned their eyes to the pitiless sky, that like the roof of some brazen
oven arched overhead. On the farm, day after day, month after month, the
water in the dams fell lower and lower; the sheep died in the fields; the
cattle, scarcely able to crawl, tottered as they moved from spot to spot in
search of food. Week after week, month after month, the sun looked down
from the cloudless sky, till the karoo-bushes were leafless sticks, broken
into the earth, and the earth itself was naked and bare; and only the milk-
bushes, like old hags, pointed their shrivelled fingers heavenward, praying
for the rain that never came.

...

It was on an afternoon of a long day in that thirsty summer, that on the
side of the kopje furthest from the homestead the two girls sat. They were
somewhat grown since the days when they played hide-and-seek there, but
they were mere children still.

Their dress was of dark, coarse stuff; their common blue pinafores reached
to their ankles, and on their feet they wore home-made velschoen.

They sat under a shelving rock, on the surface of which were still visible
some old Bushman paintings, their red and black pigments having been
preserved through long years from wind and rain by the overhanging ledge;
grotesque oxen, elephants, rhinoceroses, and a one-horned beast, such as no
man ever has seen or ever shall.

The girls sat with their backs to the paintings. In their laps were a few
fern and ice-plant leaves, which by dint of much searching they had
gathered under the rocks.

Em took off her big brown kapje and began vigorously to fan her red face
with it; but her companion bent low over the leaves in her lap, and at last
took up an ice-plant leaf and fastened it on to the front of her blue
pinafore with a pin.

"Diamonds must look as these drops do," she said, carefully bending over
the leaf, and crushing one crystal drop with her delicate little nail.
"When I," she said, "am grown up, I shall wear real diamonds, exactly like
these in my hair."

Her companion opened her eyes and wrinkled her low forehead.

"Where will you find them, Lyndall? The stones are only crystals that we
picked up yesterday. Old Otto says so."

"And you think that I am going to stay here always?"

The lip trembled scornfully.

"Ah, no," said her companion. "I suppose some day we shall go somewhere;
but now we are only twelve, and we cannot marry till we are seventeen.
Four years, five--that is a long time to wait. And we might not have
diamonds if we did marry."

"And you think that I am going to stay here till then?"

"Well, where are you going?" asked her companion.

The girl crushed an ice-plant leaf between her fingers.

"Tant Sannie is a miserable old woman," she said. "Your father married her
when he was dying, because he thought she would take better care of the
farm, and of us, than an English woman. He said we should be taught and
sent to school. Now she saves every farthing for herself, buys us not even
one old book. She does not ill-use us--why? Because she is afraid of your
father's ghost. Only this morning she told her Hottentot that she would
have beaten you for breaking the plate, but that three nights ago she heard
a rustling and a grunting behind the pantry door, and knew it was your
father coming to spook her. She is a miserable old woman," said the girl,
throwing the leaf from her; "but I intend to go to school."

"And if she won't let you?"

"I shall make her."

"How?"

The child took not the slightest notice of the last question, and folded
her small arms across her knees.

"But why do you want to go, Lyndall?"

"There is nothing helps in this world," said the child slowly, "but to be
very wise, and to know everything--to be clever."

"But I should not like to go to school!" persisted the small freckled face.

"And you do not need to. When you are seventeen this Boer-woman will go;
you will have this farm and everything that is upon it for your own; but
I," said Lyndall, "will have nothing. I must learn."

"Oh, Lyndall! I will give you some of my sheep," said Em, with a sudden
burst of pitying generosity.

"I do not want your sheep," said the girl slowly; "I want things of my own.
When I am grown up," she added, the flush on her delicate features
deepening at every word, "there will be nothing that I do not know. I
shall be rich, very rich; and I shall wear not only for best, but every
day, a pure white silk, and little rose-buds, like the lady in Tant
Sannie's bedroom, and my petticoats will be embroidered, not only at the
bottom, but all through."

The lady in Tant Sannie's bedroom was a gorgeous creature from a fashion-
sheet, which the Boer-woman, somewhere obtaining, had pasted up at the foot
of her bed, to be profoundly admired by the children.

"It would be very nice," said Em; but it seemed a dream of quite too
transcendent a glory ever to be realized.

At this instant there appeared at the foot of the kopje two figures--the
one, a dog, white and sleek, one yellow ear hanging down over his left eye;
the other, his master, a lad of fourteen, and no other than the boy Waldo,
grown into a heavy, slouching youth of fourteen. The dog mounted the kopje
quickly, his master followed slowly. He wore an aged jacket much too large
for him, and rolled up at the wrists, and, as of old, a pair of dilapidated
velschoens and a felt hat. He stood before the two girls at last.

"What have you been doing today?" asked Lyndall, lifting her eyes to his
face.

"Looking after ewes and lambs below the dam. Here!" he said, holding out
his hand awkwardly, "I brought them for you."

There were a few green blades of tender grass.

"Where did you find them?"

"On the dam wall."

She fastened them beside the leaf on her blue pinafore.

"They look nice there," said the boy, awkwardly rubbing his great hands and
watching her.

"Yes; but the pinafore spoils it all; it is not pretty."

He looked at it closely.

"Yes, the squares are ugly; but it looks nice upon you--beautiful."

He now stood silent before them, his great hands hanging loosely at either
side.

"Some one has come today," he mumbled out suddenly, when the idea struck
him.

"Who?" asked both girls.

"An Englishman on foot."

"What does he look like?" asked Em.

"I did not notice; but he has a very large nose," said the boy slowly. "He
asked the way to the house."

"Didn't he tell you his name?"

"Yes--Bonaparte Blenkins."

"Bonaparte!" said Em, "why that is like the reel Hottentot Hans plays on
the violin--

'Bonaparte, Bonaparte, my wife is sick;
In the middle of the week, but Sundays not,
I give her rice and beans for soup'--

It is a funny name."

"There was a living man called Bonaparte once," said she of the great eyes.

"Ah yes, I know," said Em--"the poor prophet whom the lions ate. I am
always so sorry for him."

Her companion cast a quiet glance upon her.

"He was the greatest man who ever lived," she said, "the man I like best."

"And what did he do?" asked Em, conscious that she had made a mistake, and
that her prophet was not the man.

"He was one man, only one," said her little companion slowly, "yet all the
people in the world feared him. He was not born great, he was common as we
are; yet he was master of the world at last. Once he was only a little
child, then he was a lieutenant, then he was a general, then he was an
emperor. When he said a thing to himself he never forgot it. He waited,
and waited and waited, and it came at last."

"He must have been very happy," said Em.

"I do not know," said Lyndall; "but he had what he said he would have, and
that is better than being happy. He was their master, and all the people
were white with fear of him. They joined together to fight him. He was
one and they were many, and they got him down at last. They were like the
wild cats when their teeth are fast in a great dog, like cowardly wild
cats," said the child, "they would not let him go. There were many; he was
only one. They sent him to an island on the sea, a lonely island, and kept
him there fast. He was one man, and they were many, and they were
terrified at him. It was glorious!" said the child.

"And what then?" said Em.

"Then he was alone there in that island with men to watch him always," said
her companion, slowly and quietly. "And in the long lonely nights he used
to lie awake and think of the things he had done in the old days, and the
things he would do if they let him go again. In the day when he walked
near the shore it seemed to him that the sea all around him was a cold
chain about his body pressing him to death."

"And then?" said Em, much interested.

"He died there in that island; he never got away."

"It is rather a nice story," said Em; "but the end is sad."

"It is a terrible, hateful ending," said the little teller of the story,
leaning forward on her folded arms; "and the worst is, it is true. I have
noticed," added the child very deliberately, "that it is only the made-up
stories that end nicely; the true ones all end so."

As she spoke the boy's dark, heavy eyes rested on her face.

"You have read it, have you not?"

He nodded. "Yes; but the Brown history tells only what he did, not what he
thought."

"It was in the Brown history that I read of him," said the girl; "but I
know what he thought. Books do not tell everything."

"No," said the boy, slowly drawing nearer to her and sitting down at her
feet. "What you want to know they never tell."

Then the children fell into silence, till Doss, the dog, growing uneasy at
its long continuance, sniffed at one and the other, and his master broke
forth suddenly:

"If they could talk, if they could tell us now!" he said, moving his hand
out over the surrounding objects--"then we would know something. This
kopje, if it could tell us how it came here! The 'Physical Geography'
says," he went on most rapidly and confusedly, "that what were dry lands
now were once lakes; and what I think is this--these low hills were once
the shores of a lake; this kopje is some of the stones that were at the
bottom, rolled together by the water. But there is this--How did the water
come to make one heap here alone, in the centre of the plain?"  It was a
ponderous question; no one volunteered an answer. "When I was little,"
said the boy, "I always looked at it and wondered, and I thought a great
giant was buried under it. Now I know the water must have done it; but
how? It is very wonderful. Did one little stone come first, and stop the
others as they rolled?" said the boy with earnestness, in a low voice, more
as speaking to himself than to them.

"Oh, Waldo, God put the little kopje here," said Em with solemnity.

"But how did he put it here?"

"By wanting."

"But how did the wanting bring it here?"

"Because it did."

The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching
argument. What effect it had on the questioner was not evident, for he
made no reply, and turned away from her.

Drawing closer to Lyndall's feet, he said after a while in a low voice:

"Lyndall, has it never seemed to you that the stones were talking with you?
Sometimes," he added in a yet lower tone, "I lie under there with my sheep,
and it seems that the stones are really speaking--speaking of the old
things, of the time when the strange fishes and animals lived that are
turned into stone now, and the lakes were here; and then of the time when
the little Bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used to sleep in
the wild dog holes, and in the sloots, and eat snakes, and shot the bucks
with their poisoned arrows. It was one of them, one of these old wild
Bushmen, that painted those," said the boy, nodding toward the pictures--
"one who was different from the rest. He did not know why, but he wanted
to make something beautiful--he wanted to make something, so he made these.
He worked hard, very hard, to find the juice to make the paint; and then he
found this place where the rocks hang over, and he painted them. To us
they are only strange things, that make us laugh; but to him they were very
beautiful."

The children had turned round and looked at the pictures.

"He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting; and he wondered
at the things he made himself," said the boy, rising and moving his hand in
deep excitement. "Now the Boers have shot them all, so that we never see a
little yellow face peeping out among the stones."  He paused, a dreamy look
coming over his face. "And the wild bucks have gone, and those days, and
we are here. But we will be gone soon, and only the stones will lie on
here, looking at everything like they look now. I know that it is I who am
thinking," the fellow added slowly, "but it seems as though it were they
who are talking. Has it never seemed so to you, Lyndall?"

"No, it never seems so to me," she answered.

The sun had dipped now below the hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering
the ewes and lambs, started to his feet.

"Let us also go to the house and see who has come," said Em, as the boy
shuffled away to rejoin his flock, while Doss ran at his heels, snapping at
the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind.

Chapter 1.III. I Was A Stranger, and Ye Took Me In.

As the two girls rounded the side of the kopje, an unusual scene presented
itself. A large group was gathered at the back door of the homestead.

On the doorstep stood the Boer-woman, a hand on each hip, her face red and
fiery, her head nodding fiercely. At her feet sat the yellow Hottentot
maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffer maids, with blankets
twisted round their half-naked figures. Two, who stamped mealies in a
wooden block, held the great stampers in their hands, and stared stupidly
at the object of attraction. It certainly was not to look at the old
German overseer, who stood in the centre of the group, that they had all
gathered together. His salt-and-pepper suit, grizzly black beard, and grey
eyes were as familiar to every one on the farm as the red gables of the
homestead itself; but beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes
were fixed. Ever and anon the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous
red nose to the spot where the Boer-woman stood, and smiled faintly.

"I'm not a child," cried the Boer-woman, in low Cape Dutch, "and I wasn't
born yesterday. No, by the Lord, no! You can't take me in! My mother
didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye and I see the whole thing.
I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm," cried Tant Sannie blowing. "No,
by the devil, no! not though he had sixty-times-six red noses."

There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp,
but a highly respectable individual, whose horse had died by an accident
three days before.

"Don't tell me," cried the Boer-woman; "the man isn't born that can take me
in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men who walk are
thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devil in
his nose!" cried Tant Sannie shaking her fist at him; "and to come walking
into the house of this Boer's child and shaking hands as though he came on
horseback! Oh, no, no!"

The stranger took off his hat, a tall, battered chimneypot, and disclosed a
bald head, at the back of which was a little fringe of curled white hair,
and he bowed to Tant Sannie.

"What does she remark, my friend?" he inquired, turning his crosswise-
looking eyes on the old German.

The German rubbed his old hands and hesitated.

"Ah--well--ah--the--Dutch--you know--do not like people who walk--in this
country--ah!"

"My dear friend," said the stranger, laying his hand on the German's arm,
"I should have bought myself another horse, but crossing, five days ago, a
full river, I lost my purse--a purse with five hundred pounds in it. I
spent five days on the bank of the river trying to find it--couldn't. Paid
a Kaffer nine pounds to go in and look for it at the risk of his life--
couldn't find it."

The German would have translated this information, but the Boer-woman gave
no ear.

"No, no; he goes tonight. See how he looks at me--a poor unprotected
female! If he wrongs me, who is to do me right?" cried Tant Sannie.

"I think," said the German in an undertone, if you didn't look at her quite
so much it might be advisable. She--ah--she--might--imagine that you liked
her too well,--in fact--ah--"

"Certainly, my dear friend, certainly," said the stranger. "I shall not
look at her."

Saying this, he turned his nose full upon a small Kaffer of two years old.
That small naked son of Ham became instantly so terrified that he fled to
his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly.

Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stamp-block, folding
his hands on the head of his cane. His boots were broken, but he still had
the cane of a gentleman.

"You vagabonds se Engelschman!" said Tant Sannie, looking straight at him.

This was a near approach to plain English; but the man contemplated the
block abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was being
displayed toward him.

"You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you?"
suggested the German. "It is the English that she hates."

"My dear friend," said the stranger, "I am Irish every inch of me--father
Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of English blood in my veins."

"And you might not be married, might you?" persisted the German. "If you
had a wife and children, now? Dutch people do not like those who are not
married."

"Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dear wife
and three sweet little children--two lovely girls and a noble boy."

This information having been conveyed to the Boer-woman, she, after some
further conversation, appeared slightly mollified; but remained firm to her
conviction that the man's designs were evil.

"For, dear Lord!" she cried; "all Englishmen are ugly; but was there ever
such a red-rag-nosed thing with broken boots and crooked eyes before? Take
him to your room," she cried to the German; "but all the sin he does I lay
at your door."

The German having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger made a
profound bow to Tant Sannie and followed his host, who led the way to his
own little room.

"I thought she would come to her better self soon," the German said
joyously. "Tant Sannie is not wholly bad, far from it, far."  Then seeing
his companion cast a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one of
surprise, he added quickly, "Ah, yes, yes; we are all a primitive people
here--not very lofty. We deal not in titles. Every one is Tante and Oom--
aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he said, opening the door. "It is
rough, the room is rough; not a palace--not quite. But it may be better
than the fields, a little better!" he said, glancing round at his
companion. "Come in, come in. There is something to eat--a mouthful: not
the fare of emperors or kings; but we do not starve, not yet," he said,
rubbing his hands together and looking round with a pleased, half-nervous
smile on his old face.

"My friend, my dear friend," said the stranger, seizing him by the hand,
"may the Lord bless you, the Lord bless and reward you--the God of the
fatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have slept in
the fields, with the dews of heaven upon my head."

Late that evening Lyndall came down to the cabin with the German's rations.
Through the tiny square window the light streamed forth, and without
knocking she raised the latch and entered. There was a fire burning on the
hearth, and it cast its ruddy glow over the little dingy room, with its
worm-eaten rafters and mud floor, and broken whitewashed walls. A curious
little place, filled with all manner of articles. Next to the fire was a
great toolbox; beyond that the little bookshelf with its well-worn books;
beyond that, in the corner, a heap of filled and empty grain-bags. From
the rafters hung down straps, riems, old boots, bits of harness, and a
string of onions. The bed was in another corner, covered by a patchwork
quilt of faded red lions, and divided from the rest of the room by a blue
curtain, now drawn back. On the mantelshelf was an endless assortment of
little bags and stones; and on the wall hung a map of South Germany, with a
red line drawn through it to show where the German had wandered. This
place was the one home the girls had known for many a year. The house
where Tant Sannie lived and ruled was a place to sleep in, to eat in, not
to be happy in. It was in vain she told them they were grown too old to go
there; every morning and evening found them there. Were there not too many
golden memories hanging about the old place for them to leave it?

Long winter nights, when they had sat round the fire and roasted potatoes,
and asked riddles, and the old man had told of the little German village,
where, fifty years before, a little German boy had played at snowballs, and
had carried home the knitted stockings of a little girl who afterward
became Waldo's mother; did they not seem to see the German peasant girls
walking about with their wooden shoes and yellow, braided hair, and the
little children eating their suppers out of little wooden bowls when the
good mothers called them in to have their milk and potatoes?

And were there not yet better times than these? Moonlight nights, when
they romped about the door, with the old man, yet more a child than any of
them, and laughed, till the old roof of the wagon-house rang?

Or, best of all, were there not warm, dark, starlight nights, when they sat
together on the doorstep, holding each other's hands, singing German hymns,
their voices rising clear in the still night air--till the German would
draw away his hand suddenly to wipe quickly a tear the children must not
see? Would they not sit looking up at the stars and talking of them--of
the dear Southern Cross, red, fiery Mars, Orion, with his belt, and the
Seven Mysterious Sisters--and fall to speculating over them? How old are
they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would say that perhaps the
souls we loved lived in them; there, in that little twinkling point was
perhaps the little girl whose stockings he had carried home; and the
children would look up at it lovingly, and call it "Uncle Otto's star."
Then they would fall to deeper speculations--of the times and seasons
wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the stars
shall fall as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, and there shall be time
no longer: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all His holy
angels with Him."  In lower and lower tones they would talk, till at last
they fell into whispers; then they would wish good night softly, and walk
home hushed and quiet.

Tonight, when Lyndall looked in, Waldo sat before the fire watching a pot
which simmered there, with his slate and pencil in his hand; his father sat
at the table buried in the columns of a three-weeks-old newspaper; and the
stranger lay stretched on the bed in the corner, fast asleep, his mouth
open, his great limbs stretched out loosely, betokening much weariness.
The girl put the rations down upon the table, snuffed the candle, and stood
looking at the figure on the bed.

"Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper,
and causing the old German to look up over his glasses, "how long did that
man say he had been walking?"

"Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentleman--not accustomed to walking--
horse died--poor fellow!" said the German, pushing out his lip and glancing
commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction of the bed where the
stranger lay, with his flabby double chin, and broken boots through which
the flesh shone.

"And do you believe him, Uncle Otto?"

"Believe him? why of course I do. He himself told me the story three times
distinctly."

"If," said the girl slowly, "he had walked for only one day his boots would
not have looked so; and if--"

"If!" said the German starting up in his chair, irritated that any one
should doubt such irrefragable evidence--"if! Why, he told me himself!
Look how he lies there," added the German pathetically, "worn out--poor
fellow! We have something for him though," pointing with his forefinger
over his shoulder to the saucepan that stood on the fire. "We are not
cooks--not French cooks, not quite; but it's drinkable, drinkable, I think;
better than nothing, I think," he added, nodding his head in a jocund
manner that evinced his high estimation of the contents of the saucepan and
his profound satisfaction therein. "Bish! bish! my chicken," he said, as
Lyndall tapped her little foot up and down upon the floor. "Bish! bish! my
chicken, you will wake him."

He moved the candle so that his own head might intervene between it and the
sleeper's face; and, smoothing his newspaper, he adjusted his spectacles to
read.

The child's grey-black eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turned to
the German, then rested on the figure again.

"I think he is a liar. Good night, Uncle Otto," she said slowly, turning
to the door.

Long after she had gone the German folded his paper up methodically, and
put it in his pocket.

The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son had
fallen asleep on the ground. Taking two white sheepskins from the heap of
sacks in the corner, the old man doubled them up, and lifting the boy's
head gently from the slate on which it rested, placed the skins beneath it.

"Poor lambie, poor lambie!" he said, tenderly patting the great rough bear-
like head; "tired is he!"

He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet, and lifted the saucepan from
the fire. There was no place where the old man could comfortably lie down
himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a much-worn Bible, he began to
read, and as he read pleasant thoughts and visions thronged on him.

"I was a stranger, and ye took me in," he read.

He turned again to the bed where the sleeper lay.

"I was a stranger."

Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor
the evil face of the man; but, as it were, under deep disguise and fleshly
concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real to
him. "Jesus, lover, and is it given to us, weak and sinful, frail and
erring, to serve Thee, to take Thee in!" he said softly, as he rose from
his seat. Full of joy, he began to pace the little room. Now and again as
he walked he sang the lines of a German hymn, or muttered broken words of
prayer. The little room was full of light. It appeared to the German that
Christ was very near him, and that at almost any moment the thin mist of
earthly darkness that clouded his human eyes might be withdrawn, and that
made manifest of which the friends at Emmaus, beholding it, said, "It is
the Lord!"

Again, and yet again, through the long hours of that night, as the old man
walked he looked up to the roof of his little room, with its blackened
rafters, and yet saw them not. His rough bearded face was illuminated with
a radiant gladness; and the night was not shorter to the dreaming sleepers
than to him whose waking dreams brought heaven near.

So quickly the night fled, that he looked up with surprise when at four
o'clock the first grey streaks of summer dawn showed themselves through the
little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the few coals that
lay under the ashes, and his son, turning on the sheepskins, muttered
sleepily to know if it were time to rise.

"Lie still, lie still! I would only make a fire," said the old man.

"Have you been up all night?" asked the boy.

"Yes; but it has been short, very short. Sleep again, my chicken; it is
yet early."

And he went out to fetch more fuel.

Chapter 1.IV. Blessed is He That Believeth.

Bonaparte Blenkins sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully revived
since the day before, held his head high, talked in a full sonorous voice,
and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his side was a basin of
soup, from which he took a deep draught now and again as he watched the
fingers of the German, who sat on the mud floor mending the bottom of a
chair.

Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few half-grown
ostriches might be seen wandering listlessly about, and then he looked in
again at the little whitewashed room, and at Lyndall, who sat in the
doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried to adjust an
imaginary shirt-collar. Finding none, he smoothed the little grey fringe
at the back of his head, and began:

"You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study of
these volumes that lie scattered about this apartment; this fact has been
made evident to me."

"Well--a little--perhaps--it may be," said the German meekly.

"Being a student of history then," said Bonaparte, raising himself loftily,
"you will doubtless have heard of my great, of my celebrated kinsman,
Napoleon Bonaparte?"

"Yes, yes," said the German, looking up.

"I, sir," said Bonaparte, "was born at this hour, on an April afternoon,
three-and-fifty years ago. The nurse, sir--she was the same who attended
when the Duke of Sutherland was born--brought me to my mother. 'There is
only one name for this child,' she said: 'he has the nose of his great
kinsman;' and so Bonaparte Blenkins became my name--Bonaparte Blenkins.
Yes, sir," said Bonaparte, "there is a stream on my maternal side that
connects me with a stream on his maternal side."

The German made a sound of astonishment.

"The connection," said Bonaparte, "is one which could not be easily
comprehended by one unaccustomed to the study of aristocratic pedigrees;
but the connection is close."

"Is it possible!" said the German, pausing in his work with much interest
and astonishment. "Napoleon an Irishman!"

"Yes," said Bonaparte, "on the mother's side, and that is how we are
related. There wasn't a man to beat him," said Bonaparte, stretching
himself--"not a man except the Duke of Wellington. And it's a strange
coincidence," added Bonaparte, bending forward, "but he was a connection of
mine. His nephew, the Duke of Wellington's nephew, married a cousin of
mine. She was a woman! See her at one of the court balls--amber satin--
daisies in her hair. Worth going a hundred miles to look at her! Often
seen her there myself, sir!"

The German moved the leather thongs in and out, and thought of the strange
vicissitudes of human life, which might bring the kinsman of dukes and
emperors to his humble room.

Bonaparte appeared lost among old memories.

"Ah, that Duke of Wellington's nephew!" he broke forth suddenly; "many's
the joke I've had with him. Often came to visit me at Bonaparte Hall.
Grand place I had then--park, conservatory, servants. He had only one
fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew," said Bonaparte, observing that
the German was deeply interested in every word, "He was a coward--what you
might call a coward. You've never been in Russia, I suppose?" said
Bonaparte, fixing his crosswise looking eyes on the German's face.

"No, no," said the old man humbly. "France, England, Germany, a little in
this country; it is all I have travelled."

"I, my friend," said Bonaparte, "I have been in every country in the world,
and speak every civilised language, excepting only Dutch and German. I
wrote a book of my travels--noteworthy incidents. Publisher got it--
cheated me out of it. Great rascals those publishers! Upon one occasion
the Duke of Wellington's nephew and I were travelling in Russia. All of a
sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail. There we were--
cold night--snow four feet thick--great forest--one horse not being able to
move the sledge--night coming on--wolves.

"'Spree!' says the Duke of Wellington's nephew.

"'Spree, do you call it? says I. 'Look out.'

"There, sticking out under a bush, was nothing less than the nose of a
bear. The Duke of Wellington's nephew was up a tree like a shot; I stood
quietly on the ground, as cool as I am at this moment, loaded my gun, and
climbed up the tree. There was only one bough.

"'Bon,' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew, 'you'd better sit in front.'

"'All right,' said I; 'but keep your gun ready. There are more coming.'
He'd got his face buried in my back.

"'How many are there?' said he.

"'Four,' said I.

"'How many are there now?' said he.

"'Eight,' said I.

"'How many are there now?' said he.

"'Ten,' said I.

"'Ten! ten!' said he; and down goes his gun.

"'Wallie,' I said, 'what have you done? We're dead men now.'

"'Bon, my old fellow,' said he, 'I couldn't help it; my hands trembled so!'

"'Wall,' I said, turning round and seizing his hand, 'Wallie, my dear lad,
good-bye. I'm not afraid to die. My legs are long--they hang down--the
first bear that comes and I don't hit him, off goes my foot. When he takes
it I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved; but tell, oh,
tell Mary Ann that I thought of her, that I prayed for her.'

"'Good-bye, old fellow,' said he.

"'God bless you,' said I.

"By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all around the tree.
Yes," said Bonaparte impressively, fixing his eyes on the German, "a
regular, exact, circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow,
and I measured it afterward; a drawing-master couldn't have done it better.
It was that saved me. If they'd rushed on me at once, poor old Bon would
never have been here to tell this story. But they came on, sir,
systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited.
The first fellow came up, and I shot him; the second fellow--I shot him;
the third--I shot him. At last the tenth came; he was the biggest of all--
the leader, you may say.

"'Wall,' I said, 'give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold;
there is only one bullet left. I shall miss him. While he is eating me
you get down and take your gun; and live, dear friend, live to remember the
man who gave his life for you!'  By that time the bear was at me. I felt
his paw on my trousers.

"'Oh, Bonnie! Bonnie!' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew. But I just
took my gun and put the muzzle to the bear's ear--over he fell--dead!"

Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then
he took out a dirty white handkerchief and stroked his forehead, and more
especially his eyes.

"It always affects me to relate that adventure," he remarked, returning the
handkerchief to his pocket. "Ingratitude--base, vile ingratitude--is
recalled by it! That man, that man, who but for me would have perished in
the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity forsook
me."  The German looked up. "Yes," said Bonaparte, "I had money, I had
lands; I said to my wife: 'There is Africa, a struggling country; they
want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to open up
that land. Let us go.'

"I bought eight thousand pounds' worth of machinery--winnowing, plowing,
reaping machines; I loaded a ship with them. Next steamer I came out--
wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with the things?
Lost--gone to the bottom! And the box with the money? Lost--nothing
saved!

"My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington's nephew; I didn't wish her to;
she did it without my knowledge.

"What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand
pounds? say, 'Bonaparte, my brother, here is a crumb?'  No; he sent me
nothing.

"My wife said, 'Write.'  I said, 'Mary Ann, NO. While these hands have
power to work, NO. While this frame has power to endure, NO. Never shall
it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.'"

The man's noble independence touched the German.

"Your case is hard; yes, that is hard," said the German, shaking his head.

Bonaparte took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the
pillows, and sighed deeply.

"I think," he said after a while, rousing himself, "I shall now wander in
the benign air, and taste the gentle cool of evening. The stiffness hovers
over me yet; exercise is beneficial."

So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head, and
moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over his
work:

"Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!"

He thought of the ingratitude of the world.

"Uncle Otto," said the child in the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten
bears sitting on their tails in a circle?"

"Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It
is nothing unheard of," said the German. "A man of such courage, too!
Terrible experience that!"

"And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?"

The German's ire was roused.

"That is what I do hate!" he cried. "Know that is true! How do you know
that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question
everything--proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? How do
you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter, except that Peter said
so? How do you know that God talked to Moses, except that Moses wrote it?
That is what I hate!"

The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than
the German dreamed of; for, mark you, the old dream little how their words
and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed them.
Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers
the food on which the adult feeds to the end.

When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction in
the little mouth and the beautiful eyes.

"What dost see, chicken?" he asked.

The child said nothing, and an agonizing shriek was borne on the afternoon
breeze.

"Oh, God! my God! I am killed!" cried the voice of Bonaparte, as he, with
wide open mouth and shaking flesh, fell into the room, followed by a half-
grown ostrich, who put its head in at the door, opened its beak at him, and
went away.

"Shut the door! shut the door! As you value my life, shut the door!" cried
Bonaparte, sinking into a chair, his face blue and white, with a
greenishness about the mouth. "Ah, my friend," he said tremulously,
"eternity has looked me in the face! My life's thread hung upon a cord!
The valley of the shadow of death!" said Bonaparte, seizing the German's
arm.

"Dear, dear, dear!" said the German, who had closed the lower half of the
door, and stood much concerned beside the stranger, "you have had a fright.
I never knew so young a bird to chase before; but they will take dislikes
to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him.
Ah, dear, dear!"

"When I looked round," said Bonaparte, "the red and yawning cavity was
above me, and the reprehensible paw raised to strike me. My nerves," said
Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, "always delicate--highly strung--are
broken--broken! You could not give a little wine, a little brandy my
friend?"

The old German hurried away to the bookshelf, and took from behind the
books a small bottle, half of whose contents he poured into a cup.
Bonaparte drained it eagerly.

"How do you feel now?" asked the German, looking at him with much sympathy.

"A little, slightly, better."

The German went out to pick up the battered chimneypot which had fallen
before the door.

"I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know
them," he said sympathetically, as he put the hat down.

"My friend," said Bonaparte, holding out his hand, "I forgive you; do not
be disturbed. Whatever the consequences, I forgive you. I know, I
believe, it was with no ill-intent that you allowed me to go out. Give me
your hand. I have no ill-feeling; none!"

"You are very kind," said the German, taking the extended hand, and feeling
suddenly convinced that he was receiving magnanimous forgiveness for some
great injury, "you are very kind."

"Don't mention it," said Bonaparte.

He knocked out the crown of his caved-in old hat, placed it on the table
before him, leaned his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, and
contemplated it.

"Ah, my old friend," he thus apostrophized the hat, "you have served me
long, you have served me faithfully, but the last day has come. Never more
shall you be borne upon the head of your master. Never more shall you
protect his brow from the burning rays of summer or the cutting winds of
winter. Henceforth bare-headed must your master go. Good-bye, good-bye,
old hat!"

At the end of this affecting appeal the German rose. He went to the box at
the foot of his bed; out of it he took a black hat, which had evidently
been seldom worn and carefully preserved.

"It's not exactly what you may have been accustomed to," he said nervously,
putting it down beside the battered chimneypot, "but it might be of some
use--a protection to the head, you know."

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "you are not following my advice; you are
allowing yourself to be reproached on my account. Do not make yourself
unhappy. No; I shall go bare-headed."

"No, no, no!" cried the German energetically. "I have no use for the hat,
none at all. It is shut up in the box."

"Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one's own mind when
you have unintentionally injured any one to make reparation. I know the
feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one was,
but it will serve, yes, it will serve. Thank you," said Bonaparte,
adjusting it on his head, and then replacing it on the table. "I shall lie
down now and take a little repose," he added; "I much fear my appetite for
supper will be lost."

"I hope not, I hope not," said the German, reseating himself at his work,
and looking much concerned as Bonaparte stretched himself on the bed and
turned the end of the patchwork quilt over his feet.

"You must not think to make your departure, not for many days," said the
German presently. "Tant Sannie gives her consent, and--"

"My friend," said Bonaparte, closing his eyes sadly, "you are kind; but
were it not that tomorrow is the Sabbath, weak and trembling as I lie here,
I would proceed on my way. I must seek work; idleness but for a day is
painful. Work, labour--that is the secret of all true happiness!"

He doubled the pillar under his head, and watched how the German drew the
leather thongs in and out.

After a while Lyndall silently put her book on the shelf and went home, and
the German stood up and began to mix some water and meal for roaster-cakes.
As he stirred them with his hands he said:

"I make always a double supply on Saturday night; the hands are then free
as the thoughts for Sunday."

"The blessed Sabbath!" said Bonaparte.

There was a pause. Bonaparte twisted his eyes without moving his head, to
see if supper were already on the fire.

"You must sorely miss the administration of the Lord's word in this
desolate spot," added Bonaparte. "Oh, how love I Thine house, and the
place where Thine honour dwelleth!"

"Well, we do; yes," said the German; "but we do our best. We meet
together, and I--well, I say a few words, and perhaps they are not wholly
lost, not quite."

"Strange coincidence," said Bonaparte; "my plan always was the same. Was
in the Free State once--solitary farm--one neighbour. Every Sunday I
called together friend and neighbour, child and servant, and said, 'Rejoice
with me, that we may serve the Lord,' and then I addressed them. Ah, those
were blessed times," said Bonaparte; "would they might return."

The German stirred at the cakes, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred. He
could give the stranger his bed, and he could give the stranger his hat,
and he could give the stranger his brandy; but his Sunday service!

After a good while he said:

"I might speak to Tant Sannie; I might arrange; you might take the service
in my place, if it--"

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "it would give me the profoundest felicity,
the most unbounded satisfaction; but in these worn-out habiliments, in
these deteriorated garments, it would not be possible, it would not be
fitting that I should officiate in service of One whom, for respect, we
shall not name. No, my friend, I will remain here; and, while you are
assembling yourselves together in the presence of the Lord, I, in my
solitude, will think of and pray for you. No; I will remain here!"

It was a touching picture--the solitary man there praying for them. The
German cleared his hands from the meal, and went to the chest from which he
had taken the black hat. After a little careful feeling about, he produced
a black cloth coat, trousers, and waistcoat, which he laid on the table,
smiling knowingly. They were of new shining cloth, worn twice a year, when
he went to the town to nachtmaal. He looked with great pride at the coat
as he unfolded it and held it up.

"It's not the latest fashion, perhaps, not a West End cut, not exactly; but
it might do; it might serve at a push. Try it on, try it on!" he said, his
old grey eyes twinkling with pride.

Bonaparte stood up and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably; the
waistcoat could be made to button by ripping up the back, and the trousers
were perfect; but below were the ragged boots. The German was not
disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of top-boots hung, he took
them off, dusted them carefully, and put them down before Bonaparte. The
old eyes now fairly brimmed over with sparkling enjoyment.

"I have only worn them once. They might serve; they might be endured."

Bonaparte drew them on and stood upright, his head almost touching the
beams. The German looked at him with profound admiration. It was
wonderful what a difference feathers made in the bird.

Chapter 1.V. Sunday Services.

Service No. I.

The boy Waldo kissed the pages of his book and looked up. Far over the
flat lay the kopje, a mere speck; the sheep wandered quietly from bush to
bush; the stillness of the early Sunday rested everywhere, and the air was
fresh.

He looked down at his book. On its page a black insect crept. He lifted
it off with his finger. Then he leaned on his elbow, watching its
quivering antennae and strange movements, smiling.

"Even you," he whispered, "shall not die. Even you He loves. Even you He
will fold in His arms when He takes everything and makes it perfect and
happy."

When the thing had gone he smoothed the leaves of his Bible somewhat
caressingly. The leaves of that book had dropped blood for him once; they
had taken the brightness out of his childhood; from between them had sprung
the visions that had clung about him and made night horrible. Adder-like
thoughts had lifted their heads, had shot out forked tongues at him, asking
mockingly strange, trivial questions that he could not answer, miserable
child:

Why did the women in Mark see only one angel and the women in Luke two?
Could a story be told in opposite ways and both ways be true? Could it?
could it? Then again: Is there nothing always right, and nothing always
wrong? Could Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite "put her hand to the nail,
and her right hand to the workman's hammer?" and could the Spirit of the
Lord chant paeans over her, loud paeans, high paeans, set in the book of
the Lord, and no voice cry out it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and
kill the trusting in their sleep? Could the friend of God marry his own
sister, and be beloved, and the man who does it today goes to hell, to
hell? Was there nothing always right or always wrong?

Those leaves had dropped blood for him once: they had made his heart heavy
and cold; they had robbed his childhood of its gladness; now his fingers
moved over them caressingly.

"My father God knows, my father knows," he said; "we cannot understand; He
knows."   After a while he whispered, smiling--"I heard your voice this
morning when my eyes were not yet open, I felt you near me, my Father. Why
do you love me so? His face was illuminated. "In the last four months the
old question has gone from me. I know you are good; I know you love
everything; I know, I know, I know! I could not have borne it any more,
not any more."  He laughed softly. "And all the while I was so miserable
you were looking at me and loving me, and I never knew it. But I know it
now. I feel it," said the boy, and he laughed low; "I feel it!" he laughed.

After a while he began partly to sing, partly to chant the disconnected
verses of hymns, those which spoke his gladness, many times over. The
sheep with their senseless eyes turned to look at him as he sang.

At last he lapsed into quiet. Then as the boy lay there staring at bush
and sand, he saw a vision.

He had crossed the river of Death, and walked on the other bank in the
Lord's land of Beulah. His feet sank into the dark grass, and he walked
alone. Then, far over the fields, he saw a figure coming across the dark
green grass. At first he thought it must be one of the angels; but as it
came nearer he began to feel what it was. And it came closer, closer to
him, and then the voice said, "Come," and he knew surely Who it was. He
ran to the dear feet and touched them with his hands; yes, he held them
fast! He lay down beside them. When he looked up the face was over him,
and the glorious eyes were loving him; and they two were there alone
together.

He laughed a deep laugh; then started up like one suddenly awakened from
sleep.

"Oh, God! He cried, "I cannot wait; I cannot wait! I want to die; I want
to see Him; I want to touch him. Let me die!"  He folded his hands,
trembling. "How can I wait so long--for long, long years perhaps? I want
to die--to see Him. I will die any death. Oh, let me come!"

Weeping he bowed himself, and quivered from head to foot. After a long
while he lifted his head.

"Yes; I will wait; I will wait. But not long; do not let it be very long,
Jesus King. I want you; oh, I want you--soon, soon!"  He sat still,
staring across the plain with his tearful eyes.

Service No. II.

In the front room of the farmhouse sat Tant Sannie in her elbow-chair. In
her hand was her great brass-clasped hymn-book, round her neck was a clean
white handkerchief, under her feet was a wooden stove. There too sat Em
and Lyndall, in clean pinafores and new shoes. There too was the spruce
Hottentot in a starched white kapje, and her husband on the other side of
the door, with his wool oiled and very much combed out, and staring at his
new leather boots. The Kaffer servants were not there because Tant Sannie
held they were descended from apes, and needed no salvation. But the rest
were gathered for the Sunday service, and waited the officiator.

Meanwhile Bonaparte and the German approached arm in arm--Bonaparte
resplendent in the black cloth clothes, a spotless shirt, and a spotless
collar; the German in the old salt-and-pepper, casting shy glances of
admiration at his companion.

At the front door Bonaparte removed his hat with much dignity, raised his
shirt collar, and entered. To the centre table he walked, put his hat
solemnly down by the big Bible, and bowed his head over it in silent
prayer.

The Boer-woman looked at the Hottentot, and the Hottentot looked at the
Boer-woman.

There was one thing on earth for which Tant Sannie had a profound
reverence, which exercised a subduing influence over her, which made her
for the time a better woman--that thing was new, shining black cloth. It
made her think of the predikant; it made her think of the elders who sat in
the top pew of the church on Sundays, with the hair so nicely oiled, so
holy and respectable, with their little swallow-tailed coats; it made her
think of heaven, where everything was so holy and respectable, and nobody
wore tancord, and the littlest angel had a black-tailed coat. She wished
she hadn't called him a thief and a Roman Catholic. She hoped the German
hadn't told him. She wondered where those clothes were when he came in
rags to her door. There was no doubt, he was a very respectable man, a
gentleman.

The German began to read a hymn. At the end of each line Bonaparte
groaned, and twice at the end of every verse.

The Boer-woman had often heard of persons groaning during prayers, to add a
certain poignancy and finish to them; old Jan Vanderlinde, her mother's
brother, always did it after he was converted; and she would have looked
upon it as no especial sign of grace in any one; but to groan at hymn-time!
She was startled. She wondered if he remembered that she shook her fist in
his face. This was a man of God. They knelt down to pray. The Boer-woman
weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and could not kneel. She sat in her
chair, and peeped between her crossed fingers at the stranger's back. She
could not understand what he said; but he was in earnest. He shook the
chair by the back rail till it made quite a little dust on the mud floor.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte solemnly seated himself in the
chair and opened the Bible. He blew his nose, pulled up his shirt collar,
smoothed the leaves, stroked down his capacious waistcoat, blew his nose
again, looked solemnly round the room, then began.

"All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death."

Having read this portion of Scripture, Bonaparte paused impressively, and
looked all round the room.

"I shall not, my dear friends," he said, "long detain you. Much of our
precious time has already fled blissfully from us in the voice of
thanksgiving and the tongue of praise. A few, a very few words are all I
shall address to you, and may they be as a rod of iron dividing the bones
from the marrow, and the marrow from the bones.

"In the first place: What is a liar?"

The question was put so pointedly, and followed by a pause so profound,
that even the Hottentot man left off looking at his boots and opened his
eyes, though he understood not a word.

"I repeat," said Bonaparte, "what is a liar?"

The sensation was intense; the attention of the audience was riveted.

"Have you any of you ever seen a liar, my dear friends?"  There was a still
longer pause. "I hope not; I truly hope not. But I will tell you what a
liar is. I knew a liar once--a little boy who lived in Cape Town, in Short
Market Street. His mother and I sat together one day, discoursing about
our souls.

"'Here, Sampson,' said his mother, 'go and buy sixpence of meiboss from the
Malay round the corner.'

"When he came back she said: 'How much have you got?'

"'Five,' he said.

"He was afraid if he said six and a half she'd ask for some. And, my
friends, that was a lie. The half of a meiboss stuck in his throat and he
died and was buried. And where did the soul of that little liar go to, my
friends? It went to the lake of fire and brimstone. This brings me to the
second point of my discourse.

"What is a lake of fire and brimstone? I will tell you, my friends," said
Bonaparte condescendingly. "The imagination unaided cannot conceive it:
but by the help of the Lord I will put it before your mind's eye.

"I was travelling in Italy once on a time; I came to a city called Rome, a
vast city, and near it is a mountain which spits forth fire. Its name is
Etna. Now, there was a man in that city of Rome who had not the fear of
God before his eyes, and he loved a woman. The woman died, and he walked
up that mountain spitting fire, and when he got to the top he threw himself
in at the hole that is there. The next day I went up. I was not afraid;
the Lord preserves His servants. And in their hands shall they bear thee
up, lest at any time thou fall into a volcano. It was dark night when I
got there, but in the fear of the Lord I walked to the edge of the yawning
abyss, and looked in. That sight--that sight, my friends, is impressed
upon my most indelible memory. I looked down into the lurid depths upon an
incandescent lake, a melted fire, a seething sea; the billows rolled from
side to side, and on their fiery crests tossed the white skeleton of the
suicide. The heat had burnt the flesh from off the bones; they lay as a
light cork upon the melted, fiery waves. One skeleton hand was raised
upward, the finger pointing to heaven; the other, with outstretched finger,
pointing downward, as though it would say, 'I go below, but you, Bonaparte,
may soar above.'  I gazed; I stood entranced. At that instant there was a
crack in the lurid lake; it swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the
suicide disappeared, to be seen no more by mortal eye."

Here again Bonaparte rested, and then continued:

"The lake of melted stone rose in the crater, it swelled higher and higher
at the side, it streamed forth at the top. I had presence of mind; near me
was a rock; I stood upon it. The fiery torrent was vomited out and
streamed on either side of me. And through that long and terrible night I
stood there alone upon that rock, the glowing, fiery lava on every hand--a
monument of the long-suffering and tender providence of the Lord, who
spared me that I might this day testify in your ears of Him.

"Now, my dear friends, let us deduce the lessons that are to be learnt from
this narrative.

"Firstly: let us never commit suicide. The man is a fool, my friends,
that man is insane, my friends, who would leave this earth, my friends.
Here are joys innumerable, such as it hath not entered into the heart of
man to understand, my friends. Here are clothes, my friends; here are
beds, my friends; here is delicious food, my friends. Our precious bodies
were given us to love, to cherish. Oh, let us do so! Oh, let us never
hurt them; but care for and love them, my friends!"

Every one was impressed, and Bonaparte proceeded:

"Thirdly; let us not love too much. If that young man had not loved that
young woman, he would not have jumped into Mount Etna. The good men of old
never did so. Was Jeremiah ever in love, or Ezekiel, or Hosea, or even any
of the minor prophets? No. Then why should we be? Thousands are rolling
in that lake at this moment who would say, 'It was love that brought us
here.'  Oh, let us think always of our own souls first.

"'A charge to keep I have,
    A God to glorify;
  A never-dying soul to save,
    And fit it for the sky.'

"Oh, beloved friends, remember the little boy and the meiboss; remember the
young girl and the young man; remember the lake, the fire, and the
brimstone; remember the suicide's skeleton on the pitchy billows of Mount
Etna; remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears;
and what I say to you I say to all--watch! May the Lord add his
blessings!"

Here the Bible closed with a tremendous thud. Tant Sannie loosened the
white handkerchief about her neck and wiped her eyes, and the coloured
girl, seeing her do so, sniffled. The did not understand the discourse,
which made it the more affecting.

There hung over it that inscrutable charm which hovers forever for the
human intellect over the incomprehensible and shadowy. When the last hymn
was sung the German conducted the officiator to Tant Sannie, who graciously
extended her hand, and offered coffee and a seat on the sofa. Leaving him
there, the German hurried away to see how the little plum-pudding he had
left at home was advancing; and Tant Sannie remarked that it was a hot day.
Bonaparte gathered her meaning as she fanned herself with the end of her
apron. He bowed low in acquiescence. A long silence followed. Tant
Sannie spoke again. Bonaparte gave her no ear; his eye was fixed on a
small miniature on the opposite wall, which represented Tant Sannie as she
had appeared on the day before her confirmation, fifteen years before,
attired in green muslin. Suddenly he started to his feet, walked up to the
picture, and took his stand before it. Long and wistfully he gazed into
its features; it was easy to see that he was deeply moved. With a sudden
movement, as though no longer able to restrain himself, he seized the
picture, loosened it from its nail, and held it close to his eyes. At
length, turning to the Boer-woman, he said, in a voice of deep emotion:

"You will, I trust, dear madam, excuse this exhibition of my feelings; but
this--this little picture recalls to me my first and best beloved, my dear
departed wife, who is now a saint in heaven."

Tant Sannie could not understand; but the Hottentot maid, who had taken her
seat on the floor beside her mistress, translated the English into Dutch as
far as she was able.

"Ah, my first, my beloved!" he added, looking tenderly down at the picture.
"Oh, the beloved, the beautiful lineaments! My angel wife! This is surely
a sister of yours, madame?" he added, fixing his eyes on Tant Sannie.

The Dutchwoman blushed, shook her head, and pointed to herself.

Carefully, intently, Bonaparte looked from the picture in his hand to Tant
Sannie's features, and from the features back to the picture. Then slowly
a light broke over his countenance, he looked up, it became a smile; he
looked back at the miniature, his whole countenance was effulgent.

"Ah, yes; I see it now," he cried, turning his delighted gaze on the Boer-
woman; "eyes, mouth, nose, chin, the very expression!" he cried. "How is
it possible I did not notice it before?"

"Take another cup of coffee," said Tant Sannie. "Put some sugar in."

Bonaparte hung the picture tenderly up, and was turning to take the cup
from her hand, when the German appeared, to say that the pudding was ready
and the meat on the table.

"He's a God-fearing man, and one who knows how to behave himself," said the
Boer-woman as he went out at the door. "If he's ugly, did not the Lord
make him? And are we to laugh at the Lord's handiwork? It is better to be
ugly and good than pretty and bad; though of course it's nice when one is
both," said Tant Sannie, looking complacently at the picture on the wall.

In the afternoon the German and Bonaparte sat before the door of the cabin.
Both smoked in complete silence--Bonaparte with a book in his hands and his
eyes half closed; the German puffing vigorously, and glancing up now and
again at the serene blue sky overhead.

"Supposing--you--you, in fact, made the remark to me," burst forth the
German suddenly, "that you were looking for a situation."

Bonaparte opened his mouth wide, and sent a stream of smoke through his
lips.

"Now supposing," said the German--"merely supposing, of course--that some
one, some one, in fact, should make an offer to you, say, to become
schoolmaster on their farm and teach two children, two little girls,
perhaps, and would give you forty pounds a year, would you accept it? Just
supposing, of course."

"Well, my dear friend," said Bonaparte, "that would depend on
circumstances. Money is no consideration with me. For my wife I have made
provision for the next year. My health is broken. Could I meet a place
where a gentleman would be treated as a gentleman I would accept it,
however small the remuneration. With me," said Bonaparte, "money is no
consideration."

"Well," said the German, when he had taken a whiff or two more from his
pipe, "I think I shall go up and see Tant Sannie a little. I go up often
on Sunday afternoon to have a general conversation, to see her, you know.
Nothing--nothing particular, you know."

The old man put his book into his pocket, and walked up to the farmhouse
with a peculiarly knowing and delighted expression of countenance.

"He doesn't suspect what I'm going to do," soliloquized the German; "hasn't
the least idea. A nice surprise for him."

The man whom he had left at his doorway winked at the retreating figure
with a wink that was not to be described.

Chapter 1.VI. Bonaparte Blenkins Makes His Nest.

"Ah, what is the matter?" asked Waldo, stopping at the foot of the ladder
with a load of skins on his back that he was carrying up to the loft.
Through the open door in the gable little Em was visible, her feet dangling
from the high bench on which she sat. The room, once a storeroom, had been
divided by a row of mealie bags into two parts--the back being Bonaparte's
bedroom, the front his schoolroom.

"Lyndall made him angry," said the girl tearfully; "and he has given me the
fourteenth of John to learn. He says he will teach me to behave myself
when Lyndall troubles him."

"What did she do?" asked the boy.

"You see," said Em, hopelessly turning the leaves, "whenever he talks she
looks out at the door, as though she did not hear him. Today she asked him
what the signs of the Zodiac were, and he said he was surprised that she
should ask him; it was not a fit and proper thing for little girls to talk
about. Then she asked him who Copernicus was; and he said he was one of
the Emperors of Rome, who burned the Christians in a golden pig, and the
worms ate him up while he was still alive. I don't know why," said Em
plaintively, "but she just put her books under her arm and walked out; and
she will never come to his school again, she says, and she always does what
she says. And now I must sit here every day alone," said Em, the great
tears dropping softly.

"Perhaps Tant Sannie will send him away," said the boy, in his mumbling
way, trying to comfort her.

"No," said Em, shaking her head; "no. Last night when the little Hottentot
maid was washing her feet, he told her he liked such feet, and that fat
women were so nice to him; and she said I must always put pure cream in his
coffee now. No; he'll never go away," said Em dolorously.

The boy put down his skins and fumbled in his pocket, and produced a small
piece of paper containing something. He stuck it out toward her.

"There, take it for you," he said. This was by way of comfort.

Em opened it and found a small bit of gum, a commodity prized by the
children; but the great tears dropped down slowly on to it.

Waldo was distressed. He had cried so much in his morsel of life that
tears in another seemed to burn him.

"If," he said, stepping in awkwardly and standing by the table, "if you
will not cry I will tell you something--a secret."

"What is that?" asked Em, instantly becoming decidedly better.

"You will tell it to no human being?"

"No."

He bent nearer to her, and with deep solemnity said:

"I have made a machine!"

Em opened her eyes.

"Yes; a machine for shearing sheep. It is almost done," said the boy.
"There is only one thing that is not right yet; but it will be soon. When
you think, and think, and think, all night and all day, it comes at last,"
he added mysteriously.

"Where is it?"

"Here! I always carry it here," said the boy, putting his hand to his
breast, where a bulging-out was visible. "This is a model. When it is
done they will have to make a large one."

"Show it me."

The boy shook his head.

"No, not till it is done. I cannot let any human being see it till then."

"It is a beautiful secret," said Em; and the boy shuffled out to pick up
his skins.

That evening father and son sat in the cabin eating their supper. The
father sighed deeply sometimes. Perhaps he thought how long a time it was
since Bonaparte had visited the cabin; but his son was in that land in
which sighs have no part. It is a question whether it were not better to
be the shabbiest of fools, and know the way up the little stair of
imagination to the land of dreams, than the wisest of men, who see nothing
that the eyes do not show, and feel nothing that the hands do not touch.
The boy chewed his brown bread and drank his coffee; but in truth he saw
only his machine finished--that last something found out and added. He saw
it as it worked with beautiful smoothness; and over and above, as he chewed
his bread and drank his coffee, there was that delightful consciousness of
something bending over him and loving him. It would not have been better
in one of the courts of heaven, where the walls are set with rows of the
King of Glory's amethysts and milk-white pearls, than there, eating his
supper in that little room.

As they sat in silence there was a knock at the door. When it was opened
the small woolly head of a little nigger showed itself. She was a
messenger from Tant Sannie: the German was wanted at once at the
homestead. Putting on his hat with both hands, he hurried off. The
kitchen was in darkness, but in the pantry beyond Tant Sannie and her maids
were assembled.

A Kaffer girl, who had been grinding pepper between two stones, knelt on
the floor, the lean Hottentot stood with a brass candlestick in her hand,
and Tant Sannie, near the shelf, with a hand on each hip, was evidently
listening intently, as were her companions.

"What may be it?" cried the old German in astonishment. The room beyond
the pantry was the storeroom. Through the thin wooden partition there
arose at that instant, evidently from some creature ensconced there, a
prolonged and prodigious howl, followed by a succession of violent blows
against the partition wall.

The German seized the churn-stick, and was about to rush round the house,
when the Boer-woman impressively laid her hand upon his arm.

"That is his head," said Tant Sannie, "that is his head."

"But what might it be?" asked the German, looking from one to the other,
churn-stick in hand.

A low hollow bellow prevented reply, and the voice of Bonaparte lifted
itself on high.

"Mary-Ann! my angel! my wife!"

"Isn't it dreadful?" said Tant Sannie, as the blows were repeated fiercely.
"He has got a letter; his wife is dead. You must go and comfort him," said
Tant Sannie at last, "and I will go with you. It would not be the thing
for me to go alone--me, who am only thirty-three, and he an unmarried man
now," said Tant Sannie, blushing and smoothing out her apron.

Upon this they all trudged round the house in company--the Hottentot maid
carrying the light, Tant Sannie and the German following, and the Kaffer
girl bringing up the rear.

"Oh," said Tant Sannie, "I see now it wasn't wickedness made him do without
his wife so long--only necessity."

At the door she motioned to the German to enter, and followed him closely.
On the stretcher behind the sacks Bonaparte lay on his face, his head
pressed into a pillow, his legs kicking gently. The Boer-woman sat down on
a box at the foot of the bed. The German stood with folded hands looking
on.

"We must all die," said Tant Sannie at last; "it is the dear Lord's will."

Hearing her voice, Bonaparte turned himself on to his back.

"It's very hard," said Tant Sannie, "I know, for I've lost two husbands."

Bonaparte looked up into the German's face.

"Oh, what does she say? Speak to me words of comfort!"

The German repeated Tant Sannie's remark.

"Ah, I--I also! Two dear, dear wives, whom I shall never see any more!"
cried Bonaparte, flinging himself back upon the bed.

He howled, till the tarantulas, who lived between the rafters and the zinc
roof, felt the unusual vibration, and looked out with their wicked bright
eyes, to see what was going on.

Tant Sannie sighed, the Hottentot maid sighed, the Kaffer girl who looked
in at the door put her hand over her mouth and said "Mow-wah!"

"You must trust in the Lord," said Tant Sannie. "He can give you more than
you have lost."

"I do, I do!" he cried; "but oh, I have no wife! I have no wife!"

Tant Sannie was much affected, and came and stood near the bed.

"Ask him if he won't have a little pap--nice, fine, flour pap. There is
some boiling on the kitchen fire."

The German made the proposal, but the widower waved his hand.

"No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated. No, no! Speak
not of food to me!"

"Pap, and a little brandy in," said Tant Sannie coaxingly.

Bonaparte caught the word.

"Perhaps, perhaps--if I struggled with myself--for the sake of my duties I
might imbibe a few drops," he said, looking with quivering lip up into the
German's face. "I must do my duty, must I not?"

Tant Sannie gave the order, and the girl went for the pap.

"I know how it was when my first husband died. They could do nothing with
me," the Boer-woman said, "till I had eaten a sheep's trotter, and honey,
and a little roaster-cake. I know."

Bonaparte sat up on the bed with his legs stretched out in front of him,
and a hand on each knee, blubbering softly.

"Oh, she was a woman! You are very kind to try and comfort me, but she was
my wife. For a woman that is my wife I could live; for the woman that is
my wife I could die! For a woman that is my wife I could--Ah! that sweet
word "wife"; when will it rest upon my lips again?"

When his feelings had subsided a little he raised the corners of his
turned-down mouth, and spoke to the German with flabby lips.

"Do you think she understands me? Oh, tell her every word, that she may
know I thank her."

At that instant the girl reappeared with a basin of steaming gruel and a
black bottle.

Tant Sannie poured some of its contents into the basin, stirred it well,
and came to the bed.

"Oh, I can't, I can't! I shall die! I shall die!" said Bonaparte, putting
his hands to his side.

"Come, just a little," said Tant Sannie coaxingly; "just a drop."

"It's too thick, it's too thick. I should choke."

Tant Sannie added from the contents of the bottle and held out a spoonful;
Bonaparte opened his mouth like a little bird waiting for a worm, and held
it open, as she dipped again and again into the pap.

"Ah, this will do your heart good," said Tant Sannie, in whose mind the
relative functions of heart and stomach were exceedingly ill-defined.

When the basin was emptied the violence of his grief was much assuaged; he
looked at Tant Sannie with gentle tears.

"Tell him," said the Boer-woman, "that I hope he will sleep well, and that
the Lord will comfort him, as the Lord only can."

"Bless you, dear friend, God bless you," said Bonaparte.

When the door was safely shut on the German, the Hottentot, and the
Dutchwoman, he got off the bed and washed away the soap he had rubbed on
his eyelids.

"Bon," he said, slapping his leg, "you're the cutest lad I ever came
across. If you don't turn out the old Hymns-and-prayers, and pummel the
Ragged coat, and get your arms round the fat one's waist and a wedding-ring
on her finger, then you are not Bonaparte. But you are Bonaparte. Bon,
you're a fine boy!"

Making which pleasing reflection, he pulled off his trousers and got into
bed cheerfully.

Chapter 1.VII. He Sets His Trap.

"May I come in? I hope I do not disturb you, my dear friend," said
Bonaparte, late one evening, putting his nose in at the cabin door, where
the German and his son sat finishing their supper.

It was now two months since he had been installed as schoolmaster in Tant
Sannie's household, and he had grown mighty and more mighty day by day. He
visited the cabin no more, sat close to Tant Sannie drinking coffee all the
evening, and walked about loftily with his hands under the coat-tails of
the German's black cloth and failed to see even a nigger who wished him a
deferential good morning. It was therefore with no small surprise that the
German perceived Bonaparte's red nose at the door.

"Walk in, walk in," he said joyfully. "Boy, boy, see if there is any
coffee left. Well, none. Make a fire. We have done supper, but--"

"My dear friend," said Bonaparte, taking off his hat, "I came not to sup,
not for mere creature comforts, but for an hour of brotherly intercourse
with a kindred spirit. The press of business and the weight of thought,
but they alone, may sometimes prevent me from sharing the secrets of my
bosom with him for whom I have so great a sympathy. You perhaps wonder
when I shall return the two pounds--"

"Oh, no, no! Make a fire, make a fire, boy. We will have a pot of hot
coffee presently," said the German, rubbing his hands and looking about,
not knowing how best to show his pleasure at the unexpected visit.

For three weeks the German's diffident "Good evening" had met with a
stately bow; the chin of Bonaparte lifting itself higher daily; and his
shadow had not darkened the cabin doorway since he came to borrow the two
pounds. The German walked to the head of the bed and took down a blue bag
that hung there. Blue bags were a speciality of the German's. He kept
above fifty stowed away in different corners of his room--some filled with
curious stones, some with seeds that had been in his possession fifteen
years, some with rusty nails, buckles, and bits of old harness--in all, a
wonderful assortment, but highly prized.

"We have something here not so bad," said the German, smiling knowingly, as
he dived his hand into the bag and took out a handful of almonds and
raisins; "I buy these for my chickens. They increase in size, but they
still think the old man must have something nice for them. And the old
man--well, a big boy may have a sweet tooth sometimes, may he not? Ha,
ha!" said the German, chuckling at his own joke, as he heaped the plate
with almonds. "Here is a stone--two stones to crack them--no late patent
improvement--well, Adam's nut-cracker; ha, ha! But I think we shall do.
We will not leave them uncracked. We will consume a few without
fashionable improvements."

Here the German sat down on one side of the table, Bonaparte on the other;
each one with a couple of flat stones before him, and the plate between
them.

"Do not be afraid," said the German, "do not be afraid. I do not forget
the boy at the fire; I crack for him. The bag is full. Why, this is
strange," he said suddenly, cracking upon a large nut; "three kernels! I
have not observed that before. This must be retained. This is valuable."
He wrapped the nut gravely in paper, and put it carefully in his waistcoat
pocket. "Valuable, very valuable!" he said, shaking his head.

"Ah, my friend," said Bonaparte, "what joy it is to be once more in your
society."

The German's eyes glistened, and Bonaparte seized his hand and squeezed it
warmly. They then proceeded to crack and eat. After a while Bonaparte
said, stuffing a handful of raisins into his mouth:

"I was so deeply grieved, my dear friend, that you and Tant Sannie had some
slight unpleasantness this evening."

"Oh, no, no," said the German; "it is all right now. A few sheep missing;
but I make it good myself. I give my twelve sheep, and work in the other
eight."

"It is rather hard that you should have to make good the lost sheep, said
Bonaparte; "it is no fault of yours."

"Well," said the German, "this is the case. Last evening I count the sheep
at the kraal--twenty are missing. I ask the herd; he tells me they are
with the other flock; he tells me so distinctly; how can I think he lies?
This afternoon I count the other flock. The sheep are not there. I come
back here: the herd is gone; the sheep are gone. But I cannot--no, I will
not--believe he stole them," said the German, growing suddenly excited.
"Some one else, but not he. I know that boy. I knew him three years. He
is a good boy. I have seen him deeply affected on account of his soul.
And she would send the police after him! I say I would rather make the
loss good myself. I will not have it; he has fled in fear. I know his
heart. It was," said the German, with a little gentle hesitation, "under
my words that he first felt his need of a Saviour."

Bonaparte cracked some more almonds, then said, yawning, and more as though
he asked for the sake of having something to converse about than from any
interest he felt in the subject:

"And what has become of the herd's wife?"

The German was alight again in a moment.

"Yes; his wife. She has a child six days old, and Tant Sannie would turn
her out into the fields this night. That," said the German rising, "that
is what I call cruelty--diabolical cruelty. My soul abhors that deed. The
man that could do such a thing I could run him through with a knife!" said
the German, his grey eyes flashing, and his bushy black beard adding to the
murderous fury of his aspect. Then suddenly subsiding, he said, "But all
is now well; Tant Sannie gives her word that the maid shall remain for some
days. I go to Oom Muller's tomorrow to learn if the sheep may not be
there. If they are not, then I return. They are gone, that is all. I
make it good."

"Tant Sannie is a singular woman," said Bonaparte, taking the tobacco bag
the German passed to him.

"Singular! Yes," said the German; "but her heart is on her right side. I
have lived long years with her, and I may say, I have for her an affection,
which she returns. I may say," added the German with warmth, "I may say,
that there is not one soul on this farm for whom I have not an affection."

"Ah, my friend," said Bonaparte, "when the grace of God is in our hearts,
is it not with us all? Do we not love the very worm we tread upon, and as
we tread upon it? Do we know distinctions of race, or of sex, or of
colour? No!

"'Love so amazing, so divine,
  It fills my soul, my life, my all.'"

After a time he sank into a less fervent mood, and remarked:

"The coloured female who waits upon Tant Sannie appears to be of a virtuous
disposition, an individual who--"

"Virtuous!" said the German; "I have confidence in her. There is that in
her which is pure, that which is noble. The rich and high that walk this
earth with lofty eyelids might exchange with her."

The German here got up to bring a coal for Bonaparte's pipe, and they sat
together talking for a while. At length Bonaparte knocked the ashes out of
his pipe.

"It is time that I took my departure, dear friend," he said; "but, before I
do so, shall we not close this evening of sweet communion and brotherly
intercourse by a few words of prayer? Oh, how good and how pleasant a
thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the dew
upon the mountains of Hermon; for there the Lord bestowed a blessing, even
life for evermore."

"Stay and drink some coffee," said the German.

"No, thank you, my friend; I have business that must be done tonight," said
Bonaparte. "Your dear son appears to have gone to sleep. He is going to
take the wagon to the mill tomorrow! What a little man he is."

"A fine boy."

But though the boy nodded before the fire he was not asleep; and they all
knelt down to pray.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte extended his hand to Waldo, and
patted him on the head.

"Good night, my lad," said he. "As you go to the mill tomorrow, we shall
not see you for some days. Good night! Good-bye! The Lord bless and
guide you; and may He bring you back to us in safety and find us all as you
have left us!"  He laid some emphasis on the last words. "And you, my dear
friend," he added, turning with redoubled warmth to the German, "long, long
shall I look back to this evening as a time of refreshing from the presence
of the Lord, as an hour of blessed intercourse with a brother in Jesus.
May such often return. The Lord bless you!" he added, with yet deeper
fervour, "richly, richly."

Then he opened the door and vanished out into the darkness.

"He, he, he!" laughed Bonaparte, as he stumbled over the stones. "If there
isn't the rarest lot of fools on this farm that ever God Almighty stuck
legs to. He, he, he! When the worms come out then the blackbirds feed.
Ha, ha, ha!"  Then he drew himself up; even when alone he liked to pose
with a certain dignity; it was second nature to him.

He looked in at the kitchen door. The Hottentot maid who acted as
interpreter between Tant Sannie and himself was gone, and Tant Sannie
herself was in bed.

"Never mind, Bon, my boy," he said, as he walked round to his own room,
"tomorrow will do. He, he, he!"

Chapter 1.VIII. He Catches the Old Bird.

At four o'clock the next afternoon the German rode across the plain,
returning from his search for the lost sheep. He rode slowly, for he had
been in the saddle since sunrise and was somewhat weary, and the heat of
the afternoon made his horse sleepy as it picked its way slowly along the
sandy road. Every now and then a great red spider would start out of the
karoo on one side of the path and run across to the other, but nothing else
broke the still monotony. Presently, behind one of the highest of the
milk-bushes that dotted the roadside, the German caught sight of a Kaffer
woman, seated there evidently for such shadow as the milk-bush might afford
from the sloping rays of the sun.

The German turned the horse's head out of the road. It was not his way to
pass a living creature without a word of greeting. Coming nearer, he found
it was no other than the wife of the absconding Kaffer herd. She had a
baby tied on her back by a dirty strip of red blanket; another strip hardly
larger was twisted round her waist, for the rest her black body was naked.
She was a sullen, ill-looking woman with lips hideously protruding.

The German questioned her as to how she came there. She muttered in broken
Dutch that she had been turned away. Had she done evil? She shook her
head sullenly. Had she had food given her? She grunted a negative, and
fanned the flies from her baby. Telling the woman to remain where she was,
he turned his horse's head to the road and rode off at a furious pace.

"Hard-hearted! cruel! Oh, my God! Is this the way? Is this charity?"

"Yes, yes, yes," ejaculated the old man as he rode on; but, presently, his
anger began to evaporate, his horse's pace slackened, and by the time he
had reached his own door he was nodding and smiling.

Dismounting quickly, he went to the great chest where his provisions were
kept. Here he got out a little meal, a little mealies, a few roaster-
cakes. These he tied up in three blue handkerchiefs, and putting them into
a sailcloth bag, he strung them over his shoulders. Then he looked
circumspectly out at the door. It was very bad to be discovered in the act
of giving; it made him red up to the roots of his old grizzled hair. No
one was about, however, so he rode off again. Beside the milk-bush sat the
Kaffer woman still--like Hagar, he thought, thrust out by her mistress in
the wilderness to die. Telling her to loosen the handkerchief from her
head, he poured into it the contents of his bag. The woman tied it up in
sullen silence.

"You must try and get to the next farm," said the German.

The woman shook her head; she would sleep in the field.

The German reflected. Kaffer women were accustomed to sleep in the open
air; but then, the child was small, and after so hot a day the night might
be chilly. That she would creep back to the huts at the homestead when the
darkness favoured her, the German's sagacity did not make evident to him.
He took off the old brown salt-and-pepper coat, and held it out to her.
The woman received it in silence, and laid it across her knee. "With that
they will sleep warmly; not so bad. Ha, ha!" said the German. And he rode
home, nodding his head in a manner that would have made any other man
dizzy.

"I wish he would not come back tonight," said Em, her face wet with tears.

"It will be just the same if he comes back tomorrow," said Lyndall.

The two girls sat on the step of the cabin weeping for the German's return.
Lyndall shaded her eyes with her hand from the sunset light.

"There he comes," she said, "whistling 'Ach Jerusalem du schone' so loud I
can hear him from here."

"Perhaps he has found the sheep."

"Found them!" said Lyndall. "He would whistle just so if he knew he had to
die tonight."

"You look at the sunset, eh, chickens?" the German said, as he came up at a
smart canter. "Ah, yes, that is beautiful!" he added, as he dismounted,
pausing for a moment with his hand on the saddle to look at the evening
sky, where the sun shot up long flaming streaks, between which and the eye
thin yellow clouds floated. "Ei! you weep?" said the German, as the girls
ran up to him.

Before they had time to reply the voice of Tant Sannie was heard.

"You child, of the child, of the child of a Kaffer's dog, come here!"

The German looked up. He thought the Dutchwoman, come out to cool herself
in the yard, called to some misbehaving servant. The old man looked round
to see who it might be.

"You old vagabond of a praying German, are you deaf?"

Tant Sannie stood before the steps of the kitchen; upon them sat the lean
Hottentot, upon the highest stood Bonaparte Blenkins, both hands folded
under the tails of his coat, and his eyes fixed on the sunset sky.

The German dropped the saddle on the ground.

"Bish, bish, bish! what may this be?" he said, and walked toward the house.
"Very strange!"

The girls followed him: Em still weeping; Lyndall with her face rather
white and her eyes wide open.

"And I have the heart of a devil, did you say? You could run me through
with a knife, could you?" cried the Dutchwoman. "I could not drive the
Kaffer maid away because I was afraid of you, was I? Oh, you miserable
rag! I loved you, did I? I would have liked to marry you, would I? would
I? WOULD I?" cried the Boer-woman; "you cat's tail, you dog's paw! Be near
my house tomorrow morning when the sun rises," she gasped, "my Kaffers will
drag you through the sand. They would do it gladly, any of them, for a bit
of tobacco, for all your prayings with them."

"I am bewildered, I am bewildered, said the German, standing before her and
raising his hand to his forehead; "I--I do not understand."

"Ask him, ask him?" cried Tant Sannie, pointing to Bonaparte; "he knows.
You thought he could not make me understand, but he did, he did, you old
fool! I know enough English for that. You be here," shouted the
Dutchwoman, "when the morning star rises, and I will let my Kaffers take
you out and drag you, till there is not one bone left in your old body that
is not broken as fine as bobootie-meat, you old beggar! All your rags are
not worth that--they should be thrown out onto the ash-heap," cried the
Boer-woman; "but I will have them for my sheep. Not one rotten hoof of
your old mare do you take with you; I will have her--all, all for my sheep
that you have lost, you godless thing!"

The Boer-woman wiped the moisture from her mouth with the palm of her hand.

The German turned to Bonaparte, who still stood on the step absorbed in the
beauty of the sunset.

"Do not address me; do not approach me, lost man," said Bonaparte, not
moving his eye nor lowering his chin. "There is a crime from which all
nature revolts; there is a crime whose name is loathsome to the human ear--
that crime is yours; that crime is ingratitude. This woman has been your
benefactress; on her farm you have lived; after her sheep you have looked;
into her house you have been allowed to enter and hold Divine service--an
honour of which you were never worthy; and how have you rewarded her?--
basely, basely, basely!"

"But it is all false, lies and falsehoods. I must, I will speak," said the
German, suddenly looking round bewildered. "Do I dream? Are you mad?
What may it be?"

"Go, dog," cried the Dutchwoman; "I would have been a rich woman this day
if it had not been for your laziness. Praying with the Kaffers behind the
kraal walls. Go, you Kaffer's dog!"

"But what then is the matter? What may have happened since I left?" said
the German, turning to the Hottentot woman, who sat upon the step.

She was his friend; she would tell him kindly the truth. The woman
answered by a loud, ringing laugh.

"Give it him, old missis! Give it him!"

It was so nice to see the white man who had been master hunted down. The
coloured woman laughed, and threw a dozen mealie grains into her mouth to
chew.

All anger and excitement faded from the old man's face. He turned slowly
away and walked down the little path to his cabin, with his shoulders bent;
it was all dark before him. He stumbled over the threshold of his own
well-known door.

Em, sobbing bitterly, would have followed him; but the Boer-woman prevented
her by a flood of speech which convulsed the Hottentot, so low were its
images.

"Come, Em," said Lyndall, lifting her small proud head, "let us go in. We
will not stay to hear such language."

She looked into the Boer-woman's eyes. Tant Sannie understood the meaning
of the look if not the words. She waddled after them, and caught Em by the
arm. She had struck Lyndall once years before, and had never done it
again, so she took Em.

"So you will defy me, too, will you, you Englishman's ugliness!" she cried,
and with one hand she forced the child down, and held her head tightly
against her knee; with the other she beat her first upon one cheek, and
then upon the other.

For one instant Lyndall looked on, then she laid her small fingers on the
Boer-woman's arm. With the exertion of half its strength Tant Sannie might
have flung the girl back upon the stones. It was not the power of the
slight fingers, tightly though they clinched her broad wrist--so tightly
that at bedtime the marks were still there; but the Boer-woman looked into
the clear eyes and at the quivering white lips, and with a half-surprised
curse relaxed her hold. The girl drew Em's arm through her own.

"Move!" she said to Bonaparte, who stood in the door, and he, Bonaparte the
invincible, in the hour of his triumph, moved to give her place.

The Hottentot ceased to laugh, and an uncomfortable silence fell on all the
three in the doorway.

Once in their room, Em sat down on the floor and wailed bitterly. Lyndall
lay on the bed with her arm drawn across her eyes, very white and still.

"Hoo, hoo!" cried Em; "and they won't let him take the grey mare; and Waldo
has gone to the mill. Hoo, hoo, and perhaps they won't let us go and say
good-bye to him. Hoo, hoo, hoo!"

"I wish you would be quiet," said Lyndall without moving. "Does it give
you such felicity to let Bonaparte know he is hurting you? We will ask no
one. It will be suppertime soon. Listen--and when you hear the clink of
the knives and forks we will go out and see him.

Em suppressed her sobs and listened intently, kneeling at the door.
Suddenly some one came to the window and put the shutter up.

"Who was that?" said Lyndall, starting.

"The girl, I suppose," said Em. How early she is this evening!"

But Lyndall sprang from the bed and seized the handle of the door, shaking
it fiercely. The door was locked on the outside. She ground her teeth.

"What is the matter?" asked Em.

The room was in perfect darkness now.

"Nothing," said Lyndall quietly; "only they have locked us in."

She turned, and went back to bed again. But ere long Em heard a sound of
movement. Lyndall had climbed up into the window, and with her fingers
felt the woodwork that surrounded the panes. Slipping down, the girl
loosened the iron knob from the foot of the bedstead, and climbing up again
she broke with it every pane of glass in the window, beginning at the top
and ending at the bottom.

"What are you doing?" asked Em, who heard the falling fragments.

Her companion made her no reply; but leaned on every little cross-bar,
which cracked and gave way beneath her. Then she pressed with all her
strength against the shutter. She had thought the wooden buttons would
give way, but by the clinking sound she knew that the iron bar had been put
across. She was quite quiet for a time. Clambering down, she took from
the table a small one-bladed penknife, with which she began to peck at the
hard wood of the shutter.

"What are you doing now?" asked Em, who had ceased crying in her wonder,
and had drawn near.

"Trying to make a hole," was the short reply.

"Do you think you will be able to?"

"No; but I am trying."

In an agony of suspense Em waited. For ten minutes Lyndall pecked. The
hole was three-eighths of an inch deep--then the blade sprung into ten
pieces.

"What has happened now?" Em asked, blubbering afresh.

"Nothing," said Lyndall. "Bring me my nightgown, a piece of paper, and the
matches."

Wondering, Em fumbled about till she found them.

"What are you going to do with them?" she whispered.

"Burn down the window."

"But won't the whole house take fire and burn down too?"

"Yes."

"But will it not be very wicked?"

"Yes, very. And I do not care."

She arranged the nightgown carefully in the corner of the window, with the
chips of the frame about it. There was only one match in the box. She
drew it carefully along the wall. For a moment it burnt up blue, and
showed the tiny face with its glistening eyes. She held it carefully to
the paper. For an instant it burnt up brightly, then flickered and went
out. She blew the spark, but it died also. Then she threw the paper on to
the ground, trod on it, and went to her bed, and began to undress.

Em rushed to the door, knocking against it wildly.

"Oh, Tant Sannie! Tant Sannie! Oh, let us out!" she cried. "Oh, Lyndall,
what are we to do?"

Lyndall wiped a drop of blood off the lip she had bitten.

"I am going to sleep," she said. "If you like to sit there and howl till
the morning, do. Perhaps you will find that it helps; I never heard that
howling helped any one."

Long after, when Em herself had gone to bed and was almost asleep, Lyndall
came and stood at her bedside.

"Here," she said, slipping a little pot of powder into her hand; "rub some
on to your face. Does it not burn where she struck you?"

Then she crept back to her own bed. Long, long after, when Em was really
asleep, she lay still awake, and folded her hands on her little breast, and
muttered--

"When that day comes, and I am strong, I will hate everything that has
power, and help everything that is weak."  And she bit her lip again.

The German looked out at the cabin door for the last time that night. Then
he paced the room slowly and sighed. Then he drew out pen and paper, and
sat down to write, rubbing his old grey eyes with his knuckles before he
began.

"My Chickens: You did not come to say good-bye to the old man. Might you?
Ah, well, there is a land where they part no more, where saints immortal
reign.

"I sit here alone, and I think of you. Will you forget the old man? When
you wake tomorrow he will be far away. The old horse is lazy, but he has
his stick to help him; that is three legs. He comes back one day with gold
and diamonds. Will you welcome him? Well, we shall see. I go to meet
Waldo. He comes back with the wagon; then he follows me. Poor boy? God
knows. There is a land where all things are made right, but that land is
not here.

"My little children, serve the Saviour; give your hearts to Him while you
are yet young. Life is short.

"Nothing is mine, otherwise I would say, Lyndall, take my books, Em my
stones. Now I say nothing. The things are mine: it is not righteous, God
knows? But I am silent. Let it be. But I feel it, I must say I feel it.

"Do not cry too much for the old man. He goes out to seek his fortune, and
comes back with it in a bag, it may be.

"I love my children. Do they think of me? I am Old Otto, who goes out to
seek his fortune.

O.F."

Having concluded this quaint production, he put it where the children would
find it the next morning, and proceeded to prepare his bundle. He never
thought of entering a protest against the loss of his goods; like a child,
he submitted, and wept. He had been there eleven years, and it was hard to
go away. He spread open on the bed a blue handkerchief, and on it put one
by one the things he thought most necessary and important--a little bag of
curious seeds, which he meant to plant some day, an old German hymn-book,
three misshapen stones that he greatly valued, a Bible, a shirt and two
handkerchiefs; then there was room for nothing more. He tied up the bundle
tightly and put it on a chair by his bedside.

"That is not much; they cannot say I take much," he said, looking at it.

He put his knotted stick beside it, his blue tobacco bag and his short
pipe, and then inspected his coats. He had two left--a moth-eaten overcoat
and a black alpaca, out at the elbows. He decided for the overcoat; it was
warm, certainly, but then he could carry it over his arm and only put it on
when he met some one along the road. It was more respectable than the
black alpaca.

He hung the greatcoat over the back of the chair, and stuffed a hard bit of
roaster-cake under the knot of the bundle, and then his preparations were
completed. The German stood contemplating them with much satisfaction. He
had almost forgotten his sorrow at leaving in his pleasure at preparing.
Suddenly he started; an expression of intense pain passed over his face.
He drew back his left arm quickly, and then pressed his right hand upon his
breast.

"Ah, the sudden pang again," he said.

His face was white, but it quickly regained its colour. Then the old man
busied himself in putting everything right.

"I will leave it neat. They shall not say I did not leave it neat," he
said. Even the little bags of seeds on the mantelpiece he put in rows and
dusted. Then he undressed and got into bed. Under his pillow was a little
storybook. He drew it forth. To the old German a story was no story. Its
events were as real and as important to himself as the matters of his own
life.

He could not go away without knowing whether that wicked earl relented and
whether the baron married Emilina. So he adjusted his spectacles and began
to read. Occasionally, as his feelings became too strongly moved, he
ejaculated: "Ah, I thought so! That was a rogue! I saw it before! I
knew it from the beginning!"  More than half an hour had passed when he
looked up to the silver watch at the top of his bed.

"The march is long tomorrow; this will not do," he said, taking off his
spectacles and putting them carefully into the book to mark the place.
"This will be good reading as I walk along tomorrow," he added, as he
stuffed the book into the pocket of the greatcoat; "very good reading."  He
nodded his head and lay down. He thought a little of his own troubles, a
good deal of the two little girls he was leaving, of the earl, of Emilina,
of the baron; but he was soon asleep--sleeping as peacefully as a little
child, upon whose innocent soul sorrow and care cannot rest.

It was very quiet in the room. The coals in the fireplace threw a dull red
light across the floor upon the red lions on the quilt. Eleven o'clock
came, and the room was very still.

One o'clock came. The glimmer had died out, though the ashes were still
warm, and the room was very dark. The grey mouse, who had his hole under
the toolbox, came out and sat on the sacks in the corner; then, growing
bolder, the room was so dark, it climbed the chair at the bedside, nibbled
at the roaster-cake, took one bite quickly at the candle, and then sat on
his haunches listening. It heard the even breathing of the old man, and
the steps of the hungry Kaffer dog going his last round in search of a bone
or a skin that had been forgotten; and it heard the white hen call out as
the wild cat ran away with one of her brood, and it heard the chicken cry.
Then the grey mouse went back to its hole under the toolbox, and the room
was quiet. And two o'clock came. By that time the night was grown dull
and cloudy. The wild cat had gone to its home on the kopje; the Kaffer dog
had found a bone, and lay gnawing it.

An intense quiet reigned everywhere. Only in her room the Boer-woman
tossed her great arms in her sleep; for she dreamed that a dark shadow with
outstretched wings fled slowly over her house, and she moaned and shivered.
And the night was very still.

But, quiet as all places were, there was a quite peculiar quiet in the
German's room. Though you strained your ear most carefully you caught no
sound of breathing.

He was not gone, for the old coat still hung on the chair--the coat that
was to be put on when he met any one; and the bundle and stick were ready
for tomorrow's long march. The old German himself lay there, his wavy
black hair just touched with grey thrown back upon the pillow. The old
face was lying there alone in the dark, smiling like a little child's--oh,
so peacefully. There is a stranger whose coming, they say, is worse than
all the ills of life, from whose presence we flee away trembling; but he
comes very tenderly sometimes. And it seemed almost as though Death had
known and loved the old man, so gently it touched him. And how could it
deal hardly with him--the loving, simple, childlike old man?

So it smoothed out the wrinkles that were in the old forehead, and fixed
the passing smile, and sealed the eyes that they might not weep again; and
then the short sleep of time was melted into the long, long sleep of
eternity.

"How has he grown so young in this one night?" they said when they found
him in the morning.

Yes, dear old man; to such as you time brings no age. You die with the
purity and innocence of your childhood upon you, though you die in your
grey hairs.

Chapter 1.IX. He Sees A Ghost.

Bonaparte stood on the ash-heap. He espied across the plain a moving speck
and he chucked his coat-tails up and down in expectancy of a scene.

The wagon came on slowly. Waldo laid curled among the sacks at the back of
the wagon, the hand in his breast resting on the sheep-shearing machine.
It was finished now. The right thought had struck him the day before as he
sat, half asleep, watching the water go over the mill-wheel. He muttered
to himself with half-closed eyes:

"Tomorrow smooth the cogs--tighten the screws a little--show it to them."
Then after a pause--"Over the whole world--the whole world--mine, that I
have made!"  He pressed the little wheels and pulleys in his pocket till
they cracked. Presently his muttering became louder--"And fifty pounds--a
black hat for my dadda--for Lyndall a blue silk, very light; and one purple
like the earth-bells, and white shoes."  He muttered on--"A box full, full
of books. They shall tell me all, all, all," he added, moving his fingers
desiringly: "why the crystals grow in such beautiful shapes; why lightning
runs to the iron; why black people are black; why the sunlight makes things
warm. I shall read, read, read," he muttered slowly. Then came over him
suddenly what he called "The presence of God"; a sense of a good, strong
something folding him round. He smiled through his half-shut eyes. "Ah,
Father, my own Father, it is so sweet to feel you, like the warm sunshine.
The Bibles and books cannot tell of you and all I feel you. They are mixed
with men's words; but you--"

His muttering sank into inaudible confusion, till, opening his eyes wide,
it struck him that the brown plain he looked at was the old home farm. For
half an hour they had been riding in it, and he had not known it. He
roused the leader, who sat nodding on the front of the wagon in the early
morning sunlight. They were within half a mile of the homestead. It
seemed to him that he had been gone from them all a year. He fancied he
could see Lyndall standing on the brick wall to watch for him; his father,
passing from one house to the other, stopping to look.

He called aloud to the oxen. For each one at home he had brought
something. For his father a piece of tobacco, bought at the shop by the
mill; for Em a thimble; for Lyndall a beautiful flower dug out by the
roots, at a place where they had outspanned; for Tant Sannie a
handkerchief. When they drew near the house he threw the whip to the
Kaffer leader, and sprung from the side of the wagon to run on. Bonaparte
stopped him as he ran past the ash-heap.

"Good morning, my dear boy. Where are you running to so fast with your
rosy cheeks?"

The boy looked up at him, glad even to see Bonaparte.

"I am going to the cabin," he said, out of breath.

"You won't find them in just now--not your good old father," said
Bonaparte.

"Where is he?" asked the lad.

"There, beyond the camps," said Bonaparte, waving his hand oratorically
toward the stone-walled ostrich-camps.

"What is he doing there?" asked the boy.

Bonaparte patted him on the cheek kindly.

"We could not keep him any more, it was too hot. We've buried him, my
boy," said Bonaparte, touching with his finger the boy's cheek. We
couldn't keep him any more. He, he, he!" laughed Bonaparte, as the boy
fled away along the low stone wall, almost furtively, as one in fear.

...

At five o'clock Bonaparte knelt before a box in the German's room. He was
busily unpacking it.

It had been agreed upon between Tant Sannie and himself, that now the
German was gone he, Bonaparte, was to be no longer schoolmaster, but
overseer of the farm. In return for his past scholastic labours he had
expressed himself willing to take possession of the dead man's goods and
room. Tant Sannie hardly liked the arrangement. She had a great deal more
respect for the German dead than the German living, and would rather his
goods had been allowed to descend peacefully to his son. For she was a
firm believer in the chinks in the world above, where not only ears, but
eyes might be applied to see how things went on in this world below. She
never felt sure how far the spirit-world might overlap this world of sense,
and, as a rule, prudently abstained from doing anything which might offend
unseen auditors. For this reason she abstained from ill-using the dead
Englishman's daughter and niece, and for this reason she would rather the
boy had had his father's goods. But it was hard to refuse Bonaparte
anything when she and he sat so happily together in the evening drinking
coffee, Bonaparte telling her in the broken Dutch he was fast learning how
he adored fat women, and what a splendid farmer he was.

So at five o'clock on this afternoon Bonaparte knelt in the German's room.

"Somewhere, here it is," he said, as he packed the old clothes carefully
out of the box, and, finding nothing, packed them in again. "Somewhere in
this room it is; and if it's here Bonaparte finds it," he repeated. "You
didn't stay here all these years without making a little pile somewhere, my
lamb. You weren't such a fool as you looked. Oh, no!" said Bonaparte.

He now walked about the room, diving his fingers in everywhere: sticking
them into the great crevices in the wall and frightening out the spiders;
rapping them against the old plaster till it cracked and fell in pieces;
peering up the chimney, till the soot dropped on his bald head and
blackened it. He felt in little blue bags; he tried to raise the hearth-
stone; he shook each book, till the old leaves fell down in showers on the
floor.

It was getting dark, and Bonaparte stood with his finger on his nose
reflecting. Finally he walked to the door, behind which hung the trousers
and waistcoat the dead man had last worn. He had felt in them, but
hurriedly, just after the funeral the day before; he would examine them
again. Sticking his fingers into the waistcoat pockets, he found in one
corner a hole. Pressing his hand through it, between the lining and the
cloth, he presently came into contact with something. Bonaparte drew it
forth--a small, square parcel, sewed up in sail-cloth. He gazed at it,
squeezed it; it cracked, as though full of bank-notes. He put it quickly
into his own waistcoat pocket, and peeped over the half-door to see if
there was any one coming. There was nothing to be seen but the last rays
of yellow sunset light, painting the karoo bushes in the plain, and shining
on the ash-heap, where the fowls were pecking. He turned and sat down on
the nearest chair, and, taking out his pen-knife, ripped the parcel open.
The first thing that fell was a shower of yellow faded papers. Bonaparte
opened them carefully one by one, and smoothed them out on his knee. There
was something very valuable to be hidden so carefully, though the German
characters he could not decipher. When he came to the last one, he felt
there was something hard in it.

"You've got it, Bon, my boy! you've got it!" he cried, slapping his leg
hard. Edging nearer to the door, for the light was fading, he opened the
paper carefully. There was nothing inside but a plain gold wedding-ring.

"Better than nothing!" said Bonaparte, trying to put it on his little
finger, which, however, proved too fat.

He took it off and set it down on the table before him, and looked at it
with his crosswise eyes.

"When that auspicious hour, Sannie," he said, "shall have arrived, when,
panting, I shall lead thee, lighted by Hymen's torch, to the connubial
altar, then upon thy fair amaranthine finger, my joyous bride, shall this
ring repose.

"Thy fair body, oh, my girl,
Shall Bonaparte possess;
His fingers in thy money-bags,
He therein, too, shall mess."

Having given utterance to this flood of poesy, he sat lost in joyous
reflection.

"He therein, too, shall mess," he repeated meditatively.

At this instant, as Bonaparte swore, and swore truly to the end of his
life, a slow and distinct rap was given on the crown of his bald head.

Bonaparte started and looked up. No riem or strap, hung down from the
rafters above, and not a human creature was near the door. It was growing
dark; he did not like it. He began to fold up the papers expeditiously.
He stretched out his hand for the ring. The ring was gone! Gone, although
no human creature had entered the room; gone, although no form had crossed
the doorway. Gone!

He would not sleep there, that was certain.

He stuffed the papers into his pocket. As he did so, three slow and
distinct taps were given on the crown of his head. Bonaparte's jaw fell:
each separate joint lost its power: he could not move; he dared not rise;
his tongue lay loose in his mouth.

"Take all, take all!" he gurgled in his throat. "I--I do not want them.
Take"--

Here a resolute tug at the grey curls at the back of his head caused him to
leap up, yelling wildly. Was he to sit still paralyzed, to be dragged away
bodily to the devil? With terrific shrieks he fled, casting no glance
behind.

...

When the dew was falling, and the evening was dark, a small figure moved
toward the gate of the furthest ostrich-camp, driving a bird before it.
When the gate was opened and the bird driven in and the gate fastened, it
turned away, but then suddenly paused near the stone wall.

"Is that you, Waldo?" said Lyndall, hearing a sound.

The boy was sitting on the damp ground with his back to the wall. He gave
her no answer.

"Come," she said, bending over him, "I have been looking for you all day."

He mumbled something.

"You have had nothing to eat. I have put some supper in your room. You
must come home with me, Waldo."

She took his hand, and the boy rose slowly.

She made him take her arm, and twisted her small fingers among his.

"You must forget," she whispered. "Since it happened I walk, I talk, I
never sit still. If we remember, we cannot bring back the dead."  She knit
her little fingers closer among his. "Forgetting is the best thing. He
did watch it coming," she whispered presently. "That is the dreadful
thing, to see it coming!"  She shuddered. "I want it to come so to me too.
Why do you think I was driving that bird?" she added quickly. "That was
Hans, the bird that hates Bonaparte. I let him out this afternoon; I
thought he would chase him and perhaps kill him."

The boy showed no sign of interest.

"He did not catch him; but he put his head over the half-door of your cabin
and frightened him horribly. He was there, busy stealing your things.
Perhaps he will leave them alone now; but I wish the bird had trodden on
him."

They said no more till they reached the door of the cabin.

"There is a candle and supper on the table. You must eat," she said
authoritatively. "I cannot stay with you now, lest they find out about the
bird."

He grasped her arm and brought his mouth close to her ear.

"There is no God!" he almost hissed; "no God; not anywhere!"

She started.

"Not anywhere!"

He ground it out between his teeth, and she felt his hot breath on her
cheek.

"Waldo, you are mad," she said, drawing herself from him, instinctively.

He loosened his grasp and turned away from her also.

In truth, is it not life's way? We fight our little battles alone; you
yours, I mine. We must not help or find help.

When your life is most real, to me you are mad; when your agony is
blackest, I look at you and wonder. Friendship is good, a strong stick;
but when the hour comes to lean hard, it gives. In the day of their
bitterest need all souls are alone.

Lyndall stood by him in the dark, pityingly, wonderingly. As he walked to
the door, she came after him.

"Eat your supper; it will do you good," she said.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and then ran away.

In the front room the little woolly Kaffer girl was washing Tant Sannie's
feet in a small tub, and Bonaparte, who sat on the wooden sofa, was pulling
off his shoes and stockings that his own feet might be washed also. There
were three candles burning in the room, and he and Tant Sannie sat close
together, with the lean Hottentot not far off; for when ghosts are about
much light is needed, there is great strength in numbers. Bonaparte had
completely recovered from the effects of his fright in the afternoon, and
the numerous doses of brandy that it had been necessary to administer to
him to effect his restoration had put him into a singularly pleasant and
amiable mood.

"That boy Waldo," said Bonaparte, rubbing his toes, "took himself off
coolly this morning as soon as the wagon came, and has not done a stiver of
work all day. I'll not have that kind of thing now I'm master of this
farm."

The Hottentot maid translated.

"Ah, I expect he's sorry that his father's dead," said Tant Sannie. "It's
nature, you know. I cried the whole morning when my father died. One can
always get another husband, but one can't get another father," said Tant
Sannie, casting a sidelong glance at Bonaparte.

Bonaparte expressed a wish to give Waldo his orders for the next day's
work, and accordingly the little woolly-headed Kaffer was sent to call him.
After a considerable time the boy appeared, and stood in the doorway.

If they had dressed him in one of the swallow-tailed coats, and oiled his
hair till the drops fell from it, and it lay as smooth as an elder's on
sacrament Sunday, there would still have been something unanointed in the
aspect of the fellow. As it was, standing there in his strange old
costume, his head presenting much the appearance of having been deeply
rolled in sand, his eyelids swollen, the hair hanging over his forehead,
and a dogged sullenness on his features, he presented most the appearance
of an ill-conditioned young buffalo.

"Beloved Lord," cried Tant Sannie, "how he looks! Come in, boy. Couldn't
you come and say good-day to me? Don't you want some supper?"

He said he wanted nothing, and turned his heavy eyes away from her.

"There's a ghost been seen in your father's room," said Tant Sannie. "If
you're afraid you can sleep in the kitchen."

"I will sleep in our room," said the boy slowly.

"Well, you can go now," she said; "but be up early to take the sheep. The
herd--"

"Yes, be up early, my boy," interrupted Bonaparte, smiling. "I am to be
master of this farm now; and we shall be good friends, I trust, very good
friends, if you try to do your duty, my dear boy."

Waldo turned to go, and Bonaparte, looking benignly at the candle,
stretched out one unstockinged foot, over which Waldo, looking at nothing
in particular, fell with a heavy thud upon the floor.

"Dear me! I hope you are not hurt, my boy," said Bonaparte. "You'll have
many a harder thing than that though, before you've gone through life," he
added consolingly, as Waldo picked himself up.

The lean Hottentot laughed till the room rang again; and Tant Sannie
tittered till her sides ached.

When he had gone the little maid began to wash Bonaparte's feet.

"Oh, Lord, beloved Lord, how he did fall! I can't think of it," cried Tant
Sannie, and she laughed again. "I always did know he was not right; but
this evening any one could see it," she added, wiping the tears of mirth
from her face. "His eyes are as wild as if the devil was in them. He
never was like other children. The dear Lord knows, if he doesn't walk
alone for hours talking to himself. If you sit in the room with him you
can see his lips moving the whole time; and if you talk to him twenty times
he doesn't hear you. Daft-eyes; he's as mad as mad can be."

This repetition of the word mad conveyed meaning to Bonaparte's mind. He
left off paddling his toes in the water.

"Mad, mad? I know that kind of mad," said Bonaparte, "and I know the thing
to give for it. The front end of a little horsewhip, the tip! Nice thing;
takes it out," said Bonaparte.

The Hottentot laughed, and translated.

"No more walking about and talking to themselves on this farm now," said
Bonaparte; "no more minding of sheep and reading of books at the same time.
The point of a horsewhip is a little thing, but I think he'll have a taste
of it before long."  Bonaparte rubbed his hands and looked pleasantly
across his nose; and then the three laughed together grimly.

And Waldo in his cabin crouched in the dark in a corner, with his knees
drawn up to his chin.

Chapter 1.X. He Shows His Teeth.

Doss sat among the karoo bushes, one yellow ear drawn over his wicked
little eye, ready to flap away any adventurous fly that might settle on his
nose. Around him in the morning sunlight fed the sheep; behind him lay his
master polishing his machine. He found much comfort in handling it that
morning. A dozen philosophical essays, or angelically atuned songs for the
consolation of the bereaved, could never have been to him what that little
sheep-shearing machine was that day.

After struggling to see the unseeable, growing drunk with the endeavour to
span the infinite, and writhing before the inscrutable mystery, it is a
renovating relief to turn to some simple, feelable, weighable substance; to
something which has a smell and a colour, which may be handled and turned
over this way and that. Whether there be or be not a hereafter, whether
there be any use in calling aloud to the Unseen power, whether there be an
Unseen power to call to, whatever be the true nature of the "I" who call
and of the objects around me, whatever be our meaning, our internal
essence, our cause (and in a certain order of minds death and the agony of
loss inevitably awaken the wild desire, at other times smothered, to look
into these things), whatever be the nature of that which lies beyond the
unbroken wall which the limits of the human intellect build up on every
hand, this thing is certain--a knife will cut wood, and one cogged wheel
will turn another. This is sure.

Waldo found an immeasurable satisfaction in the handling of his machine;
but Doss winked and blinked, and thought it all frightfully monotonous out
there on the flat, and presently dropped asleep, sitting bolt upright.
Suddenly his eyes opened wide; something was coming from the direction of
the homestead. Winking his eyes and looking intently, he perceived it was
the grey mare. Now Doss had wondered much of late what had become of her
master. Seeing she carried some one on her back, he now came to his own
conclusion, and began to move his tail violently up and down. Presently he
pricked up one ear and let the other hang; his tail became motionless, and
the expression of his mouth was one of decided disapproval bordering on
scorn. He wrinkled his lips up on each side into little lines.

The sand was soft, and the grey mare came on so noiselessly that the boy
heard nothing till Bonaparte dismounted. Then Doss got up and moved back a
step. He did not approve of Bonaparte's appearance. His costume, in
truth, was of a unique kind. It was a combination of the town and country.
The tails of his black cloth coat were pinned up behind to keep them from
rubbing; he had on a pair of moleskin trousers and leather gaiters, and in
his hand he carried a little whip of rhinoceros hide.

Waldo started and looked up. Had there been a moment's time he would have
dug a hole in the sand with his hands and buried his treasure. It was only
a toy of wood, but he loved it, as one of necessity loves what has been
born of him, whether of the flesh or spirit. When cold eyes have looked at
it, the feathers are rubbed off our butterfly's wing forever.

"What have you here, my lad?" said Bonaparte, standing by him, and pointing
with the end of his whip to the medley of wheels and hinges.

The boy muttered something inaudible, and half spread over the thing.

"But this seems to be a very ingenious little machine," said Bonaparte,
seating himself on the antheap, and bending down over it with deep
interest. "What is it for, my lad?"

"Shearing sheep."

"It is a very nice little machine," said Bonaparte. "How does it work,
now? I have never seen anything so ingenious!"

There was never a parent who heard deception in the voice that praised his
child--his first-born. Here was one who liked the thing that had been
created in him. He forgot everything. He showed how the shears would work
with a little guidance, how the sheep would be held, and the wool fall into
the trough. A flush burst over his face as he spoke.

"I tell you what, my lad," said Bonaparte emphatically, when the
explanation was finished, "we must get you a patent. Your fortune is made.
In three years' time there'll not be a farm in this colony where it isn't
working. You're a genius, that's what you are!" said Bonaparte, rising.

"If it were made larger," said the boy, raising his eyes, "it would work
more smoothly. Do you think there would be any one in this colony would be
able to make it?"

"I'm sure they could," said Bonaparte; "and if not, why I'll do my best for
you. I'll send it to England. It must be done somehow. How long have you
worked at it?"

"Nine months," said the boy.

"Oh, it is such a nice little machine," said Bonaparte, "one can't help
feeling an interest in it. There is only one little improvement, one very
little improvement, I should like to make."

Bonaparte put his foot on the machine and crushed it into the sand. The
boy looked up into his face.

"Looks better now," said Bonaparte, "doesn't it? If we can't have it made
in England we'll send it to America. Good-bye; ta-ta," he added. "You're
a great genius, a born genius, my dear boy, there's no doubt about it."

He mounted the grey mare and rode off. The dog watched his retreat with
cynical satisfaction; but his master lay on the ground with his head on his
arms in the sand, and the little wheels and chips of wood lay on the ground
around him. The dog jumped on to his back and snapped at the black curls,
till, finding that no notice was taken, he walked off to play with a black
beetle. The beetle was hard at work trying to roll home a great ball of
dung it had been collecting all the morning: but Doss broke the ball, and
ate the beetle's hind legs, and then bit off its head. And it was all
play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. A striving,
and a striving, and an ending in nothing.

Chapter 1.XI. He Snaps.

"I have found something in the loft," said Em to Waldo, who was listlessly
piling cakes of fuel on the kraal wall, a week after. "It is a box of
books that belonged to my father. We thought Tant Sannie had burnt them."

The boy put down the cake he was raising and looked at her.

"I don't think they are very nice, not stories," she added, "but you can go
and take any you like."

So saying, she took up the plate in which she had brought his breakfast,
and walked off to the house.

After that the boy worked quickly. The pile of fuel Bonaparte had ordered
him to pack was on the wall in half an hour. He then went to throw salt on
the skins laid out to dry. Finding the pot empty, he went to the loft to
refill it.

Bonaparte Blenkins, whose door opened at the foot of the ladder, saw the
boy go up, and stood in the doorway waiting for his return. He wanted his
boots blacked. Doss, finding he could not follow his master up the round
bars, sat patiently at the foot of the ladder. Presently he looked up
longingly, but no one appeared. Then Bonaparte looked up also, and began
to call; but there was no answer. What could the boy be doing? The loft
was an unknown land to Bonaparte. He had often wondered what was up there;
he liked to know what was in all locked-up places and out-of-the-way
corners, but he was afraid to climb the ladder. So Bonaparte looked up,
and in the name of all that was tantalizing, questioned what the boy did up
there. The loft was used only as a lumber-room. What could the fellow
find up there to keep him so long?

Could the Boer-woman have beheld Waldo at that instant, any lingering doubt
which might have remained in her mind as to the boy's insanity would
instantly have vanished. For, having filled the salt-pot, he proceeded to
look for the box of books among the rubbish that filled the loft. Under a
pile of sacks he found it--a rough packing-case, nailed up, but with one
loose plank. He lifted that, and saw the even backs of a row of books. He
knelt down before the box, and ran his hand along its rough edges, as if to
assure himself of its existence. He stuck his hand in among the books, and
pulled out two. He felt them, thrust his fingers in among the leaves, and
crumpled them a little, as a lover feels the hair of his mistress. The
fellow gloated over his treasure. He had had a dozen books in the course
of his life; now here was a mine of them opened at his feet. After a while
he began to read the titles, and now and again opened a book and read a
sentence; but he was too excited to catch the meanings distinctly. At last
he came to a dull, brown volume. He read the name, opened it in the
centre, and where he opened began to read. It was a chapter on property
that he fell upon--Communism, Fourierism, St. Simonism, in a work on
Political Economy. He read down one page and turned over to the next; he
read down that without changing his posture by an inch; he read the next,
and the next, kneeling up all the while with the book in his hand, and his
lips parted.

All he read he did not fully understand; the thoughts were new to him; but
this was the fellow's startled joy in the book--the thoughts were his, they
belonged to him. He had never thought them before, but they were his.

He laughed silently and internally, with the still intensity of triumphant
joy.

So, then, all thinking creatures did not send up the one cry--"As thou,
dear Lord, has created things in the beginning, so are they now, so ought
they to be, so will they be, world without end; and it doesn't concern us
what they are. Amen."  There were men to whom not only kopjes and stones
were calling out imperatively, "What are we, and how came we here?
Understand us, and know us;" but to whom even the old, old relations
between man and man, and the customs of the ages called, and could not be
made still and forgotten.

The boy's heavy body quivered with excitement. So he was not alone, not
alone. He could not quite have told any one why he was so glad, and this
warmth had come to him. His cheeks were burning. No wonder that Bonaparte
called in vain, and Doss put his paws on the ladder, and whined till three-
quarters of an hour had passed. At last the boy put the book in his breast
and buttoned it tightly to him. He took up the salt pot, and went to the
top of the ladder. Bonaparte, with his hands folded under his coat-tails,
looked up when he appeared, and accosted him.

"You've been rather a long time up there, my lad," he said, as the boy
descended with a tremulous haste, most unlike his ordinary slow movements.
"You didn't hear me calling, I suppose?"

Bonaparte whisked the tails of his coat up and down as he looked at him.
He, Bonaparte Blenkins, had eyes which were very far-seeing. He looked at
the pot. It was rather a small pot to have taken three-quarters of an hour
in the filling. He looked at the face. It was flushed. And yet, Tant
Sannie kept no wine--he had not been drinking; his eyes were wide open and
bright--he had not been sleeping; there was no girl up there--he had not
been making love. Bonaparte looked at him sagaciously. What would account
for the marvellous change in the boy coming down the ladder from the boy
going up the ladder? One thing there was. Did not Tant Sannie keep in the
loft bultongs, and nice smoked sausages? There must be something nice to
eat up there! Aha! that was it!

Bonaparte was so interested in carrying out this chain of inductive
reasoning that he quite forgot to have his boots blacked.

He watched the boy shuffle off with the salt-pot under his arm; then he
stood in his doorway and raised his eyes to the quiet blue sky, and audibly
propounded this riddle to himself:

"What is the connection between the naked back of a certain boy with a
greatcoat on and a salt-pot under his arm, and the tip of a horsewhip?
Answer: No connection at present, but there will be soon."

Bonaparte was so pleased with this sally of his wit that he chuckled a
little and went to lie down on his bed.

There was bread-baking that afternoon, and there was a fire lighted in the
brick oven behind the house, and Tant Sannie had left the great wooden-
elbowed chair in which she passed her life, and waddled out to look at it.
Not far off was Waldo, who, having thrown a pail of food into the pigsty,
now leaned over the sod wall looking at the pigs. Half of the sty was dry,
but the lower half was a pool of mud, on the edge of which the mother sow
lay with closed eyes, her ten little ones sucking; the father pig, knee-
deep in the mud, stood running his snout into a rotten pumpkin and
wriggling his curled tail.

Waldo wondered dreamily as he stared why they were pleasant to look at.
Taken singly they were not beautiful; taken together they were. Was it not
because there was a certain harmony about them? The old sow was suited to
the little pigs, and the little pigs to their mother, the old boar to the
rotten pumpkin, and all to the mud. They suggested the thought of nothing
that should be added, of nothing that should be taken away. And, he
wondered on vaguely, was not that the secret of all beauty, that you who
look on--  So he stood dreaming, and leaned further and further over the
sod wall, and looked at the pigs.

All this time Bonaparte Blenkins was sloping down from the house in an
aimless sort of way; but he kept one eye fixed on the pigsty, and each
gyration brought him nearer to it. Waldo stood like a thing asleep when
Bonaparte came close up to him.

In old days, when a small boy, playing in an Irish street-gutter, he,
Bonaparte, had been familiarly known among his comrades under the title of
Tripping Ben; this, from the rare ease and dexterity with which, by merely
projecting his foot, he could precipitate any unfortunate companion on to
the crown of his head. Years had elapsed, and Tripping Ben had become
Bonaparte; but the old gift was in him still. He came close to the pigsty.
All the defunct memories of his boyhood returned on him in a flood, as,
with an adroit movement, he inserted his leg between Waldo and the wall and
sent him over into the pigsty.

The little pigs were startled at the strange intruder, and ran behind their
mother, who sniffed at him. Tant Sannie smote her hands together and
laughed; but Bonaparte was far from joining her. Lost in reverie, he gazed
at the distant horizon.

The sudden reversal of head and feet had thrown out the volume that Waldo
carried in his breast. Bonaparte picked it up and began to inspect it, as
the boy climbed slowly over the wall. He would have walked off sullenly,
but he wanted his book, and he waited until it should be given him.

"Ha!" said Bonaparte, raising his eyes from the leaves of the book which he
was examining, "I hope your coat has not been injured; it is of an elegant
cut. An heirloom, I presume, from your paternal grandfather? It looks
nice now."

"Oh, Lord! oh! Lord!" cried Tant Sannie, laughing and holding her sides;
how the child looks--as though he thought the mud would never wash off.
Oh, Lord, I shall die! You, Bonaparte, are the funniest man I ever saw."

Bonaparte Blenkins was now carefully inspecting the volume he had picked
up. Among the subjects on which the darkness of his understanding had been
enlightened during his youth, Political Economy had not been one. He was
not, therefore, very clear as to what the nature of the book might be; and
as the name of the writer, J.S. Mill, might, for anything he knew to the
contrary, have belonged to a venerable member of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, it by no means threw light upon the question. He was not in
any way sure that Political Economy had nothing to do with the cheapest way
of procuring clothing for the army and navy, which would be certainly both
a political and economical subject.

But Bonaparte soon came to a conclusion as to the nature of the book and
its contents, by the application of a simple rule now largely acted upon,
but which, becoming universal, would save much thought and valuable time.
It is of marvellous simplicity, of infinite utility, of universal
applicability. It may easily be committed to memory and runs thus:

Whenever you come into contact with any book, person, or opinion of which
you absolutely comprehend nothing, declare that book, person or opinion to
be immoral. Bespatter it, vituperate against it, strongly insist that any
man or woman harbouring it is a fool or a knave, or both. Carefully
abstain from studying it. Do all that in you lies to annihilate that book,
person, or opinion.

Acting on this rule, so wide in its comprehensiveness, so beautifully
simple in its working, Bonaparte approached Tant Sannie with the book in
his hand. Waldo came a step nearer, eyeing it like a dog whose young has
fallen into evil hands.

"This book," said Bonaparte, "is not a fit and proper study for a young and
immature mind."

Tant Sannie did not understand a word, and said:

"What?"

"This book," said Bonaparte, bringing down his finger with energy on the
cover, "this book is sleg, sleg, Davel, Davel!"

Tant Sannie perceived from the gravity of his countenance that it was no
laughing matter. From the words "sleg" and "Davel" she understood that the
book was evil, and had some connection with the prince who pulls the wires
of evil over the whole earth.

"Where did you get this book?" she asked, turning her twinkling little eyes
on Waldo. "I wish that my legs may be as thin as an Englishman's if it
isn't one of your father's. He had more sins than all the Kaffers in
Kafferland, for all that he pretended to be so good all those years, and to
live without a wife because he was thinking of the one that was dead! As
though ten dead wives could make up for one fat one with arms and legs!"
cried Tant Sannie, snorting.

"It was not my father's book," said the boy savagely. "I got it from your
loft."

"My loft! my book! How dare you?" cried Tant Sannie.

"It was Em's father's. She gave it me," he muttered more sullenly.

"Give it here. What is the name of it? What is it about?" she asked,
putting her finger upon the title.

Bonaparte understood.

"Political Economy," he said slowly.

"Dear Lord!" said Tant Sannie, "cannot one hear from the very sound what an
ungodly book it is! One can hardly say the name. Haven't we got curses
enough on this farm?" cried Tant Sannie, eloquently; "my best imported
Merino ram dying of nobody knows what, and the short-horn cow casting her
two calves, and the sheep eaten up with the scab and the drought? And is
this a time to bring ungodly things about the place, to call down the
vengeance of Almighty God to punish us more? Didn't the minister tell me
when I was confirmed not to read any book except my Bible and hymn-book,
that the devil was in all the rest? And I never have read any other book,"
said Tant Sannie with virtuous energy, "and I never will!"

Waldo saw that the fate of his book was sealed, and turned sullenly on his
heel.

"So you will not stay to hear what I say!" cried Tant Sannie. "There, take
your Polity-gollity-gominy, your devil's book!" she cried, flinging the
book at his head with much energy.

It merely touched his forehead on one side and fell to the ground.

"Go on," she cried; "I know you are going to talk to yourself. People who
talk to themselves always talk to the devil. Go and tell him all about it.
Go, go! run!" cried Tant Sannie.

But the boy neither quickened nor slackened his pace, and passed sullenly
round the back of the wagon-house.

Books have been thrown at other heads before and since that summer
afternoon, by hands more white and delicate than those of the Boer-woman;
but whether the result of the process has been in any case wholly
satisfactory, may be questioned. We love that with a peculiar tenderness,
we treasure it with a peculiar care, it has for us quite a fictitious
value, for which we have suffered. If we may not carry it anywhere else we
will carry it in our hearts, and always to the end.

Bonaparte Blenkins went to pick up the volume, now loosened from its cover,
while Tant Sannie pushed the stumps of wood further into the oven.
Bonaparte came close to her, tapped the book knowingly, nodded, and looked
at the fire. Tant Sannie comprehended, and, taking the volume from his
hand, threw it into the back of the oven. It lay upon the heap of coals,
smoked, flared, and blazed, and the "Political Economy" was no more--gone
out of existence, like many another poor heretic of flesh and blood.

Bonaparte grinned, and to watch the process brought his face so near the
oven door that the white hair on his eyebrows got singed. He then inquired
if there were any more in the loft.

Learning that there were, he made signs indicative of taking up armfuls and
flinging them into the fire. But Tant Sannie was dubious. The deceased
Englishman had left all his personal effects specially to his child. It
was all very well for Bonaparte to talk of burning the books. He had had
his hair spiritually pulled, and she had no wish to repeat his experience.

She shook her head. Bonaparte was displeased. But then a happy thought
occurred to him. He suggested that the key of the loft should henceforth
be put into his own safe care and keeping--no one gaining possession of it
without his permission. To this Tant Sannie readily assented, and the two
walked lovingly to the house to look for it.

Chapter 1.XII. He Bites.

Bonaparte Blenkins was riding home on the grey mare. He had ridden out
that afternoon, partly for the benefit of his health, partly to maintain
his character as overseer of the farm. As he rode on slowly, he
thoughtfully touched the ears of the grey mare with his whip.

"No, Bon, my boy," he addressed himself, "don't propose! You can't marry
for four years, on account of the will; then why propose? Wheedle her,
tweedle her, teedle her, but don't let her make sure of you. When a
woman," said Bonaparte, sagely resting his finger against the side of his
nose, "When a woman is sure of you she does what she likes with you; but
when she isn't, you do what you like with her. And I--" said Bonaparte.

Here he drew the horse up suddenly and looked. He was now close to the
house, and leaning over the pigsty wall, in company with Em, who was
showing her the pigs, was a strange female figure. It was the first
visitor that had appeared on the farm since his arrival, and he looked at
her with interest. She was a tall, pudgy girl of fifteen, weighing a
hundred and fifty pounds, with baggy pendulous cheeks and up-turned nose.
She strikingly resembled Tant Sannie, in form and feature, but her sleepy
good eyes lacked that twinkle that dwelt in the Boer-woman's small orbs.
She was attired in a bright green print, wore brass rings in her ears and
glass beads round her neck, and was sucking the tip of her large finger as
she looked at the pigs.

"Who is it that has come?" asked Bonaparte, when he stood drinking his
coffee in the front room.

"Why, my niece, to be sure," said Tant Sannie, the Hottentot maid
translating. "She's the only daughter of my only brother Paul, and she's
come to visit me. She'll be a nice mouthful to the man that can get her,"
added Tant Sannie. "Her father's got two thousand pounds in the green
wagon box under his bed, and a farm, and five thousand sheep, and God
Almighty knows how many goats and horses. They milk ten cows in mid-
winter, and the young men are after her like flies about a bowl of milk.
She says she means to get married in four months, but she doesn't yet know
to whom. It was so with me when I was young," said Tant Sannie. "I've sat
up with the young men four and five nights a week. And they will come
riding again, as soon as ever they know that the time's up that the
Englishman made me agree not to marry in."

The Boer-woman smirked complacently.

"Where are you going to?" asked Tant Sannie presently, seeing that
Bonaparte rose.

"Ha! I'm just going to the kraals; I'll be in to supper," said Bonaparte.

Nevertheless, when he reached his own door he stopped and turned in there.
Soon after he stood before the little glass, arrayed in his best white
shirt with the little tucks, and shaving himself. He had on his very best
trousers, and had heavily oiled the little fringe at the back of his head,
which, however, refused to become darker. But what distressed him most was
his nose--it was very red. He rubbed his finger and thumb on the wall, and
put a little whitewash on it; but, finding it rather made matters worse, he
rubbed it off again. Then he looked carefully into his own eyes. They
certainly were a little pulled down at the outer corners, which gave them
the appearance of looking crosswise; but then they were a nice blue. So he
put on his best coat, took up his stick, and went out to supper, feeling on
the whole well satisfied.

"Aunt," said Trana to Tant Sannie when that night they lay together in the
great wooden bed, "why does the Englishman sigh so when he looks at me?"

"Ha!" said Tant Sannie, who was half asleep, but suddenly started, wide
awake. "It's because he thinks you look like me. I tell you, Trana," said
Tant Sannie, "the man is mad with love of me. I told him the other night I
couldn't marry till Em was sixteen, or I'd lose all the sheep her father
left me. And he talked about Jacob working seven years and seven years
again for his wife. And of course he meant me," said Tant Sannie
pompously. "But he won't get me so easily as he thinks; he'll have to ask
more than once."

"Oh!" said Trana, who was a lumpish girl and not much given to talking; but
presently she added, "Aunt, why does the Englishman always knock against a
person when he passes them?"

"That's because you are always in the way," said Tant Sannie.

"But, aunt, said Trana, presently, "I think he is very ugly."

"Phugh!" said Tant Sannie. It's only because we're not accustomed to such
noses in this country. In his country he says all the people have such
noses, and the redder your nose is the higher you are. He's of the family
of the Queen Victoria, you know," said Tant Sannie, wakening up with her
subject; "and he doesn't think anything of governors and church elders and
such people; they are nothing to him. When his aunt with the dropsy dies
he'll have money enough to buy all the farms in this district."

"Oh!" said Trana. That certainly made a difference.

"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only forty-one, though you'd take him to
be sixty. And he told me last night the real reason of his baldness."

Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age,
Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady. How a deadly rival, jealous of
his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a damnable and
insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How,
applying it in the evening, on rising in the morning he found his pillow
strewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the glass, beheld the
shining and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The few
remaining hairs were turned to a silvery whiteness, and the young lady
married his rival.

"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace of God,
and reading of the psalms, he says he would have killed himself. He says
he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman and she
won't."

"Alle wereld!" said Trana: and then they went to sleep.

Every one was lost in sleep soon; but from the window of the cabin the
light streamed forth. It came from a dung fire, over which Waldo sat
brooding. Hour after hour he sat there, now and again throwing a fresh
lump of fuel on to the fire, which burnt up bravely, and then sank into a
great bed of red coals, which reflected themselves in the boy's eyes as he
sat there brooding, brooding, brooding. At last, when the fire was blazing
at its brightest, he rose suddenly and walked slowly to a beam from which
an ox riem hung. Loosening it, he ran a noose in one end and then doubled
it round his arm.

"Mine, mine! I have a right," he muttered; and then something louder, "if
I fall and am killed, so much the better!"

He opened the door and went out into the starlight.

He walked with his eyes bent upon the ground, but overhead it was one of
those brilliant southern nights when every space so small that your hand
might cover it shows fifty cold white points, and the Milky-Way is a belt
of sharp frosted silver. He passed the door where Bonaparte lay dreaming
of Trana and her wealth, and he mounted the ladder steps. From those he
clambered with some difficulty on to the roof of the house. It was of old
rotten thatch with a ridge of white plaster, and it crumbled away under his
feet at every step. He trod as heavily as he could. So much the better if
he fell.

He knelt down when he got to the far gable, and began to fasten his riem to
the crumbling bricks. Below was the little window of the loft. With one
end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist, how
easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the broken panes,
and to go in, and to fill his arms with books, and to clamber up again!
They had burnt one book--he would have twenty. Every man's hand was
against his--his should be against every man's. No one would help him--he
would help himself.

He lifted the black damp hair from his knit forehead, and looked round to
cool his hot face. Then he saw what a regal night it was. He knelt
silently and looked up. A thousand eyes were looking down at him, bright
and so cold. There was a laughing irony in them.

"So hot, so bitter, so angry? Poor little mortal?"

He was ashamed. He folded his arms, and sat on the ridge of the roof
looking up at them.

"So hot, so bitter, so angry?"

It was as though a cold hand had been laid upon his throbbing forehead, and
slowly they began to fade and grow dim. Tant Sannie and the burnt book,
Bonaparte and the broken machine, the box in the loft, he himself sitting
there--how small they all became! Even the grave over yonder. Those stars
that shone on up above so quietly, they had seen a thousand such little
existences fight just so fiercely, flare up just so brightly and go out;
and they, the old, old stars, shone on forever.

"So hot, so angry, poor little soul?" they said.

The riem slipped from his fingers; he sat with his arms folded, looking up.

"We," said the stars, have seen the earth when it was young. We have seen
small things creep out upon its surface--small things that prayed and loved
and cried very loudly, and then crept under it again. But we," said the
stars, "are as old as the Unknown."

He leaned his chin against the palm of his hand and looked up at them. So
long he sat there that bright stars set and new ones rose, and yet he sat
on.

Then at last he stood up, and began to loosen the riem from the gable.

What did it matter about the books? The lust and the desire for them had
died out. If they pleased to keep them from him they might. What matter?
it was a very little thing. Why hate, and struggle, and fight? Let it be
as it would.

He twisted the riem round his arm and walked back along the ridge of the
house.

By this time Bonaparte Blenkins had finished his dream of Trana, and as he
turned himself round for a fresh doze he heard the steps descending the
ladder. His first impulse was to draw the blanket over his head and his
legs under him, and to shout; but recollecting that the door was locked and
the window carefully bolted, he allowed his head slowly to crop out among
the blankets, and listened intently. Whosoever it might be, there was no
danger of their getting at him; so he clambered out of bed, and going on
tiptoe to the door, applied his eye to the keyhole. There was nothing to
be seen; so walking to the window, he brought his face as close to the
glass as his nose would allow. There was a figure just discernible. The
lad was not trying to walk softly, and the heavy shuffling of the well-
known velschoens could be clearly heard through the closed window as they
crossed the stones in the yard. Bonaparte listened till they had died away
round the corner of the wagon-house; and, feeling that his bare legs were
getting cold, he jumped back into bed again.

...

"What do you keep up in your loft?" inquired Bonaparte of the Boer-woman
the next evening, pointing upwards and elucidating his meaning by the
addition of such Dutch words as he knew, for the lean Hottentot was gone
home.

"Dried skins," said the Boer-woman, "and empty bottles, and boxes, and
sacks, and soap."

"You don't keep any of your provisions there--sugar, now?" said Bonaparte,
pointing to the sugar-basin and then up at the loft.

Tant Sannie shook her head.

"Only salt, and dried peaches."

"Dried peaches! Eh?" said Bonaparte. "Shut the door, my dear child, shut
it tight," he called out to Em, who stood in the dining room. Then he
leaned over the elbow of the sofa and brought his face as close as possible
to the Boer-woman's, and made signs of eating. Then he said something she
did not comprehend; then said, "Waldo, Waldo, Waldo," pointed up to the
loft, and made signs of eating again.

Now an inkling of his meaning dawned on the Boer-woman's mind. To make it
clearer, he moved his legs after the manner of one going up a ladder,
appeared to be opening a door, masticated vigorously, said, "Peaches,
peaches, peaches," and appeared to be coming down the ladder.

It was now evident to Tant Sannie that Waldo had been in her loft and eaten
her peaches.

To exemplify his own share in the proceedings, Bonaparte lay down on the
sofa, and shutting his eyes tightly, said, "Night, night, night!"  Then he
sat up wildly, appearing to be intently listening, mimicked with his feet
the coming down a ladder, and looked at Tant Sannie. This clearly showed
how, roused in the night, he had discovered the theft.

"He must have been a great fool to eat my peaches," said Tant Sannie.
"They are full of mites as a sheepskin, and as hard as stones."

Bonaparte, fumbling in his pocket, did not even hear her remark, and took
out from his coat-tail a little horsewhip, nicely rolled up. Bonaparte
winked at the little rhinoceros horsewhip, at the Boer-woman, and then at
the door.

"Shall we call him--Waldo, Waldo?" he said.

Tant Sannie nodded, and giggled. There was something so exceedingly
humorous in the idea that he was going to beat the boy, though for her own
part she did not see that the peaches were worth it. When the Kaffer maid
came with the wash-tub she was sent to summon Waldo; and Bonaparte doubled
up the little whip and put it in his pocket. Then he drew himself up, and
prepared to act his important part with becoming gravity. Soon Waldo stood
in the door, and took off his hat.

"Come in, come in, my lad," said Bonaparte, "and shut the door behind."

The boy came in and stood before them.

"You need not be so afraid, child," said Tant Sannie. "I was a child
myself once. It's no great harm if you have taken a few."

Bonaparte perceived that her remark was not in keeping with the nature of
the proceedings, and of the little drama he intended to act. Pursing out
his lips, and waving his hand, he solemnly addressed the boy.

"Waldo, it grieves me beyond expression to have to summon you for so
painful a purpose; but it is at the imperative call of duty, which I dare
not evade. I do not state that frank and unreserved confession will
obviate the necessity of chastisement, which if requisite shall be fully
administered; but the nature of that chastisement may be mitigated by free
and humble confession. Waldo, answer me as you would your own father, in
whose place I now stand to you; have you, or have you not, did you, or did
you not, eat of the peaches in the loft?"

"Say you took them, boy, say you took them, then he won't beat you much,"
said the Dutchwoman, good-naturedly, getting a little sorry for him.

The boy raised his eyes slowly and fixed them vacantly upon her, then
suddenly his face grew dark with blood.

"So, you haven't got anything to say to us, my lad?" said Bonaparte,
momentarily forgetting his dignity, and bending forward with a little
snarl. "But what I mean is just this, my lad--when it takes a boy three-
quarters of an hour to fill a salt-pot, and when at three o'clock in the
morning he goes knocking about the doors of a loft, it's natural to suppose
there's mischief in it. It's certain there is mischief in it; and where
there's mischief in, it must be taken out," said Bonaparte, grinning into
the boy's face. Then, feeling that he had fallen from that high gravity
which was as spice to the pudding, and the flavour of the whole little
tragedy, he drew himself up. "Waldo," he said, "confess to me instantly,
and without reserve, that you ate the peaches."

The boy's face was white now. His eyes were on the ground, his hands
doggedly clasped before him.

"What, do you not intend to answer?"

The boy looked up at them once from under his bent eyebrows, and then
looked down again.

"The creature looks as if all the devils in hell were in it," cried Tant
Sannie. "Say you took them, boy. Young things will be young things; I was
older than you when I used to eat bultong in my mother's loft, and get the
little niggers whipped for it. Say you took them."

But the boy said nothing.

"I think a little solitary confinement might perhaps be beneficial," said
Bonaparte. "It will enable you, Waldo, to reflect on the enormity of the
sin you have committed against our Father in heaven. And you may also
think of the submission you owe to those who are older and wiser than you
are, and whose duty it is to check and correct you."

Saying this, Bonaparte stood up and took down the key of the fuel-house,
which hung on a nail against the wall.

"Walk on, my boy," said Bonaparte, pointing to the door; and as he followed
him out he drew his mouth expressively on one side, and made the lash of
the little horsewhip stick out of his pocket and shake up and down.

Tant Sannie felt half sorry for the lad; but she could not help laughing,
it was always so funny when one was going to have a whipping, and it would
do him good. Anyhow, he would forget all about it when the places were
healed. Had not she been beaten many times and been all the better for it?

Bonaparte took up a lighted candle that had been left burning on the
kitchen table, and told the boy to walk before him. They went to the fuel-
house. It was a little stone erection that jutted out from the side of the
wagon-house. It was low and without a window, and the dried dung was piled
in one corner, and the coffee-mill stood in another, fastened on the top of
a short post about three feet high. Bonaparte took the padlock off the
rough door.

"Walk in, my lad," he said.

Waldo obeyed sullenly; one place to him was much the same as another. He
had no objection to being locked up.

Bonaparte followed him in, and closed the door carefully. He put the light
down on the heap of dung in the corner, and quietly introduced his hand
under his coat-tails, and drew slowly from his pocket the end of a rope,
which he concealed behind him.

"I'm very sorry, exceedingly sorry, Waldo, my lad, that you should have
acted in this manner. It grieves me," said Bonaparte.

He moved round toward the boy's back. He hardly liked the look in the
fellow's eyes, though he stood there motionless. If he should spring on
him!

So he drew the rope out very carefully, and shifted round to the wooden
post. There was a slipknot in one end of the rope, and a sudden movement
drew the boy's hands to his back and passed it round them. It was an
instant's work to drag it twice round the wooden post: then Bonaparte was
safe.

For a moment the boy struggled to free himself; then he knew that he was
powerless, and stood still.

"Horses that kick must have their legs tied," said Bonaparte, as he passed
the other end of the rope round the boy's knees. "And now, my dear Waldo,"
taking the whip out of his pocket, "I am going to beat you."

He paused for a moment. It was perfectly quiet; they could hear each
other's breath.

"'Chasten thy son while there is hope,'" said Bonaparte, "'and let not thy
soul spare for his crying.'  Those are God's words. I shall act as a
father to you, Waldo. I think we had better have your naked back."

He took out his penknife, and slit the shirt down from the shoulder to the
waist.

"Now," said Bonaparte, "I hope the Lord will bless and sanctify to you what
I am going to do to you."

The first cut ran from the shoulder across the middle of the back; the
second fell exactly in the same place. A shudder passed through the boy's
frame.

"Nice, eh?" said Bonaparte, peeping round into his face, speaking with a
lisp, as though to a very little child. "Nith, eh?"

But the eyes were black and lustreless, and seemed not to see him. When he
had given sixteen Bonaparte paused in his work to wipe a little drop of
blood from his whip.

"Cold, eh? What makes you shiver so? Perhaps you would like to pull up
your shirt? But I've not quite done yet."

When he had finished he wiped the whip again, and put it back in his
pocket. He cut the rope through with his penknife, and then took up the
light.

"You don't seem to have found your tongue yet. Forgotten how to cry?" said
Bonaparte, patting him on the cheek.

The boy looked up at him--not sullenly, not angrily. There was a wild,
fitful terror in the eyes. Bonaparte made haste to go out and shut the
door, and leave him alone in the darkness. He himself was afraid of that
look.

...

It was almost morning. Waldo lay with his face upon the ground at the foot
of the fuel-heap. There was a round hole near the top of the door, where a
knot of wood had fallen out, and a stream of grey light came in through it.

Ah, it was going to end at last. Nothing lasts forever, not even the
night. How was it he had never thought of that before? For in all that
long dark night he had been very strong, had never been tired, never felt
pain, had run on and on, up and down, up and down; he had not dared to
stand still, and he had not known it would end. He had been so strong,
that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stone wall it did
not stun him nor pain him--only made him laugh. That was a dreadful night.

When he clasped his hands frantically and prayed--"O God, my beautiful God,
my sweet God, once, only once, let me feel you near me tonight!" he could
not feel him. He prayed aloud, very loud, and he got no answer; when he
listened it was all quite quiet--like when the priests of Baal cried aloud
to their god--"Oh, Baal, hear us! Oh, Baal, hear us! But Baal was gone a-
hunting.

That was a long wild night, and wild thoughts came and went in it; but they
left their marks behind them forever: for, as years cannot pass without
leaving their traces behind them, neither can nights into which are forced
the thoughts and sufferings of years. And now the dawn was coming, and at
last he was very tired. He shivered and tried to draw the shirt up over
his shoulders. They were getting stiff. He had never known they were cut
in the night. He looked up at the white light that came in through the
hole at the top of the door and shuddered. Then he turned his face back to
the ground and slept again.

Some hours later Bonaparte came toward the fuel-house with a lump of bread
in his hand. He opened the door and peered in; then entered, and touched
the fellow with his boot. Seeing that he breathed heavily, though he did
not rouse, Bonaparte threw the bread down on the ground. He was alive,
that was one thing. He bent over him, and carefully scratched open one of
the cuts with the nail of his forefinger, examining with much interest his
last night's work. He would have to count his sheep himself that day; the
boy was literally cut up. He locked the door and went away again.

"Oh, Lyndall," said Em, entering the dining room, and bathed in tears, that
afternoon, "I have been begging Bonaparte to let him out, and he won't."

"The more you beg the more he will not," said Lyndall.

She was cutting out aprons on the table.

"Oh, but it's late, and I think they want to kill him," said Em, weeping
bitterly; and finding that no more consolation was to be gained from her
cousin, she went off blubbering--"I wonder you can cut out aprons when
Waldo is shut up like that."

For ten minutes after she was gone Lyndall worked on quietly; then she
folded up her stuff, rolled it tightly together, and stood before the
closed door of the sitting room with her hands closely clasped. A flush
rose to her face: she opened the door quickly, and walked in, went to the
nail on which the key of the fuel-room hung. Bonaparte and Tant Sannie sat
there and saw her.

"What do you want?" they asked together.

"This key," she said, holding it up, and looking at them.

"Do you mean her to have it?" said Tant Sannie in Dutch.

"Why don't you stop her?" asked Bonaparte in English.

"Why don't you take it from her?" said Tant Sannie.

So they looked at each other, talking, while Lyndall walked to the fuel-
house with the key, her underlip bitten in.

"Waldo," she said, as she helped him to stand up, and twisted his arm about
her waist to support him, "we will not be children always; we shall have
the power, too, some day."  She kissed his naked shoulder with her soft
little mouth. It was all the comfort her young soul could give him.

Chapter 1.XIII. He Makes Love.

"Here," said Tant Sannie to her Hottentot maid, "I have been in this house
four years, and never been up in the loft. Fatter women than I go up
ladders; I will go up today and see what it is like, and put it to rights
up there. You bring the little ladder and stand at the bottom."

"There's one would be sorry if you were to fall," said the Hottentot maid,
leering at Bonaparte's pipe, that lay on the table.

"Hold your tongue, jade," said her mistress, trying to conceal a pleased
smile, "and go and fetch the ladder."

There was a never-used trap-door at one end of the sitting room: this the
Hottentot maid pushed open, and setting the ladder against it, the Boer-
woman with some danger and difficulty climbed into the loft. Then the
Hottentot maid took the ladder away, as her husband was mending the wagon-
house, and needed it; but the trap-door was left open.

For a little while Tant Sannie poked about among the empty bottles and
skins, and looked at the bag of peaches that Waldo was supposed to have
liked so; then she sat down near the trap-door beside a barrel of salt
mutton. She found that the pieces of meat were much too large, and took
out her clasp-knife to divide them.

That was always the way when one left things to servants, she grumbled to
herself: but when once she was married to her husband Bonaparte it would
not matter whether a sheep spoiled or no--when once his rich aunt with the
dropsy was dead. She smiled as she dived her hand into the pickle-water.

At that instant her niece entered the room below, closely followed by
Bonaparte, with his head on one side, smiling mawkishly. Had Tant Sannie
spoken at that moment the life of Bonaparte Blenkins would have run a
wholly different course; as it was, she remained silent, and neither
noticed the open trap-door above their heads.

"Sit there, my love," said Bonaparte, motioning Trana into her aunt's
elbow-chair, and drawing another close up in front of it, in which he
seated himself. "There, put your feet upon the stove too. Your aunt has
gone out somewhere. Long have I waited for this auspicious event!"

Trana, who understood not one word of English, sat down in the chair and
wondered if this was one of the strange customs of other lands, that an old
gentleman may bring his chair up to yours, and sit with his knees touching
you. She had been five days in Bonaparte's company, and feared the old
man, and disliked his nose.

"How long have I desired this moment!" said Bonaparte. "But that aged
relative of thine is always casting her unhallowed shadow upon us. Look
into my eyes, Trana."

Bonaparte knew that she comprehended not a syllable; but he understood that
it is the eye, the tone, the action, and not at all the rational word, that
touches the love-chords. He saw she changed colour.

"All night," said Bonaparte, "I lie awake; I see naught but thy angelic
countenance. I open my arms to receive thee--where art thou, where? Thou
art not there!" said Bonaparte, suiting the action to the words, and
spreading out his arms and drawing them to his breast.

"Oh, please, I don't understand," said Trana, "I want to go away."

"Yes, yes," said Bonaparte, leaning back in his chair, to her great relief,
and pressing his hands on his heart, "since first thy amethystine
countenance was impressed here--what have I not suffered, what have I not
felt? Oh, the pangs unspoken, burning as an ardent coal in a fiery and
uncontaminated bosom!" said Bonaparte, bending forward again.

"Dear Lord!" said Trana to herself, "how foolish I have been! The old man
has a pain in his stomach, and now, as my aunt is out, he has come to me to
help him."

She smiled kindly at Bonaparte, and pushing past him, went to the bedroom,
quickly returning with a bottle of red drops in her hand.

"They are very good for benauwdheid; my mother always drinks them," she
said, holding the bottle out.

The face in the trap-door was a fiery red. Like a tiger-cat ready to
spring. Tant Sannie crouched, with the shoulder of mutton in her hand.
Exactly beneath her stood Bonaparte. She rose and clasped with both arms
the barrel of salt meat.

"What, rose of the desert, nightingale of the colony, that with thine
amorous lay whilest the lonesome night!" cried Bonaparte, seizing the hand
that held the vonlicsense. Nay, struggle not! Fly as a stricken fawn into
the arms that would embrace thee, thou--"

Here a stream of cold pickle-water, heavy with ribs and shoulders,
descending on his head abruptly terminated his speech. Half-blinded,
Bonaparte looked up through the drops that hung from his eyelids, and saw
the red face that looked down at him. With one wild cry he fled. As he
passed out at the front door a shoulder of mutton, well-directed, struck
the black coat in the small of the back.

"Bring the ladder! bring the ladder! I will go after him!" cried the Boer-
woman, as Bonaparte Blenkins wildly fled into the fields.

...

Late in the evening of the same day Waldo knelt on the floor of his cabin.
He bathed the foot of his dog which had been pierced by a thorn. The
bruises on his own back had had five days to heal in, and, except a little
stiffness in his movements, there was nothing remarkable about the boy.

The troubles of the young are soon over; they leave no external mark. If
you wound the tree in its youth the bark will quickly cover the gash; but
when the tree is very old, peeling the bark off, and looking carefully, you
will see the scar there still. All that is buried is not dead.

Waldo poured the warm milk over the little swollen foot; Doss lay very
quiet, with tears in his eyes. Then there was a tap at the door. In an
instant Doss looked wide awake, and winked the tears out from between his
little lids.

"Come in," said Waldo, intent on his work; and slowly and cautiously the
door opened.

"Good evening, Waldo, my boy," said Bonaparte Blenkins in a mild voice, not
venturing more than his nose within the door. "How are you this evening?"

Doss growled and showed his little teeth, and tried to rise, but his paw
hurt him so he whined.

"I'm very tired, Waldo, my boy," said Bonaparte plaintively.

Doss showed his little white teeth again. His master went on with his work
without looking round. There are some people at whose hands it is best not
to look. At last he said:

"Come in."

Bonaparte stepped cautiously a little way into the room, and left the door
open behind him. He looked at the boy's supper on the table.

"Waldo, I've had nothing to eat all day--I'm very hungry," he said.

"Eat!" said Waldo after a moment, bending lower over his dog.

"You won't go and tell her that I am here, will you, Waldo?" said Bonaparte
most uneasily. "You've heard how she used me, Waldo? I've been badly
treated; you'll know yourself what it is some day when you can't carry on a
little conversation with a lady without having salt meat and pickle-water
thrown at you. Waldo, look at me; do I look as a gentleman should?"

But the boy neither looked up nor answered, and Bonaparte grew more uneasy.

"You wouldn't go and tell her that I am here, would you?" said Bonaparte,
whiningly. "There's no knowing what she would do to me. I've such trust
in you, Waldo; I've always thought you such a promising lad, though you
mayn't have known it, Waldo."

"Eat," said the boy, "I shall say nothing."

Bonaparte, who knew the truth when another spoke it, closed the door,
carefully putting on the button. Then he looked to see that the curtain of
the window was closely pulled down, and seated himself at the table. He
was soon munching the cold meat and bread. Waldo knelt on the floor,
bathing the foot with hands which the dog licked lovingly. Once only he
glanced at the table, and turned away quickly.

"Ah, yes! I don't wonder that you can't look at me, Waldo," said
Bonaparte; "my condition would touch any heart. You see, the water was
fatty, and that has made all the sand stick to me; and my hair," said
Bonaparte, tenderly touching the little fringe at the back of his head, "is
all caked over like a little plank; you wouldn't think it was hair at all,"
said Bonaparte, plaintively. "I had to creep all along the stone walls for
fear she'd see me, and with nothing on my head but a red handkerchief, tied
under my chin, Waldo; and to hide in a sloot the whole day, with not a
mouthful of food, Waldo. And she gave me such a blow, just here," said
Bonaparte.

He had cleared the plate of the last morsel, when Waldo rose and walked to
the door.

"Oh, Waldo, my dear boy, you are not going to call her," said Bonaparte,
rising anxiously.

"I am going to sleep in the wagon," said the boy, opening the door.

"Oh, we can both sleep in this bed; there's plenty of room. Do stay, my
boy, please."

But Waldo stepped out.

"It was such a little whip, Waldo," said Bonaparte, following him
deprecatingly. "I didn't think it would hurt you so much. It was such a
little whip. I am sure you didn't take the peaches. You aren't going to
call her, Waldo, are you?"

But the boy walked off.

Bonaparte waited till his figure had passed round the front of the wagon-
house, and then slipped out. He hid himself round the corner, but kept
peeping out to see who was coming. He felt sure the boy was gone to call
Tant Sannie. His teeth chattered with inward cold as he looked round into
the darkness and thought of the snakes that might bite him, and the
dreadful things that might attack him, and the dead that might arise out of
their graves if he slept out in the field all night. But more than an hour
passed and no footstep approached.

Then Bonaparte made his way back to the cabin. He buttoned the door and
put the table against it and, giving the dog a kick to silence his whining
when the foot throbbed, he climbed into bed. He did not put out the light,
for fear of the ghost, but, worn out with the sorrows of the day, was soon
asleep himself.

About four o'clock Waldo, lying between the seats of the horse-wagon, was
awakened by a gentle touch on his head.

Sitting up, he espied Bonaparte looking through one of the windows with a
lighted candle in his hand.

"I'm about to depart, my dear boy, before my enemies arise, and I could not
leave without coming to bid you farewell," said Bonaparte.

Waldo looked at him.

"I shall always think of you with affection" said Bonaparte. "And there's
that old hat of yours, if you could let me have it for a keepsake--"

"Take it," said Waldo.

"I thought you would say so, so I brought it with me," said Bonaparte,
putting it on. "The Lord bless you, my dear boy. You haven't a few
shillings--just a trifle you don't need--have you?"

"Take the two shillings that are in the broken vase."

"May the blessing of my God rest upon you, my dear child," said Bonaparte;
"may He guide and bless you. Give me your hand."

Waldo folded his arms closely, and lay down.

"Farewell, adieu!" said Bonaparte. "May the blessing of my God and my
father's God rest on you, now and evermore."

With these words the head and nose withdrew themselves, and the light
vanished from the window.

After a few moments the boy, lying in the wagon, heard stealthy footsteps
as they passed the wagon-house and made their way down the road. He
listened as they grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away
altogether, and from that night the footstep of Bonaparte Blenkins was
heard no more at the old farm.

END Of PART I.

PART II.

"And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked
for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing."

Chapter 2.I. Times and Seasons.

Waldo lay on his stomach on the sand. Since he prayed and howled to his
God in the fuel-house three years had passed.

They say that in the world to come time is not measured out by months and
years. Neither is it here. The soul's life has seasons of its own;
periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not
scan, but which are as deftly and sharply cut off from one another as the
smoothly-arranged years which the earth's motion yields us.

To stranger eyes these divisions are not evident; but each, looking back at
the little track his consciousness illuminates, sees it cut into distinct
portions, whose boundaries are the termination of mental states.

As man differs from man, so differ these souls' years. The most material
life is not devoid of them; the story of the most spiritual is told in
them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out
after this fashion:

I.

The year of infancy, where from the shadowy background of forgetfulness
start out pictures of startling clearness, disconnected, but brightly
coloured, and indelibly printed in the mind. Much that follows fades, but
the colours of those baby-pictures are permanent.

There rises, perhaps, a warm summer's evening; we are seated on the
doorstep; we have yet the taste of the bread and milk in our mouth, and the
red sunset is reflected in our basin.

Then there is a dark night, where, waking with a fear that there is some
great being in the room, we run from our own bed to another, creep close to
some large figure, and are comforted.

Then there is remembrance of the pride when, on some one's shoulder, with
our arms around their head, we ride to see the little pigs, the new little
pigs with their curled tails and tiny snouts--where do they come from?

Remembrance of delight in the feel and smell of the first orange we ever
see; of sorrow which makes us put up our lip, and cry hard, when one
morning we run out to try and catch the dewdrops, and they melt and wet our
little fingers; of almighty and despairing sorrow when we are lost behind
the kraals, and cannot see the house anywhere.

And then one picture starts out more vividly than any.

There has been a thunderstorm; the ground, as far as the eye can reach, is
covered with white hail; the clouds are gone, and overhead a deep blue sky
is showing; far off a great rainbow rests on the white earth. We, standing
in a window to look, feel the cool, unspeakably sweet wind blowing in on
us, and a feeling of longing comes over us--unutterable longing, we cannot
tell for what. We are so small, our head only reaches as high as the first
three panes. We look at the white earth, and the rainbow, and the blue
sky; and oh, we want it, we want--we do not know what. We cry as though
our heart was broken. When one lifts our little body from the window we
cannot tell what ails us. We run away to play.

So looks the first year.

II.

Now the pictures become continuous and connected. Material things still
rule, but the spiritual and intellectual take their places.

In the dark night when we are afraid we pray and shut our eyes. We press
our fingers very hard upon the lids, and see dark spots moving round and
round, and we know they are heads and wings of angels sent to take care of
us, seen dimly in the dark as they move round our bed. It is very
consoling.

In the day we learn our letters, and are troubled because we cannot see why
k-n-o-w should be know, and p-s-a-l-m psalm. They tell us it is so because
it is so. We are not satisfied; we hate to learn; we like better to build
little stone houses. We can build them as we please, and know the reason
for them.

Other joys too we have incomparably greater then even the building of stone
houses.

We are run through with a shudder of delight when in the red sand we come
on one of those white wax flowers that lie between their two green leaves
flat on the sand. We hardly dare pick them, but we feel compelled to do
so; and we smell and smell till the delight becomes almost pain. Afterward
we pull the green leaves softly into pieces to see the silk threads run
across.

Beyond the kopje grow some pale-green, hairy-leaved bushes. We are so
small, they meet over our head, and we sit among them, and kiss them, and
they love us back; it seems as though they were alive.

One day we sit there and look up at the blue sky, and down at our fat
little knees; and suddenly it strikes us, Who are we? This I, what is it?
We try to look in upon ourselves, and ourself beats back upon ourself.
Then we get up in great fear and run home as hard as we can. We can't tell
any one what frightened us. We never quite lose that feeling of self
again.

III.

And then a new time rises. We are seven years old. We can read now--read
the Bible. Best of all we like the story of Elijah in his cave at Horeb,
and the still small voice.

One day, a notable one, we read on the kopje, and discover the fifth
chapter of Matthew, and read it all through. It is a new gold-mine. Then
we tuck the Bible under our arm and rushed home. They didn't know it was
wicked to take your things again if some one took them, wicked to go to
law, wicked to--! We are quite breathless when we get to the house; we
tell them we have discovered a chapter they never heard of; we tell them
what it says. The old wise people tell us they knew all about it. Our
discovery is a mare's-nest to them; but to us it is very real. The ten
commandments and the old "Thou shalt" we have heard about long enough and
don't care about it; but this new law sets us on fire.

We will deny ourself. Our little wagon that we have made, we give to the
little Kaffers. We keep quiet when they throw sand at us (feeling, oh, so
happy). We conscientiously put the cracked teacup for ourselves at
breakfast, and take the burnt roaster-cake. We save our money, and buy
threepence of tobacco for the Hottentot maid who calls us names. We are
exotically virtuous. At night we are profoundly religious; even the
ticking watch says, "Eternity, eternity! hell, hell, hell!" and the silence
talks of God, and the things that shall be.

Occasionally, also, unpleasantly shrewd questions begin to be asked by some
one, we know not who, who sits somewhere behind our shoulder. We get to
know him better afterward.

Now we carry the questions to the grown-up people, and they give us
answers. We are more or less satisfied for the time. The grown-up people
are very wise, and they say it was kind of God to make hell, and very
loving of Him to send men there; and besides, he couldn't help Himself, and
they are very wise, we think, so we believe them--more or less.

IV.

Then a new time comes, of which the leading feature is, that the shrewd
questions are asked louder. We carry them to the grown-up people; they
answer us, and we are not satisfied.

And now between us and the dear old world of the senses the spirit-world
begins to peep in, and wholly clouds it over. What are the flowers to us?
They are fuel waiting for the great burning. We look at the walls of the
farmhouse and the matter-of-fact sheep-kraals, with the merry sunshine
playing over all; and do not see it. But we see a great white throne, and
him that sits on it. Around Him stand a great multitude that no man can
number, harpers harping with their harps, a thousand times ten thousand,
and thousands of thousands. How white are their robes, washed in the blood
of the Lamb! And the music rises higher, and rends the vault of heaven
with its unutterable sweetness. And we, as we listen, ever and anon, as it
sinks on the sweetest, lowest note, hear a groan of the damned from below.
We shudder in the sunlight.

"The torment," says Jeremy Taylor, whose sermons our father reads aloud in
the evening, "comprises as many torments as the body of man has joints,
sinews, arteries, etc., being caused by that penetrating and real fire of
which this temporal fire is but a painted fire. What comparison will there
be between burning for a hundred years' space and to be burning without
intermission as long as God is God!"

We remember the sermon there in the sunlight. One comes and asks why we
sit there nodding so moodily. Ah, they do not see what we see.

"A moment's time, a narrow space,
Divides me from that heavenly place,
   Or shuts me up in hell."

So says Wesley's hymn, which we sing evening by evening. What matter
sunshine and walls, men and sheep?

"The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen
are eternal."  They are real.

The Bible we bear always in our breast; its pages are our food; we learn to
repeat it; we weep much, for in sunshine and in shade, in the early morning
or the late evening, in the field or in the house, the devil walks with us.
He comes to a real person, copper-coloured face, head a little on one side,
forehead knit, asking questions. Believe me, it were better to be followed
by three deadly diseases than by him. He is never silenced--without mercy.
Though the drops of blood stand out on your heart he will put his question.
Softly he comes up (we are only a wee bit child); "Is it good of God to
make hell? Was it kind of Him to let no one be forgiven unless Jesus
Christ died?"

Then he goes off, and leaves us writhing. Presently he comes back.

"Do you love Him?"--waits a little. "Do you love Him? You will be lost if
you don't."

We say we try to.

"But do you?"  Then he goes off.

It is nothing to him if we go quite mad with fear at our own wickedness.
He asks on, the questioning devil; he cares nothing what he says. We long
to tell some one, that they may share our pain. We do not yet know that
the cup of affliction is made with such a narrow mouth that only one lip
can drink at a time, and that each man's cup is made to match his lip.

One day we try to tell some one. Then a grave head is shaken solemnly at
us. We are wicked, very wicked, they say we ought not to have such
thoughts. God is good, very good. We are wicked, very wicked. That is
the comfort we get. Wicked! Oh, Lord! do we not know it? Is it not the
sense of our own exceeding wickedness that is drying up our young heart,
filling it with sand, making all life a dust-bin for us?

Wicked? We know it! Too vile to live, too vile to die, too vile to creep
over this, God's earth, and move among His believing men. Hell is the one
place for him who hates his master, and there we do not want to go. This
is the comfort we get from the old.

And once again we try to seek for comfort. This time great eyes look at us
wondering, and lovely little lips say:

"If it makes you so unhappy to think of these things, why do you not think
of something else, and forget?"

Forget! We turn away and shrink into ourself. Forget, and think of other
things! Oh, God! do they not understand that the material world is but a
film, through every pore of which God's awful spirit world is shining
through on us? We keep as far from others as we can.

One night, a rare clear moonlight night, we kneel in the window; every one
else is asleep, but we kneel reading by the moonlight. It is a chapter in
the prophets, telling how the chosen people of God shall be carried on the
Gentiles' shoulders. Surely the devil might leave us alone; there is not
much to handle for him there. But presently he comes.

"Is it right there should be a chosen people? To Him, who is father to
all, should not all be dear?"

How can we answer him? We were feeling so good till he came. We put our
head down on the Bible and blister it with tears. Then we fold our hands
over our head and pray, till our teeth grind together. Oh, that from that
spirit-world, so real and yet so silent, that surrounds us, one word would
come to guide us! We are left alone with this devil; and God does not
whisper to us. Suddenly we seize the Bible, turning it round and round,
and say hurriedly:

"It will be God's voice speaking to us; His voice as though we heard it."

We yearn for a token from the inexorably Silent One.

We turn the book, put our finger down on a page, and bend to read by the
moonlight. It is God's answer. We tremble.

"Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and
took Titus with me also."

For an instant our imagination seizes it; we are twisting, twirling, trying
to make an allegory. The fourteen years are fourteen months; we are Paul
and the devil is Barnabas, Titus is--  Then a sudden loathing comes to us:
we are liars and hypocrites, we are trying to deceive ourselves. What is
Paul to us--and Jerusalem? We are Barnabas and Titus? We know not the
men. Before we know we seize the book, swing it round our head, and fling
it with all our might to the further end of the room. We put down our head
again and weep.

Youth and ignorance; is there anything else that can weep so? It is as
though the tears were drops of blood congealed beneath the eyelids; nothing
else is like those tears. After a long time we are weak with crying, and
lie silent, and by chance we knock against the wood that stops the broken
pane. It falls. Upon our hot stiff face a sweet breath of wind blows. We
raise our head, and with our swollen eyes look out at the beautiful still
world, and the sweet night-wind blows in upon us, holy and gentle, like a
loving breath from the lips of God. Over us a deep peace comes, a calm,
still joy; the tears now flow readily and softly. Oh, the unutterable
gladness! At last, at last we have found it! "The peace with God."  "The
sense of sins forgiven."  All doubt vanished, God's voice in the soul, the
Holy Spirit filling us! We feel Him! We feel Him! Oh, Jesus Christ,
through you, through you this joy! We press our hands upon our breast and
look upward with adoring gladness. Soft waves of bliss break through us.
"The peace with God."  "The sense of sins forgiven."  Methodists and
revivalists say the words, and the mocking world shoots out its lip, and
walks by smiling--"Hypocrite."

There are more fools and fewer hypocrites than the wise world dreams of.
The hypocrite is rare as icebergs in the tropics; the fool common as
buttercups beside a water-furrow: whether you go this way or that you
tread on him; you dare not look at your own reflection in the water but you
see one. There is no cant phrase, rotten with age, but it was the dress of
a living body; none but at heart it signifies a real bodily or mental
condition which some have passed through.

After hours and nights of frenzied fear of the supernatural desire to
appease the power above, a fierce quivering excitement in every inch of
nerve and blood vessel, there comes a time when nature cannot endure
longer, and the spring long bent recoils. We sink down emasculated. Up
creeps the deadly delicious calm.

"I have blotted out as a cloud thy sins, and as a thick cloud thy
trespasses, and will remember them no more for ever."  We weep with soft
transporting joy.

A few experience this; many imagine they experience it, one here and there
lies about it. In the main, "The peace with God; a sense of sins
forgiven," stands for a certain mental and physical reaction. Its reality
those know who have felt it.

And we, on that moonlight night, put down our head on the window, "Oh, God!
we are happy, happy; thy child forever. Oh, thank you, God!" and we drop
asleep.

Next morning the Bible we kiss. We are God's forever. We go out to work,
and it goes happily all day, happily all night; but hardly so happily, not
happily at all, the next day; and the next night the devil asks us, "where
is your Holy Spirit?"

We cannot tell.

So month by month, summer and winter, the old life goes on--reading,
praying, weeping, praying. They tell us we become utterly stupid. We know
it. Even the multiplication table we learnt with so much care we forgot.
The physical world recedes further and further from us. Truly we love not
the world, neither the things that are in it. Across the bounds of sleep
our grief follows us. When we wake in the night we are sitting up in bed
weeping bitterly, or find ourself outside in the moonlight, dressed, and
walking up and down, and wringing our hands, and we cannot tell how we came
there. So pass two years, as men reckon them.

V.

Then a new time.

Before us there were three courses possible--to go mad, to die, to sleep.

We take the latter course; or nature takes it for us.

All things take rest in sleep; the beasts, birds, the very flowers close
their eyes, and the streams are still in winter; all things take rest; then
why not the human reason also? So the questioning devil in us drops
asleep, and in that sleep a beautiful dream rises for us. Though you hear
all the dreams of men, you will hardly find a prettier one than ours. It
ran so:

In the centre of all things is a mighty Heart, which, having begotten all
things, loves them; and, having born them into life, beats with great
throbs of love towards them. No death for His dear insects, no hell for
His dear men, no burning up for His dear world--His own, own world that he
has made. In the end all will be beautiful. Do not ask us how we make our
dream tally with facts; the glory of a dream is this--that it despises
facts, and makes its own. Our dream saves us from going mad; that is
enough.

Its peculiar point of sweetness lay here. When the Mighty Heart's yearning
of love became too great for other expression, it shaped itself into the
sweet Rose of heaven, the beloved Man-god.

Jesus! you Jesus of our dream! how we loved you; no Bible tells of you as
we knew you. Your sweet hands held ours fast; your sweet voice said
always, "I am here, my loved one, not far off; put your arms about me, and
hold fast."

We find Him in everything in those days. When the little weary lamb we
drive home drags its feet, we seize on it, and carry it with its head
against our face. His little lamb! We feel we have got Him.

When the drunken Kaffer lies by the road in the sun we draw his blanket
over his head, and put green branches of milk-bush on it. His Kaffer; why
should the sun hurt him?

In the evening, when the clouds lift themselves like gates, and the red
lights shine through them, we cry; for in such glory He will come, and the
hands that ache to touch Him will hold him, and we shall see the beautiful
hair and eyes of our God. "Lift up your heads, O, ye gates; and be ye
lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and our King of glory shall come in!"

The purple flowers, the little purple flowers, are His eyes, looking at us.
We kiss them, and kneel alone on the flat, rejoicing over them. And the
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for Him, and the desert
shall rejoice and blossom as a rose.

If ever, in our tearful, joyful ecstasy, the poor, sleepy, half-dead devil
should raise his head, we laugh at him. It is not his hour now.

"If there should be a hell, after all!" he mutters. "If your God should be
cruel! If there should be no God! If you should find out it is all
imagination! If--"

We laugh at him. When a man sits in the warm sunshine, do you ask him for
proof of it? He feels--that is all. And we feel--that is all. We want no
proof of our God. We feel, we feel!

We do not believe in our God because the Bible tells us of Him. We believe
in the Bible because He tells us of it. We feel Him, we feel Him, we feel-
-that is all! And the poor, half-swamped devil mutters:

"But if the day should come when you do not feel?"

And we laugh and cry him down.

"It will never come--never," and the poor devil slinks to sleep again, with
his tail between his legs. Fierce assertion many times repeated is hard to
stand against; only time separates the truth from the lie. So we dream on.

One day we go with our father to town, to church. The townspeople rustle
in their silks, and the men in their sleek cloth, and settle themselves in
their pews, and the light shines in through the windows on the artificial
flowers in the women's bonnets. We have the same miserable feeling that we
have in a shop where all the clerks are very smart. We wish our father
hadn't brought us to town, and we were out on the karoo. Then the man in
the pulpit begins to preach. His text is "He that believeth not shall be
damned."

The day before the magistrate's clerk, who was an atheist, has died in the
street struck by lightning.

The man in the pulpit mentions no name; but he talks of "The hand of God
made visible amongst us."  He tells us how, when the white stroke fell,
quivering and naked, the soul fled, robbed of his earthly filament, and lay
at the footstool of God; how over its head has been poured out the wrath of
the Mighty One, whose existence it has denied; and, quivering and
terrified, it has fled to the everlasting shade.

We, as we listen, half start up; every drop of blood in our body has rushed
to our head. He lies! he lies! he lies! That man in the pulpit lies!
Will no one stop him? Have none of them heard--do none of them know, that
when the poor, dark soul shut its eyes on earth it opened them in the still
light of heaven? that there is no wrath where God's face is? that if one
could once creep to the footstool of God, there is everlasting peace there,
like the fresh stillness of the early morning? While the atheist lay
wondering and afraid, God bent down and said: "My child, here I am--I,
whom you have not known; I, whom you have not believed in; I am here. I
sent My messenger, the white sheet-lightning, to call you home. I am
here."

Then the poor soul turned to the light--its weakness and pain were gone
forever.

Have they not known, have they not heard, who it is rules?

"For a little moment have I hidden my face from thee; but with everlasting
kindness will I have mercy upon thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer."

We mutter on to ourselves, till some one pulls us violently by the arm to
remind us we are in church. We see nothing but our own ideas.

Presently every one turns to pray. There are six hundred souls lifting
themselves to the Everlasting light.

Behind us sit two pretty ladies; one hands her scent-bottle softly to the
other, and a mother pulls down her little girl's frock. One lady drops her
handkerchief; a gentleman picks it up; she blushes. The women in the choir
turn softly the leaves of their tune-books, to be ready when the praying is
done. It is as though they thought more of the singing than the
Everlasting Father. Oh, would it not be more worship of Him to sit alone
in the karoo and kiss one little purple flower that he had made? Is it not
mockery? Then the thought comes, "What doest thou here, Elijah?"  We who
judge, what are we better than they?--rather worse. Is it any excuse to
say, "I am but a child and must come?"  Does God allow any soul to step in
between the spirit he made and himself? What do we there in that place,
where all the words are lies against the All Father? Filled with horror,
we turn and flee out of the place. On the pavement we smite our foot, and
swear in our child's soul never again to enter those places where men come
to sing and pray. We are questioned afterward. Why was it we went out of
the church.

How can we explain?--we stand silent. Then we are pressed further, and we
try to tell. Then a head is shaken solemnly at us. No one can think it
wrong to go to the house of the Lord; it is the idle excuse of a wicked
boy. When will we think seriously of our souls, and love going to church?
We are wicked, very wicked. And we--we slink away and go alone to cry.
Will it be always so? Whether we hate and doubt, or whether we believe and
love, to our dearest, are we to seem always wicked?

We do not yet know that in the soul's search for truth the bitterness lies
here, the striving cannot always hide itself among the thoughts; sooner or
later it will clothe itself in outward action; then it steps in and divides
between the soul and what it loves. All things on earth have their price;
and for truth we pay the dearest. We barter it for love and sympathy. The
road to honour is paved with thorns; but on the path to truth, at every
step you set your foot down on your own heart.

VI.

Then at last a new time--the time of waking; short, sharp, and not
pleasant, as wakings often are.

Sleep and dreams exist on this condition--that no one wake the dreamer.

And now life takes us up between her finger and thumb, shakes us furiously,
till our poor nodding head is well-nigh rolled from our shoulders, and she
sets us down a little hard on the bare earth, bruised and sore, but
preternaturally wide awake.

We have said in our days of dreaming, "Injustice and wrong are a seeming;
pain is a shadow. Our God, He is real, He who made all things, and He only
is Love."

Now life takes us by the neck and shows us a few other things,--new-made
graves with the red sand flying about them; eyes that we love with the
worms eating them; evil men walking sleek and fat, the whole terrible
hurly-burly of the thing called life,--and she says, "What do you think of
these?"  We dare not say "Nothing."  We feel them; they are very real. But
we try to lay our hands about and feel that other thing we felt before. In
the dark night in the fuel-room we cry to our Beautiful dream-god: "Oh,
let us come near you, and lay our head against your feet. Now in our hour
of need be near us."  But He is not there; He is gone away. The old
questioning devil is there.

We must have been awakened sooner or later. The imagination cannot always
triumph over reality, the desire over truth. We must have been awakened.
If it was done a little sharply, what matter? It was done thoroughly, and
it had to be done.

VII.

And a new life begins for us--a new time, a life as cold as that of a man
who sits on the pinnacle of an iceberg and sees the glittering crystals all
about him. The old looks indeed like a long hot delirium, peopled with
phantasies. The new is cold enough.

Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed
down to us, that we hated, and never liked: the new one that we made for
ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see
what he was made of--the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned.
Now we have no God.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."  It may be so. Most
things said or written have been the work of fools.

This thing is certain--he is a fool who says, "No man hath said in his
heart, There is no God."

It has been said many thousand times in hearts with profound bitterness of
earnest faith.

We do not cry and weep: we sit down with cold eyes and look at the world.
We are not miserable. Why should we be? We eat and drink, and sleep all
night; but the dead are not colder.

And we say it slowly, but without sighing, "Yes, we see it now; there is no
God."

And, we add, growing a little colder yet. "There is no justice. The ox
dies in the yoke, beneath its master's whip; it turns its anguish-filled
eyes on the sunlight, but there is no sign of recompense to be made it.
The black man is shot like a dog, and it goes well with the shooter. The
innocent are accused and the accuser triumphs. If you will take the
trouble to scratch the surface anywhere, you will see under the skin a
sentient being writhing in impotent anguish."

And, we say further, and our heart is as the heart of the dead for
coldness, "There is no order: all things are driven about by a blind
chance."

What a soul drinks in with its mother's milk will not leave it in a day.
From our earliest hour we have been taught that the thought of the heart,
the shaping of the rain-cloud, the amount of wool that grows on a sheep's
back, the length of a drought, and the growing of the corn, depend on
nothing that moves immutable, at the heart of all things; but on the
changeable will of a changeable being, whom our prayers can alter. To us,
from the beginning, nature has been but a poor plastic thing, to be toyed
with this way or that, as man happens to please his deity or not; to go to
church or not; to say his prayers right or not; to travel on a Sunday or
not. Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she is--the
flowing vestment of an unchanging reality? When the soul breaks free from
the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves
off in him. It is not the work of a day to squeeze them out.

And so, for us, the human-like driver and guide being gone, all existence,
as we look out at it with our chilled, wondering eyes, is an aimless rise
and swell of shifting waters. In all that weltering chaos we can see no
spot so large as a man's hand on which we may plant our foot.

Whether a man believes in a human-like God or no is a small thing. Whether
he looks into the mental and physical world and sees no relation between
cause and effect, no order, but a blind chance sporting, this is the
mightiest fact that can be recorded in any spiritual existence. It were
almost a mercy to cut his throat, if indeed he does not do it for himself.

We, however, do not cut our throats. To do so would imply some desire and
feeling, and we have no desire and no feeling; we are only cold. We do not
wish to live, and we do not wish to die. One day a snake curls itself
round the waist of a Kaffer woman. We take it in our hand, swing it round
and round, and fling it on the ground--dead. Every one looks at us with
eyes of admiration. We almost laugh. Is it wonderful to risk that for
which we care nothing?

In truth, nothing matters. This dirty little world full of confusion, and
the blue rag, stretched overhead for a sky, is so low we could touch it
with our hand.

Existence is a great pot, and the old Fate who stirs it round cares nothing
what rises to the top and what goes down, and laughs when the bubbles
burst. And we do not care. Let it boil about. Why should we trouble
ourselves? Nevertheless the physical sensations are real. Hunger hurts,
and thirst, therefore we eat and drink: inaction pains us, therefore we
work like galley-slaves. No one demands it, but we set ourselves to build
a great dam in red sand beyond the graves. In the grey dawn before the
sheep are let out we work at it. All day, while the young ostriches we
tend feed about us, we work on through the fiercest heat. The people
wonder what new spirit has seized us now. They do not know we are working
for life. We bear the greatest stones, and feel a satisfaction when we
stagger under them, and are hurt by a pang that shoots through our chest.
While we eat our dinner we carry on baskets full of earth, as though the
devil drove us. The Kaffer servants have a story that at night a witch and
two white oxen come to help us. No wall, they say, could grow so quickly
under one man's hands.

At night, alone in our cabin, we sit no more brooding over the fire. What
should we think of now? All is emptiness. So we take the old arithmetic;
and the multiplication table, which with so much pains we learnt long ago
and forgot directly, we learn now in a few hours, and never forget again.
We take a strange satisfaction in working arithmetical problems. We pause
in our building to cover the stones with figures and calculations. We save
money for a Latin Grammar and Algebra, and carry them about in our pockets,
poring over them as over our Bible of old. We have thought we were utterly
stupid, incapable of remembering anything, of learning anything. Now we
find that all is easy. Has a new soul crept into this old body, that even
our intellectual faculties are changed? We marvel; not perceiving that
what a man expends in prayer and ecstasy he cannot have over for acquiring
knowledge. You never shed a tear, or create a beautiful image, or quiver
with emotion, but you pay for it at the practical, calculating end of your
nature. You have just so much force: when the one channel runs over the
other runs dry.

And now we turn to Nature. All these years we have lived beside her, and
we have never seen her; and now we open our eyes and look at her.

The rocks have been to us a blur of brown: we bend over them, and the
disorganised masses dissolve into a many-coloured, many-shaped, carefully-
arranged form of existence. Here masses of rainbow-tinted crystals, half-
fused together; there bands of smooth grey and red methodically overlying
each other. This rock here is covered with a delicate silver tracery, in
some mineral, resembling leaves and branches; there on the flat stone, on
which we so often have sat to weep and pray, we look down, and see it
covered with the fossil footprints of great birds, and the beautiful
skeleton of a fish. We have often tried to picture in our mind what the
fossiled remains of creatures must be like, and all the while we sat on
them, we have been so blinded by thinking and feeling that we have never
seen the world.

The flat plain has been to us a reach of monotonous red. We look at it,
and every handful of sand starts into life. That wonderful people, the
ants, we learn to know; see them make war and peace, play and work, and
build their huge palaces. And that smaller people we make acquaintance
with, who live in the flowers. The bitto flower has been for us a mere
blur of yellow; we find its heart composed of a hundred perfect flowers,
the homes of the tiny black people with red stripes, who move in and out in
that little yellow city. Every bluebell has its inhabitant. Every day the
karoo shows us a new wonder sleeping in its teeming bosom.

On our way back to work we pause and stand to see the ground-spider make
its trap, bury itself in the sand, and then wait for the falling in of its
enemy.

Further on walks a horned beetle, and near him starts open the door of a
spider, who peeps out carefully, and quickly pulls it down again. On a
karoo-bush a green fly is laying her silver eggs. We carry them home, and
see the shells pierced, the spotted grub come out, turn to a green fly, and
flit away. We are not satisfied with what Nature shows us, and we see
something for ourselves. Under the white hen we put a dozen eggs, and
break one daily, to see the white spot wax into the chicken. We are not
excited or enthusiastic about it; but a man is not to lay his throat open,
he must think of something. So we plant seeds in rows on our dam-wall, and
pull one up daily to see how it goes with them. Alladeen buried her
wonderful stone, and a golden palace sprung up at her feet. We do far
more. We put a brown seed in the earth, and a living thing starts out--
starts upward--why, no more than Alladeen can we say--starts upward, and
does not desist till it is higher than our heads, sparkling with dew in the
early morning, glittering with yellow blossoms, shaking brown seeds with
little embryo souls on to the ground. We look at it solemnly, from the
time it consists of two leaves peeping above the ground and a soft white
root, till we have to raise our faces to look at it; but we find no reason
for that upward starting.

We look into dead ducks and lambs. In the evening we carry them home,
spread newspapers on the floor, and lie working with them till midnight.
With a started feeling near akin to ecstasy we open the lump of flesh
called a heart, and find little doors and strings inside. We feel them,
and put the heart away; but every now and then return to look, and to feel
them again. Why we like them so we can hardly tell.

A gander drowns itself in our dam. We take it out, and open it on the
bank, and kneel looking at it. Above are the organs divided by delicate
tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and
each tier covered by a delicate network of blood-vessels standing out red
against the faint blue background. Each branch of the blood-vessels is
comprised of a trunk, bifurcating and rebifurcating into the most delicate,
hair-like threads, symmetrically arranged. We are struck with its singular
beauty. And, moreover--and here we drop from our kneeling into a sitting
posture--this also we remark: of that same exact shape and outline is our
thorn-tree seen against the sky in mid-winter: of that shape also is
delicate metallic tracery between our rocks; in that exact path does our
water flow when without a furrow we lead it from the dam; so shaped are the
antlers of the horned beetle. How are these things related that such deep
union should exist between them all? Is it chance? Or, are they not all
the fine branches of one trunk, whose sap flows through us all? That would
explain it. We nod over the gander's inside.

This thing we call existence; is it not a something which has its roots far
down below in the dark, and its branches stretching out into the immensity
above, which we among the branches cannot see? Not a chance jungle; a
living thing, a One. The thought gives us intense satisfaction, we cannot
tell why.

We nod over the gander; then start up suddenly, look into the blue sky,
throw the dead gander and the refuse into the dam, and go to work again.

And so, it comes to pass in time, that the earth ceases for us to be a
weltering chaos. We walk in the great hall of life, looking up and round
reverentially. Nothing is despicable--all is meaning-full; nothing is
small--all is part of a whole, whose beginning and end we know not. The
life that throbs in us is a beginning and end we know not. The life that
throbs in us is a pulsation from it; too mighty for our comprehension, not
too small.

And so, it comes to pass at last, that whereas the sky was at first a small
blue rag stretched out over us, and so low that our hands might touch it,
pressing down on us, it raises itself into an immeasurable blue arch over
our heads, and we begin to live again.

Chapter 2.II. Waldo's Stranger.

Waldo lay on his stomach on the red sand. The small ostriches he herded
wandered about him, pecking at the food he had cut, or at pebbles and dry
sticks. On his right lay the graves; to his left the dam; in his hand was
a large wooden post covered with carvings, at which he worked. Doss lay
before him basking in the winter sunshine, and now and again casting an
expectant glance at the corner of the nearest ostrich camp. The scrubby
thorn-trees under which they lay yielded no shade, but none was needed in
that glorious June weather, when in the hottest part of the afternoon the
sun was but pleasantly warm; and the boy carved on, not looking up, yet
conscious of the brown serene earth about him and the intensely blue sky
above.

Presently, at the corner of the camp, Em appeared, bearing a covered saucer
in one hand and in the other a jug, with a cup in the top. She was grown
into a premature little old woman of sixteen, ridiculously fat. The jug
and saucer she put down on the ground before the dog and his master and
dropped down beside them herself, panting and out of breath.

"Waldo, as I came up the camps I met some one on horseback, and I do
believe it must be the new man that is coming."

The new man was an Englishman to whom the Boer-woman had hired half the
farm.

"Hum!" said Waldo.

"He is quite young," said Em, holding her side, "and he has brown hair, and
beard curling close to his face, and such dark blue eyes. And, Waldo, I
was so ashamed! I was just looking back to see, you know, and he happened
just to be looking back too, and we looked right into each other's faces;
and he got red, and I got so red. I believe he is the new man."

"Yes," said Waldo.

"I must go now. Perhaps he has brought us letters from the post from
Lyndall. You know she can't stay at school much longer, she must come back
soon. And the new man will have to stay with us till his house is built.
I must get his room ready. Good-bye!"

She tripped off again, and Waldo carved on at his post. Doss lay with his
nose close to the covered saucer, and smelt that some one had made nice
little fat cakes that afternoon. Both were so intent on their occupation
that not till a horse's hoofs beat beside them in the sand did they look up
to see a rider drawing in his steed.

He was certainly not the stranger whom Em had described. A dark, somewhat
French-looking little man of eight-and-twenty, rather stout, with heavy,
cloudy eyes and pointed moustaches. His horse was a fiery creature, well
caparisoned; a highly-finished saddlebag hung from the saddle; the man's
hands were gloved, and he presented the appearance-an appearance rare on
that farm--of a well-dressed gentleman.

In an uncommonly melodious voice he inquired whether he might be allowed to
remain there for an hour. Waldo directed him to the farmhouse, but the
stranger declined. He would merely rest under the trees and give his horse
water. He removed the saddle and Waldo led the animal away to the dam.
When he returned, the stranger had settled himself under the trees, with
his back against the saddle. The boy offered him of the cakes. He
declined, but took a draught from the jug; and Waldo lay down not far off
and fell to work again. It mattered nothing if cold eyes saw it. It was
not his sheep-shearing machine. With material loves, as with human, we go
mad once, love out, and have done. We never get up the true enthusiasm a
second time. This was but a thing he had made, laboured over, loved and
liked--nothing more--not his machine.

The stranger forced himself lower down in the saddle and yawned. It was a
drowsy afternoon, and he objected to travel in these out-of-the-world
parts. He liked better civilised life, where at every hour of the day a
man may look for his glass of wine, and his easy-chair, and paper; where at
night he may lock himself into his room with his books and a bottle of
brandy, and taste joys mental and physical. The world said of him--the
all-knowing, omnipotent world, whom no locks can bar, who has the cat-like
propensity of seeing best in the dark--the world said, that better than the
books he loved the brandy, and better than books or brandy that which it
had been better had he loved less. But for the world he cared nothing; he
smiled blandly in its teeth. All life is a dream; if wine and philosophy
and women keep the dream from becoming a nightmare, so much the better. It
is all they are fit for, all they can be used for. There was another side
to his life and thought; but of that the world knew nothing, and said
nothing, as the way of the wise world is.

The stranger looked from beneath his sleepy eyelids at the brown earth that
stretched away, beautiful in spite of itself in that June sunshine; looked
at the graves, the gables of the farmhouse showing over the stone walls of
the camps, at the clownish fellow at his feet, and yawned. But he had
drunk of the hind's tea, and must say something.

"Your father's place I presume?" he inquired sleepily.

"No; I am only a servant."

"Dutch people?"

"Yes."

"And you like the life?"

The boy hesitated.

"On days like these."

"And why on these?"

The boy waited.

"They are very beautiful."

The stranger looked at him. It seemed that as the fellow's dark eyes
looked across the brown earth they kindled with an intense satisfaction;
then they looked back at the carving.

What had that creature, so coarse-clad and clownish, to do with the subtle
joys of the weather? Himself, white-handed and delicate, he might hear the
music with shimmering sunshine and solitude play on the finely-strung
chords of nature; but that fellow! Was not the ear in that great body too
gross for such delicate mutterings?

Presently he said:

"May I see what you work at?"

The fellow handed his wooden post. It was by no means lovely. The men and
birds were almost grotesque in their laboured resemblance to nature, and
bore signs of patient thought. The stranger turned the thing over on his
knee.

"Where did you learn this work?"

"I taught myself."

"And these zigzag lines represent--"

"A mountain."

The stranger looked.

"It has some meaning, has it not?"

The boy muttered confusedly.

"Only things."

The questioner looked down at him--the huge, unwieldy figure, in size a
man's, in right of his childlike features and curling hair a child's; and
it hurt him--it attracted him and it hurt him. It was something between
pity and sympathy.

"How long have you worked at this?"

"Nine months."

From his pocket the stranger drew his pocket-book, and took something from
it. He could fasten the post to his horse in some way, and throw it away
in the sand when at a safe distance.

"Will you take this for your carving?"

The boy glanced at the five-pound note and shook his head.

"No; I cannot."

"You think it is worth more?" asked the stranger with a little sneer.

He pointed with his thumb to a grave.

"No; it is for him."

"And who is there?" asked the stranger.

"My father."

The man silently returned the note to his pocket-book, and gave the carving
to the boy; and, drawing his hat over his eyes, composed himself to sleep.
Not being able to do so, after a while he glanced over the fellow's
shoulder to watch him work. The boy carved letters into the back.

"If," said the stranger, with his melodious voice, rich with a sweetness
that never showed itself in the clouded eyes--for sweetness will linger on
in the voice long after it has died out in the eyes--"if for such a
purpose, why write that upon it?"

The boy glanced round at him, but made no answer. He had almost forgotten
his presence.

"You surely believe," said the stranger, "that some day, sooner or later,
these graves will open, and those Boer-uncles with their wives walk about
here in the red sand, with the very fleshly legs with which they went to
sleep? Then why say, 'He sleeps forever?'  You believe he will stand up
again?"

"Do you?" asked the boy, lifting for an instant his heavy eyes to the
stranger's face.

Half taken aback the stranger laughed. It was as though a curious little
tadpole which he held under his glass should suddenly lift its tail and
begin to question him.

"I?--no."  He laughed his short thick laugh. "I am a man who believes
nothing, hopes nothing, fears nothing, feels nothing. I am beyond the pale
of humanity; no criterion of what you should be who live here among your
ostriches and bushes."

The next moment the stranger was surprised by a sudden movement on the part
of the fellow, which brought him close to the stranger's feet. Soon after
he raised his carving and laid it across the man's knee.

"Yes, I will tell you," he muttered; "I will tell you all about it."

He put his finger on the grotesque little mannikin at the bottom (ah! that
man who believed nothing, hoped nothing, felt nothing; how he loved him!),
and with eager finger the fellow moved upward, explaining over fantastic
figures and mountains, to the crowning bird from whose wing dropped a
feather. At the end he spoke with broken breath--short words, like one who
utters things of mighty import.

The stranger watched more the face than the carving; and there was now and
then a show of white teeth beneath the moustaches as he listened.

"I think," he said blandly, when the boy had done, "that I partly
understand you. It is something after this fashion, is it not?"  (He
smiled.)  "In certain valleys there was a hunter."  (He touched the
grotesque little figure at the bottom.)  "Day by day he went to hunt for
wild-fowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on the shores of
a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes for the coming of the
birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection.
He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a burning desire
came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day
he watched and waited; but night came and it had not returned. Then he
went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. His comrades came
questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he
sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, and to him he spoke.

"'I have seen today,' he said, 'that which I never saw before--a vast white
bird, with silver wings outstretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And
now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. It was but a
sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more
on earth than to hold her.'

"His friend laughed.

"'It was but a beam playing on the water, or the shadow of your own head.
Tomorrow you will forget her,' he said.

"But tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow the hunter walked alone. He
sought in the forest and in the woods, by the lakes and among the rushes,
but he could not find her. He shot no more wild fowl; what were they to
him?

"'What ails him?' said his comrades.

"'He is mad,' said one.

"'No; but he is worse,' said another; 'he would see that which none of us
have seen, and make himself a wonder.'

"'Come, let us forswear his company,' said all.

"So the hunter walked alone.

"One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, an old
man stood before him, grander and taller than the sons of men.

"'Who are you?' asked the hunter.

"'I am Wisdom,' answered the old man; 'but some men call me Knowledge. All
my life I have grown in these valleys; but no man sees me till he has
sorrowed much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to behold me;
and, according as a man has suffered, I speak.'

"And the hunter cried:

"'Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wild
bird I have seen sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she is a
dream; the shadow of my own head.'

"The old man smiled.

"'Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Till
death he desires her.'

"And the hunter cried:

"'Oh, tell me where I may find her.'

"But the old man said:

"'You have not suffered enough,' and went.

"Then the hunter took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination, and wound
on it the thread of his Wishes; and all night he sat and wove a net.

"In the morning he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he
threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, and which
he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when
you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would
happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with
dove's eyes, and he sang a beautiful song--'A human-God! a human-God! a
human-God!' it sang. The second that came was black and mystical, with
dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the depths of your soul, and he sang
only this--'Immortality!'

"And the hunter took them both in his arms for he said--

"'They are surely of the beautiful family of Truth.'

"Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a shrill voice, like one
crying in the marketplace,--'Reward after Death! Reward after Death!'

"And he said--

"'You are not so fair; but you are fair too,' and he took it.

"And others came, brightly coloured, singing pleasant songs, till all the
grains were finished. And the hunter gathered all his birds together, and
built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.

"Then the people came about dancing and singing.

"'Oh, happy hunter!' they cried. 'Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightful
birds! Oh, lovely songs!'

"No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had been caught;
but they danced and sang before them. And the hunter too was glad, for he
said:

"'Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and I
shall see her snow-white form.'

"But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter's
heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terrible desire
had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it
chanced that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he had done.

"And Wisdom smiled sadly.

"'Many men,' he said, 'have spread that net for Truth; but they have never
found her. On the grains of credulity she will not feed; in the net of
wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not
breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. Lovely and
beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows them not.'

"And the hunter cried out in bitterness--

"'And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?'

"And the old man said,

"'Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell you
what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these valleys
of superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that has belonged to
them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of Absolute Negation and
Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation; when the light
breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of dry sunshine. The
mountains of stern reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond
them lies Truth.'

"'And he will hold her fast! he will hold her in his hands!' the hunter
cried.

"Wisdom shook his head.

"'He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet.'

"'Then there is no hope?' cried the hunter.

"'There is this,' said Wisdom: 'Some men have climbed on those mountains;
circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and, wandering there, in
those high regions, some have chanced to pick up on the ground one white
silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come to
pass,' said the old man, raising himself prophetically and pointing with
his finger to the sky, 'it shall come to pass, that when enough of those
silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and shall
have been woven into a cord, and the cord into a net, that in that net
Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can hold Truth.'

"The hunter arose. 'I will go,' he said.

"But wisdom detained him.

"'Mark you well--who leaves these valleys never returns to them. Though he
should weep tears of blood seven days and nights upon the confines, he can
never put his foot across them. Left--they are left forever. Upon the
road which you would travel there is no reward offered. Who goes, goes
freely--for the great love that is in him. The work is his reward.'

"'I go' said the hunter; 'but upon the mountains, tell me, which path shall
I take?'

"'I am the child of The-Accumulated-Knowledge-of-Ages,' said the man; 'I
can walk only where many men have trodden. On these mountains few feet
have passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at his own
peril: my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but cannot go
before him.'

"Then Knowledge vanished.

"And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands broke down
the bars, and the jagged iron tore his flesh. It is sometimes easier to
build than to break.

"One by one he took his plumed birds and let them fly. But when he came to
his dark-plumed bird he held it, and looked into its beautiful eyes, and
the bird uttered its low, deep cry--'Immortality!'

"And he said quickly: 'I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats no
food. I will hide it in my breast; I will take it with me.'  And he buried
it there and covered it over with his cloak.

"But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heavier--till it lay on
his breast like lead. He could not move with it. He could not leave those
valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.

"'Oh, my beautiful! my heart's own!' he cried, 'may I not keep you?'

"He opened his hands sadly.

"'Go!' he said. 'It may happen that in Truth's song one note is like
yours; but I shall never hear it.'

"Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him forever.

"Then from the shuttle of imagination he took the thread of his wishes, and
threw it on the ground; and the empty shuttle he put into his breast, for
the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle came from an unknown
country. He turned to go, but now the people came about him, howling.

"'Fool, hound, demented lunatic!' they cried. 'How dared you break your
cage and let the birds fly?'

"The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.

"'Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever
seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile
reptile! atheist!' they cried, 'you pollute the air.'

"'Come, let us take up stones and stone him,' cried some.

"'What affair is it of ours?' said others. 'Let the idiot go,' and went
away. But the rest gathered up stones and mud and threw at him. At last,
when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And it
was evening about him."

At every word the stranger spoke the fellow's eyes flashed back on him--
yes, and yes, and yes! The stranger smiled. It was almost worth the
trouble of exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win those
passionate flashes, more thirsty and desiring than the love-glances of a
woman.

"He wandered on and on," said the stranger, "and the shade grew deeper. He
was on the borders now of the land where it is always night. Then he
stepped into it, and there was no light there. With his hands he groped;
but each branch as he touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with
cinders. At every step his foot sank in, and a fine cloud of impalpable
ashes flew up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone
and buried his face in his hands, to wait in the Land of Negation and
Denial till the light came.

"And it was night in his heart also.

"Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists arose and closed
about him. A fine, imperceptible rain fell in the dark, and great drops
gathered on his hair and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbness
crept through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry wisp lights came
dancing. He lifted his head to look at them. Nearer, nearer they came.
So warm, so bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stood before him
at last. From the centre of the radiating flame in one looked out a
woman's face, laughing, dimpled, with streaming yellow hair. In the centre
of the other were merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles on a glass of
wine. They danced before him.

"'Who are you,' asked the hunter, 'who alone come to me in my solitude and
darkness?'

"'We are the twins Sensuality,' they cried. 'Our father's name is Human-
Nature, and our mother's name is Excess. We are as old as the hills and
rivers, as old as the first man; but we never die,' they laughed.

"'Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!; cried the first; 'they are soft and
warm. Your heart is frozen now, but I will make it beat. Oh, come to me!'

"'I will pour my hot life into you,' said the second; 'your brain is numb,
and your limbs are dead now; but they shall live with a fierce free life.
Oh, let me pour it in!'

"'Oh, follow us,' they cried, 'and live with us. Nobler hearts than yours
have sat here in this darkness to wait, and they have come to us and we to
them; and they have never left us, never. All else is a delusion, but we
are real, we are real, we are real. Truth is a shadow; the valleys of
superstition are a farce: the earth is of ashes, the trees all rotten; but
we--feel us--we live! You cannot doubt us. Feel us how warm we are! Oh,
come to us! Come with us!'

"Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and the cold drops melted
on his forehead. The bright light shot into his eyes, dazzling him, and
the frozen blood began to run. And he said:

"'Yes, why should I die here in this awful darkness? They are warm, they
melt my frozen blood!' and he stretched out his hands to take them.

"Then in a moment there arose before him the image of the thing he had
loved, and his hand dropped to his side.

"'Oh, come to us!' they cried.

"But he buried his face.

"'You dazzle my eyes,' he cried, 'you make my heart warm; but you cannot
give me what I desire. I will wait here--wait till I die. Go!'

"He covered his face with his hands and would not listen; and when he
looked up again they were two twinkling stars, that vanished in the
distance.

"And the long, long night rolled on.

"All who leave the valley of superstition pass through that dark land; but
some go through it in a few days, some linger there for months, some for
years, and some die there."

The boy had crept closer; his hot breath almost touched the stranger's
hand; a mystic wonder filled his eyes.

"At last for the hunter a faint light played along the horizon, and he rose
to follow it; and he reached that light at last, and stepped into the broad
sunshine. Then before him rose the almighty mountains of Dry-facts and
Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the tops were lost in
the clouds. At the foot many paths ran up. An exultant cry burst from the
hunter. He chose the straightest and began to climb; and the rocks and
ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated; after all, it was
not so high, nor was the road so steep! A few days, a few weeks, a few
months at most, and then the top! Not one feather only would he pick up;
he would gather all that other men had found--weave the net--capture Truth-
-hold her fast--touch her with his hands--clasp her!

"He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near.
Nevertheless, after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all his
breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left rose
huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earth chasms
yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too the path
began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace, with a
footmark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang no more, but
struck forth a path for himself, until it reached a mighty wall of rock,
smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eye could see. 'I will
rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed, I shall be almost
there,' he said bravely; and worked. With his shuttle of imagination he
dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, and half a month's work
would roll down because those below were ill chosen. But the hunter worked
on, saying always to himself, 'Once this wall climbed, I shall be almost
there. This great work ended!'

"At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far below
rolled the white mist over the valleys of superstition, and above him
towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an
immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls of
rock, that rose tier above tier in mighty circles. Upon them played the
eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to the
earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence he walked
on. He was very silent now. In those high regions the rarefied air is
hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath he drew hurt
him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers. Before the next
wall of rock he began to work. The height of this seemed infinite, and he
said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and day upon the iron rocks
into which he cut steps. Years passed over him, yet he worked on; but the
wall towered up always above him to heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a
little moss or lichen might spring up on those bare walls to be a companion
to him; but it never came."  The stranger watched the boy's face.

"And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut--a few
for a year--only a few. He sang no more; he said no more, 'I will do this
or that'--he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settled down,
there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks strange
wild faces.

"'Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,' they cried.

"'My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you would
creep down upon me,' he replied. And they put out their long necks
further.

"'Look down into the crevice at your feet,' they said. 'See what lie
there--white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these
rocks.'  And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would
never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for
he was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep.
Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do
your hands ache, nor your heart. And the hunter laughed between his teeth.

"'Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone in
the land of night; have I resisted temptation; have I dwelt where the voice
of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and be food for
you, ye harpies?'

"He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh
of a brave, strong heart is as a death blow to them.

"Nevertheless they crept out again and looked at him.

"'Do you know that your hair is white?' they said, 'that your hands begin
to tremble like a child's? Do you see that the point of your shuttle is
gone?--it is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,' they
said, 'it will be your last. You will never climb another.'

"And he answered, 'I know it!' and worked on.

"The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were
stiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man was gone.

"At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It
saw the eternal mountains rise with walls to the white clouds; but its work
was done.

"The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice where
he had worked away his life. It was the sleeping time at last. Below him
over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and through
the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their
childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own wild birds,
and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought he
heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the
sunlight shine on his early home. And great tears gathered in the hunter's
eyes.

"'Ah! They who die there do not die alone,' he cried.

"Then the mists rolled together again; and he turned his eyes away.

"'I have sought,' he said, 'for long years I have laboured; but I have not
found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her;
now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand,
young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the
stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of
the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones
roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will
climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and through me! And no man
liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.'

"The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had
appeared above him in the clouds now he could not have seen her, the mist
of death was in his eyes.

"'My soul hears their glad step coming,' he said; 'and they shall mount!
they shall mount!'  He raised his shrivelled hand to his eyes.

"Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came
something falling, falling, falling. Softly it fluttered down, and dropped
on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a
feather. He died holding it."

The boy had shaded his eyes with his hand. On the wood of the carving
great drops fell. The stranger must have laughed at him, or remained
silent. He did so.

"How did you know it?" the boy whispered at last. "It is not written
there--not on that wood. How did you know it?"

"Certainly," said the stranger, "the whole of the story is not written
here, but it is suggested. And the attribute of all true art, the highest
and the lowest, is this--that it rays more than it says, and takes you away
from itself. It is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where
you may find what you please. Men, thinking to detract, say: 'People read
more in this or that work of genius than was ever written in it,' not
perceiving that they pay the highest compliment. If we pick up the finger
and nail of a real man, we can decipher a whole story--could almost
reconstruct the creature again, from head to foot. But half the body of a
Mumboo-jumbow idol leaves us utterly in the dark as to what the rest was
like. We see what we see, but nothing more. There is nothing so
universally intelligible as truth. It has a thousand meanings, and
suggests a thousand more."

He turned over the wooden thing.

"Though a man should carve it into matter with the least possible
manipulative skill, it will yet find interpreters. It is the soul that
looks out with burning eyes through the most gross fleshly filament.
Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a little flower--its
birth, sucking in of nourishment, reproduction of its kind, withering and
vanishing--would have shaped a symbol of all existence. All true facts of
nature or the mind are related. Your little carving represents some mental
facts as they really are, therefore fifty different true stories might be
read from it. What your work wants is not truth, but beauty of external
form, the other half of art."  He leaned almost gently toward the boy.
"Skill may come in time, but you will have to work hard. The love of
beauty and the desire for it must be born in a man; the skill to reproduce
it he must make. He must work hard."

"All my life I have longed to see you," the boy said.

The stranger broke off the end of his cigar, and lit it. The boy lifted
the heavy wood from the stranger's knee and drew yet nearer him. In the
dog-like manner of his drawing near there was something superbly
ridiculous, unless one chanced to view it in another light. Presently the
stranger said, whiffing, "Do something for me."

The boy started up.

"No; stay where you are. I don't want you to go anyowhere; I want you to
talk to me. Tell me what you have been doing all your life."

The boy slunk down again. Would that the man had asked him to root up
bushes with his hands for his horse to feed on; or to run to the far end of
the plain for the fossils that lay there, or to gather the flowers that
grew on the hills at the edge of the plain; he would have run and been back
quickly--but now!

"I have never done anything," he said.

"Then tell me of that nothing. I like to know what other folks have been
doing whose word I can believe. It is interesting. What was the first
thing you ever wanted very much?"

The boy waited to remember, then began hesitatingly, but soon the words
flowed. In the smallest past we find an inexhaustible mine when once we
begin to dig at it.

A confused, disordered story--the little made large and the large small,
and nothing showing its inward meaning. It is not till the past has
receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into co-ordinate
pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased to exist that it
takes its place among other objective realities, and finds its true niche
in the picture. The present and the near past is a confusion, whose
meaning flashes on us as it slinks away into the distance.

The stranger lit one cigar from the end of another, and puffed and listened
with half-closed eyes.

"I will remember more to tell you if you like," said the boy.

He spoke with that extreme gravity common to all very young things who feel
deeply. It is not till twenty that we learn to be in deadly earnest and to
laugh. The stranger nodded, while the fellow sought for something more to
relate. He would tell all to this man of his--all that he knew, all that
he had felt, his inmost sorest thought. Suddenly the stranger turned upon
him.

"Boy," he said, "you are happy to be here."

Waldo looked at him. Was his delightful one ridiculing him? Here, with
this brown earth and these low hills, while the rare wonderful world lay
all beyond. Fortunate to be here?

The stranger read his glance.

"Yes," he said; "here with the karoo-bushes and red sand. Do you wonder
what I mean? To all who have been born in the old faith there comes a time
of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet planted our feet
on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still
small voice of reason is not yet heard. We have proved the religion our
mothers fed us on to be a delusion; in our bewilderment we see no rule by
which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day we must step
somewhere."

The stranger leaned forward and spoke more quickly. "We have never once
been taught by word or act to distinguish between religion and the moral
laws on which it has artfully fastened itself, and from which it has sucked
its vitality. When we have dragged down the weeds and creepers that
covered the solid wall and have found them to be rotten wood, we imagine
the wall itself to be rotten wood too. We find it is solid and standing
only when we fall headlong against it. We have been taught that all right
and wrong originate in the will of an irresponsible being. It is some time
before we see how the inexorable 'Thou shalt and shalt not,' are carved
into the nature of things. This is the time of danger."

His dark, misty eyes looked into the boy's.

"In the end experience will inevitably teach us that the laws for a wise
and noble life have a foundation infinitely deeper than the fiat of any
being, God or man, even in the groundwork of human nature.

"She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man his blood
be not shed, though no man avenge and no hell await, yet every drop shall
blister on his soul and eat in the name of the dead. She will teach that
whoso takes a love not lawfully his own, gathers a flower with a poison on
its petals; that whoso revenges, strikes with a sword that has two edges--
one for his adversary, one for himself; that who lives to himself is dead,
though the ground is not yet on him; that who wrongs another clouds his own
sun; and that who sins in secret stands accursed and condemned before the
one Judge who deals eternal justice--his own all-knowing self.

"Experience will teach us this, and reason will show us why it must be so;
but at first the world swings before our eyes, and no voice cries out,
'This is the way, walk ye in it!'  You are happy to be here, boy! When the
suspense fills you with pain you build stone walls and dig earth for
relief. Others have stood where you stand today, and have felt as you
feel; and another relief has been offered them, and they have taken it.

"When the day has come when they have seen the path in which they might
walk, they have not the strength to follow it. Habits have fastened on
them from which nothing but death can free them; which cling closer than
his sacerdotal sanctimony to a priest; which feed on the intellect like a
worm, sapping energy, hope, creative power, all that makes a man higher
than a beast--leaving only the power to yearn, to regret, and to sink lower
in the abyss.

"Boy," he said, and the listener was not more unsmiling now than the
speaker, "you are happy to be here! Stay where you are. If you ever pray,
let it be only the one old prayer--'Lead us not into temptation.'  Live on
here quietly. The time may yet come when you will be that which other men
have hoped to be and never will be now."

The stranger rose, shook the dust from his sleeve, and ashamed at his own
earnestness, looked across the bushes for his horse.

"We should have been on our way already," he said. "We shall have a long
ride in the dark tonight."

Waldo hastened to fetch the animal; but he returned leading it slowly. The
sooner it came the sooner would its rider be gone.

The stranger was opening his saddlebag, in which were a bright French novel
and an old brown volume. He took the last and held it out to the boy.

"It may be of some help to you," he said, carelessly. "It was a gospel to
me when I first fell on it. You must not expect too much; but it may give
you a centre round which to hang your ideas, instead of letting them lie
about in a confusion that makes the head ache. We of this generation are
not destined to eat and be satisfied as our fathers were; we must be
content to go hungry."

He smiled his automaton smile, and rebuttoned the bag. Waldo thrust the
book into his breast, and while he saddled the horse the stranger made
inquiries as to the nature of the road and the distance to the next farm.

When the bags were fixed, Waldo took up his wooden post and began to fasten
it on to the saddle, tying it with the little blue cotton handkerchief from
his neck. The stranger looked on in silence. When it was done the boy
held the stirrup for him to mount.

"What is your name?" he inquired, ungloving his right hand when he was in
the saddle.

The boy replied:

"Well, I trust we shall meet again some day, sooner or later."

He shook hands with the ungloved hand; then drew on the glove, and touched
his horse, and rode slowly away. The boy stood to watch him.

Once when the stranger had gone half across the plain he looked back.

"Poor devil," he said, smiling and stroking his moustache. Then he looked
to see if the little blue handkerchief were still safely knotted. "Poor
devil!"

He smiled, and then he sighed wearily, very wearily.

And Waldo waited till the moving speck had disappeared on the horizon; then
he stooped and kissed passionately a hoof-mark in the sand. Then he called
his young birds together, and put his book under his arm, and walked home
along the stone wall. There was a rare beauty to him in the sunshine that
evening.

Chapter 2.III. Gregory Rose Finds His Affinity.

The new man, Gregory Rose, sat at the door of his dwelling, his arms
folded, his legs crossed, and a profound melancholy seeming to rest over
his soul. His house was a little square daub-and-wattle building, far out
in the karoo, two miles from the homestead. It was covered outside with a
sombre coating of brown mud, two little panes being let into the walls for
windows. Behind it were the sheep-kraals, and to the right a large dam,
now principally containing baked mud. Far off the little kopje concealed
the homestead, and was not itself an object conspicuous enough to relieve
the dreary monotony of the landscape.

Before the door sat Gregory Rose in his shirt-sleeves, on a camp-stool, and
ever and anon he sighed deeply. There was that in his countenance for
which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and again
he looked at the little kopje, at the milk-pail at his side, and at the
brown pony, who a short way off cropped the dry bushes--and sighed.

Presently he rose and went into his house. It was one tiny room, the
whitewashed walls profusely covered with prints cut from the "Illustrated
London News", and in which there was a noticeable preponderance of female
faces and figures. A stretcher filled one end of the hut, and a rack for a
gun and a little hanging looking-glass diversified the gable opposite,
while in the centre stood a chair and table. All was scrupulously neat and
clean, for Gregory kept a little duster folded in the corner of his table-
drawer, just as he had seen his mother do, and every morning before he went
out he said his prayers, and made his bed, and dusted the table and the
legs of the chairs, and even the pictures on the wall and the gun-rack.

On this hot afternoon he took from beneath his pillow a watch-bag made by
his sister Jemima, and took out the watch. Only half past four! With a
suppressed groan he dropped it back and sat down beside the table. Half-
past four! Presently he roused himself. He would write to his sister
Jemima. He always wrote to her when he was miserable. She was his safety-
valve. He forgot her when he was happy; but he used her when he was
wretched.

He took out ink and paper. There was a family crest and motto on the
latter, for the Roses since coming to the colony had discovered that they
were of distinguished lineage. Old Rose himself, an honest English farmer,
knew nothing of his noble descent; but his wife and daughter knew--
especially his daughter. There were Roses in England who kept a park and
dated from the Conquest. So the colonial "Rose Farm" became "Rose Manor"
in remembrance of the ancestral domain, and the claim of the Roses to noble
blood was established--in their own minds at least.

Gregory took up one of the white, crested sheets; but on deeper reflection
he determined to take a pink one, as more suitable to the state of his
feelings. He began:

"Kopje Alone,
"Monday afternoon.

"My Dear Jemima--"

Then he looked up into the little glass opposite. It was a youthful face
reflected there, with curling brown beard and hair; but in the dark blue
eyes there was a look of languid longing that touched him. He re-dipped
his pen and wrote:

"When I look up into the little glass that hangs opposite me, I wonder if
that changed and sad face--"

Here he sat still and reflected. It sounded almost as if he might be
conceited or unmanly to be looking at his own face in the glass. No, that
would not do. So he looked for another pink sheet and began again.

"Kopje Alone,
"Monday afternoon.

"Dear Sister,--It is hardly six months since I left you to come to this
spot, yet could you now see me I know what you would say, I know what
mother would say--'Can that be our Greg--that thing with the strange look
in his eyes?'

"Yes, Jemima, it is your Greg, and the change has been coming over me ever
since I came here; but it is greatest since yesterday. You know what
sorrows I have passed through, Jemima; how unjustly I was always treated at
school, the masters keeping me back and calling me a blockhead, though, as
they themselves allowed, I had the best memory of any boy in the school,
and could repeat whole books from beginning to end. You know how cruelly
father always used me, calling me a noodle and a milksop, just because he
couldn't understand my fine nature. You know how he has made a farmer of
me instead of a minister, as I ought to have been; you know it all, Jemima;
and how I have borne it all, not as a woman, who whines for every touch,
but as a man should--in silence.

"But there are things, there is a thing, which the soul longs to pour forth
into a kindred ear.

"Dear sister, have you ever known what it is to keep wanting and wanting
and wanting to kiss some one's mouth, and you may not; to touch some one's
hand, and you cannot? I am in love, Jemima.

"The old Dutchwoman from whom I hire this place has a little stepdaughter,
and her name begins with 'E'.

"She is English. I do not know how her father came to marry a Boer-woman.
It makes me feel so strange to put down that letter, that I can hardly go
on writing 'E'. I've loved her ever since I came here. For weeks I have
not been able to eat or drink; my very tobacco when I smoke has no taste;
and I can remain for no more than five minutes in one place, and sometimes
feel as though I were really going mad.

"Every evening I go there to fetch my milk. Yesterday she gave me some
coffee. The spoon fell on the ground. She picked it up; when she gave it
me her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know if I fancied it--I
shivered hot, and she shivered too! I thought, 'It is all right; she will
be mine; she loves me!'  Just then, Jemima, in came a fellow, a great,
coarse fellow, a German--a ridiculous fellow, with curls right down to his
shoulders; it makes one sick to look at him. He's only a servant of the
Boer-woman's, and a low, vulgar, uneducated thing; that's never been to
boarding-school in his life. He had been to the next farm seeking sheep.
When he came in she said, 'Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!' AND SHE
KISSED HIM.

"All last night I heard nothing else but 'Have some coffee; have some
coffee.'  If I went to sleep for a moment I dreamed that her finger was
pressing mine; but when I woke with a start I heard her say, 'Good evening,
Waldo. Have some coffee!'

"Is this madness?

"I have not eaten a mouthful today. This evening I go and propose to her.
If she refuses me I shall go and kill myself tomorrow. There is a dam of
water close by. The sheep have drunk most of it up, but there is still
enough if I tie a stone to my neck.

"It is a choice between death and madness. I can endure no more. If this
should be the last letter you ever get from me, think of me tenderly, and
forgive me. Without her, life would be a howling wilderness, a long
tribulation. She is my affinity; the one love of my life, of my youth, of
my manhood; my sunshine; my God-given blossom.

"'They never loved who dreamed that they loved once,
  And who saith, 'I loved once'?--
  Not angels, whose deep eyes look down through realms of light!'

"Your disconsolate brother, on what is, in all probability, the last and
distracted night of his life.

"Gregory Nazianzen Rose.

"P.S.--Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the
wash-hand-stand drawer. Don't let the children get hold of them.

"P.P.S.--I shall take this letter with me to the farm. If I turn down one
corner you may know I have been accepted; if not, you may know it is all up
with your heartbroken brother,

G.N.R."

Gregory having finished this letter, read it over with much approval, put
it in an envelope, addressed it, and sat contemplating the inkpot, somewhat
relieved in mind.

The evening turned out chilly and very windy after the day's heat. From
afar off, as Gregory neared the homestead on the brown pony, he could
distinguish a little figure in a little red cloak at the door of the cow-
kraal. Em leaned over the poles that barred the gate, and watched the
frothing milk run through the black fingers of the herdsman, while the
unwilling cows stood with tethered heads by the milking poles. She had
thrown the red cloak over her own head, and held it under her chin with a
little hand, to keep from her ears the wind, that playfully shook it, and
tossed the little fringe of yellow hair into her eyes.

"Is it not too cold for you to be standing here?" said Gregory, coming
softly close to her.

"Oh, no; it is so nice. I always come to watch the milking. That red cow
with the short horns is bringing up the calf of the white cow that died.
She loves it so--just as if it were her own. It is so nice to see her lick
its little ears. Just look!"

"The clouds are black. I think it is going to rain tonight," said Gregory.

"Yes," answered Em, looking up as well as she could for the little yellow
fringe.

"But I'm sure you must be cold," said Gregory, and put his hand under the
cloak, and found there a small fist doubled up, soft, and very warm. He
held it fast in his hand.

"Oh, Em, I love you better than all the world besides! Tell me, do you
love me a little?"

"Yes, I do," said Em, hesitating, and trying softly to free her hand.

"Better than everything; better than all the world, darling?" he asked,
bending down so low that the yellow hair was blown into his eyes.

"I don't know," said Em, gravely. "I do love you very much; but I love my
cousin who is at school, and Waldo, very much. You see I have known them
so long!"

"Oh, Em, do not talk to me so coldly!" Gregory cried, seizing the little
arm that rested on the gate, and pressing it till she was half afraid. The
herdsman had moved away to the other end of the kraal now, and the cows,
busy with their calves, took no notice of the little human farce. "Em, if
you talk so to me I will go mad! You must love me, love me better than
all! You must give yourself to me. I have loved you since that first
moment when I saw you walking by the stone wall with the jug in your hands.
You were made for me, created for me! I will love you till I die! Oh, Em,
do not be so cold, so cruel to me!"

He held her arm so tightly that her fingers relaxed their hold, and the
cloak fluttered down on to the ground, and the wind played more roughly
than ever with the little yellow head.

"I do love you very much," she said; "but I do not know if I want to marry
you. I love you better than Waldo, but I can't tell if I love you better
than Lyndall. If you would let me wait for a week I think perhaps I could
tell you."

Gregory picked up the cloak and wrapped it round her.

"If you could but love me as I love you," he said; "but no woman can love
as a man can. I will wait till Saturday. I will not once come near you
till then. Good-bye! Oh, Em," he said, turning again, and twining his arm
about her, and kissing her surprised little mouth, "if you are not my wife
I cannot live. I have never loved another woman, and I never shall!--
never, never!"

"You make me afraid," said Em. "Come, let us go, and I will fill your
pail."

"I want no milk. Good-bye! You will not see me again till Saturday."

Late that night, when every one else had gone to bed, the yellow-haired
little woman stood alone in the kitchen. She had come to fill the kettle
for the next morning's coffee, and now stood before the fire. The warm
reflection lit the grave old-womanish little face, that was so unusually
thoughtful this evening.

"Better than all the world; better than everything; he loves me better than
everything!"  She said the words aloud, as if they were more easy to
believe if she spoke them so. She had given out so much love in her little
life, and had got none of it back with interest. Now one said, "I love you
better than all the world."  One loved her better than she loved him. How
suddenly rich she was. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. So a
beggar feels who falls asleep on the pavement wet and hungry, and who wakes
in a palace-hall with servants and lights, and a feast before him. Of
course the beggar's is only a dream, and he wakes from it; and this was
real.

Gregory had said to her, "I will love you as long as I live."  She said the
words over and over to herself like a song.

"I will send for him tomorrow, and I will tell him how I love him back,"
she said.

But Em needed not to send for him. Gregory discovered on reaching home
that Jemima's letter was still in his pocket. And, therefore, much as he
disliked the appearance of vacillation and weakness, he was obliged to be
at the farmhouse before sunrise to post it.

"If I see her," Gregory said, "I shall only bow to her. She shall see that
I am a man, one who keeps his word."

As to Jemima's letter, he had turned down one corner of the page, and then
turned it back, leaving a deep crease. That would show that he was neither
accepted nor rejected, but that matters were in an intermediate condition.
It was a more poetical way then putting it in plain words.

Gregory was barely in time with his letter, for Waldo was starting when he
reached the homestead, and Em was on the doorstep to see him off. When he
had given the letter, and Waldo had gone, Gregory bowed stiffly and
prepared to remount his own pony, but somewhat slowly. It was still early;
none of the servants were about. Em came up close to him and put her
little hand softly on his arm as he stood by his horse.

"I do love you best of all," she said. She was not frightened now, however
much he kissed her. "I wish I was beautiful and nice," she added, looking
up into his eyes as he held her against his breast.

"My darling, to me you are more beautiful than all the women in the world;
dearer to me than everything it holds. If you were in hell I would go
after you to find you there! If you were dead, though my body moved, my
soul would be under the ground with you. All life as I pass with you in my
arms will be perfect to me. It will pass, pass like a ray of sunshine."

Em thought how beautiful and grand his face was as she looked up into it.
She raised her hand gently and put it on his forehead.

"You are so silent, so cold, my Em," he cried. "Have you nothing to say to
me?"

A little shade of wonder filled her eyes.

"I will do everything you tell me," she said.

"What else could she say? Her idea of love was only service.

"Then, my own precious one, promise never to kiss that fellow again. I
cannot bear that you should love any one but me. You must not! I will not
have it! If every relation I had in the world were to die tomorrow, I
would be quite happy if I still only had you! My darling, my love, why are
you so cold? Promise me not to love him any more. If you asked me to do
anything for you, I would do it, though it cost my life."

Em put her hand very gravely round his neck.

"I will never kiss him," she said, "and I will try not to love any one
else. But I do not know if I will be able."

"Oh, my darling, I think of you all night, all day. I think of nothing
else, love, nothing else," he said, folding his arms about her.

Em was a little conscience stricken; even that morning she had found time
to remember that in six months her cousin would come back from school, and
she had thought to remind Waldo of the lozenges for his cough, even when
she saw Gregory coming.

"I do not know how it is," she said humbly, nestling to him, "but I cannot
love you so much as you love me. Perhaps it is because I am only a woman;
but I do love you as much as I can."

Now the Kaffer maids were coming from the huts. He kissed her again, eyes
and mouth and hands, and left her.

Tant Sannie was well satisfied when told of the betrothment. She herself
contemplated marriage within the year with one or other of her numerous
vrijers, and she suggested that the weddings might take place together.

Em set to work busily to prepare her own household linen and wedding
garments. Gregory was with her daily, almost hourly, and the six months
which elapsed before Lyndall's return passed, as he felicitously phrased
it, "like a summer night, when you are dreaming of some one you love."

Late one evening, Gregory sat by his little love, turning the handle of her
machine as she drew her work through it, and they talked of the changes
they would make when the Boer-woman was gone, and the farm belonged to them
alone. There should be a new room here, and a kraal there. So they
chatted on. Suddenly Gregory dropped the handle, and impressed a fervent
kiss on the fat hand that guided the linen.

"You are so beautiful, Em," said the lover. "It comes over me in a flood
suddenly how I love you."

Em smiled.

"Tant Sannie says when I am her age no one will look at me; and it is true.
My hands are as short and broad as a duck's foot, and my forehead is so
low, and I haven't any nose. I can't be pretty."

She laughed softly. It was so nice to think he should be so blind.

"When my cousin comes tomorrow you will see a beautiful woman, Gregory,"
she added presently. "She is like a little queen: her shoulders are so
upright, and her head looks as though it ought to have a little crown upon
it. You must come to see her tomorrow as soon as she comes. I am sure you
will love her."

"Of course I shall come to see her, since she is your cousin; but do you
think I could ever think any woman as lovely as I think you?"

He fixed his seething eyes upon her.

"You could not help seeing that she is prettier," said Em, slipping her
right hand into his; "but you will never be able to like any one so much as
you like me."

Afterward, when she wished her lover good night, she stood upon the
doorstep to call a greeting after him; and she waited, as she always did,
till the brown pony's hoofs became inaudible behind the kopje.

Then she passed through the room where Tant Sannie lay snoring, and through
the little room that was all draped in white, waiting for her cousin's
return, on to her own room.

She went to the chest of drawers to put away the work she had finished, and
sat down on the floor before the lowest drawer. In it were the things she
was preparing for her marriage. Piles of white linen, and some aprons and
quilts; and in a little box in the corner a spray of orange-blossom which
she had bought from a smouse. There, too, was a ring Gregory had given
her, and a veil his sister had sent, and there was a little roll of fine
embroidered work which Trana had given her. It was too fine and good even
for Gregory's wife--just right for something very small and soft. She
would keep it. And she touched it gently with her forefinger, smiling; and
then she blushed and hid it far behind the other things. She knew so well
all that was in that drawer, and yet she turned them all over as though she
saw them for the first time, packed them all out, and packed them all in,
without one fold or crumple; and then sat down and looked at them.

Tomorrow evening when Lyndall came she would bring her here, and show it
her all. Lyndall would so like to see it--the little wreath, and the ring,
and the white veil! It would be so nice! Then Em fell to seeing pictures.
Lyndall should live with them till she herself got married some day.

Every day when Gregory came home, tired from his work, he would look about
and say, "Where is my wife? Has no one seen my wife? Wife, some coffee!"
and she would give him some.

Em's little face grew very grave at last, and she knelt up and extended her
hands over the drawer of linen.

"Oh, God!" she said, "I am so glad! I do not know what I have done that I
should be so glad. Thank you!"

Chapter 2.IV. Lyndall.

She was more like a princess, yes, far more like a princess, than the lady
who still hung on the wall in Tant Sannie's bedroom. So Em thought. She
leaned back in the little armchair; she wore a grey dressing-gown, and her
long hair was combed out and hung to the ground. Em, sitting before her,
looked up with mingled respect and admiration.

Lyndall was tired after her long journey, and had come to her room early.
Her eyes ran over the familiar objects. Strange to go away for four years,
and come back, and find that the candle standing on the dressing-table
still cast the shadow of an old crone's head in the corner beyond the
clothes-horse. Strange that even a shadow should last longer than a man!
She looked about among the old familiar objects; all was there, but the old
self was gone.

"What are you noticing?" asked Em.

"Nothing and everything. I thought the windows were higher. If I were
you, when I get this place I should raise the walls. There is not room to
breathe here. One suffocates."

"Gregory is going to make many alterations," said Em; and drawing nearer to
the grey dressing-gown respectfully. "Do you like him, Lyndall? Is he not
handsome?"

"He must have been a fine baby," said Lyndall, looking at the white dimity
curtain that hung above the window.

Em was puzzled.

"There are some men," said Lyndall, "whom you never can believe were babies
at all; and others you never see without thinking how very nice they must
have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes."

Em remained silent; then she said with a little dignity, "When you know him
you will love him as I do. When I compare other people with him, they seem
so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves are mixed up with so
many other things. But he--no one is worthy of his love. I am not. It is
so great and pure."

"You need not make yourself unhappy on that point--your poor return for his
love, my dear," said Lyndall. "A man's love is a fire of olive-wood. It
leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red flames;
it threatens to wrap you round and devour you--you who stand by like an
icicle in the glow of its fierce warmth. You are self-reproached at your
own chilliness and want of reciprocity. The next day, when you go to warm
your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long love and cool
against a short love and hot; men, at all events, have nothing to complain
of."

"You speak so because you do not know men," said Em, instantly assuming the
dignity of superior knowledge so universally affected by affianced and
married women in discussing man's nature with their uncontracted sisters.

"You will know them too some day, and then you will think differently,"
said Em, with the condescending magnanimity which superior knowledge can
always afford to show to ignorance.

Lyndall's little lip quivered in a manner indicative of intense amusement.
She twirled a massive ring upon her forefinger--a ring more suitable for
the hand of a man, and noticeable in design--a diamond cross let into gold,
with the initials "R.R." below it.

"Ah, Lyndall," Em cried, "perhaps you are engaged yourself--that is why you
smile. Yes; I am sure you are. Look at this ring!"

Lyndall drew the hand quickly from her.

"I am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man's foot; and I
do not so greatly admire the crying of babies," she said, as she closed her
eyes half wearily and leaned back in the chair. "There are other women
glad of such work."

Em felt rebuked and ashamed. How could she take Lyndall and show her the
white linen and the wreath, and the embroidery? She was quiet for a little
while, and then began to talk about Trana and the old farm-servants, till
she saw her companion was weary; then she rose and left her for the night.
But after Em was gone Lyndall sat on, watching the old crone's face in the
corner, and with a weary look, as though the whole world's weight rested on
these frail young shoulders.

The next morning, Waldo, starting off before breakfast with a bag of
mealies slung over his shoulder to feed the ostriches, heard a light step
behind him.

"Wait for me; I am coming with you," said Lyndall, adding as she came up to
him, "if I had not gone to look for you yesterday you would not have come
to greet me till now. Do you not like me any longer, Waldo?"

"Yes--but--you are changed."

It was the old clumsy, hesitating mode of speech.

"You like the pinafores better?" she said quickly. She wore a dress of a
simple cotton fabric, but very fashionably made, and on her head was a
broad white hat. To Waldo she seemed superbly attired. She saw it. "My
dress has changed a little," she said, "and I also; but not to you. Hang
the bag over your other shoulder, that I may see your face. You say so
little that if one does not look at you you are an uncomprehended cipher.
Waldo changed the bag, and they walked on side by side. "You have
improved," she said. "Do you know that I have sometimes wished to see you
while I was away; not often, but still sometimes."

They were at the gate of the first camp now. Waldo threw over a bag of
mealies, and they walked on over the dewy ground.

"Have you learnt much?" he asked her simply, remembering how she had once
said, "When I come back again I shall know everything that a human being
can."

She laughed.

"Are you thinking of my old boast? Yes; I have learnt something, though
hardly what I expected, and not quite so much. In the first place, I have
learnt that one of my ancestors must have been a very great fool; for they
say nothing comes out in a man but one of his forefathers possessed it
before him. In the second place, I have discovered that of all cursed
places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few
grains of knowledge, a girls' boarding-school is the worst. They are
called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are.
They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they
cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the
question, 'Into how little space a human soul can be crushed?'  I have seen
some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble,
and found room to move there--wide room. A woman who has been for many
years in one of those places carries the mark of the beast on her till she
dies, though she may expand a little afterward, when she breathes in the
free world."

"Were you miserable?" he asked, looking at her with quick anxiety.

"I?--no. I am never miserable and never happy. I wish I were. But I
should have run away from the place on the fourth day, and hired myself to
the first Boer-woman whose farm I came to, to make fire under her soap-pot,
if I had to live as the rest of the drove did. Can you form an idea,
Waldo, of what it must be to be shut up with cackling old women, who are
without knowledge of life, without love of the beautiful, without strength,
to have your soul cultured by them? It is suffocation only to breathe the
air they breathe; but I made them give me room. I told them I should
leave, and they knew I came there on my own account; so they gave me a
bedroom without the companionship of one of those things that were having
their brains slowly diluted and squeezed out of them. I did not learn
music, because I had no talent; and when the drove made cushions, and
hideous flowers that the roses laugh at, and a footstool in six weeks that
a machine would have made better in five minutes, I went to my room. With
the money saved from such work I bought books and newspapers, and at night
I sat up. I read, and epitomized what I read; and I found time to write
some plays, and find out how hard it is to make your thoughts look anything
but imbecile fools when you paint them with ink and paper. In the holidays
I learnt a great deal more. I made acquaintances, saw a few places and
many people, and some different ways of living, which is more than any
books can show one. On the whole, I am not dissatisfied with my four
years. I have not learnt what I expected; but I have learnt something
else. What have you been doing?"

"Nothing."

"That is not possible. I shall find out by and by."

They still stepped on side by side over the dewy bushes. Then suddenly she
turned on him.

"Don't you wish you were a woman, Waldo?"

"No," he answered readily.

She laughed.

"I thought not. Even you are too worldly-wise for that. I never met a man
who did. This is a pretty ring," she said, holding out her little hand,
that the morning sun might make the diamonds sparkle. "Worth fifty pounds
at least. I will give it to the first man who tells me he would like to be
a woman. There might be one on Robbin Island (lunatics at the Cape are
sent to Robbin Island) who would win it perhaps, but I doubt it even there.
It is delightful to be a woman; but every man thanks the Lord devoutly that
he isn't one."

She drew her hat to one side to keep the sun out of her eyes as she walked.
Waldo looked at her so intently that he stumbled over the bushes. Yes,
this was his little Lyndall who had worn the check pinafores; he saw it
now, and he walked closer beside her. They reached the next camp.

"Let us wait at this camp and watch the birds," she said, as an ostrich hen
came bounding toward them with velvety wings outstretched, while far away
over the bushes the head of the cock was visible as he sat brooding on the
eggs.

Lyndall folded her arms on the gate bar, and Waldo threw his empty bag on
the wall and leaned beside her.

"I like these birds," she said; "they share each other's work, and are
companions. Do you take an interest in the position of women, Waldo?"

"No."

"I thought not. No one does, unless they are in need of a subject upon
which to show their wit. And as for you, from of old you can see nothing
that is not separated from you by a few millions of miles, and strewed over
with mystery. If women were the inhabitants of Jupiter, of whom you had
happened to hear something, you would pore over us and our condition night
and day; but because we are before your eyes you never look at us. You
care nothing that this is ragged and ugly," she said, putting her little
finger on his sleeve; "but you strive mightily to make an imaginary leaf on
an old stick beautiful. I'm sorry you don't care for the position of
women; I should have liked us to be friends; and it is the only thing about
which I think much or feel much--if, indeed, I have any feeling about
anything," she added, flippantly, readjusting her dainty little arms.
"When I was a baby, I fancy my parents left me out in the frost one night,
and I got nipped internally--it feels so!"

"I have only a few old thoughts," he said, "and I think them over and over
again; always beginning where I left off. I never get any further. I am
weary of them."

"Like an old hen that sits on its eggs month after month and they never
come out?" she said quickly. "I am so pressed in upon by new things that,
lest they should trip one another up, I have to keep forcing them back. My
head swings sometimes. But this one thought stands, never goes--if I might
but be one of these born in the future; then, perhaps, to be born a woman
will not be to be born branded."

Waldo looked at her. It was hard to say whether she were in earnest or
mocking.

"I know it is foolish. Wisdom never kicks at the iron walls it can't bring
down," she said. "But we are cursed. Waldo, born cursed from the time our
mothers bring us into the world till the shrouds are put on us. Do not
look at me as though I were talking nonsense. Everything has two sides--
the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn."

"I am not laughing," said the boy, sedately enough; "but what curses you?"

He thought she would not reply to him, she waited so long.

"It is not what is done to us, but what is made of us," she said at last,
"that wrongs us. No man can be really injured but by what modifies
himself. We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much
natural force, perhaps, but for the rest--blank; and the world tells us
what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. To you it
says--"Work;" and to us it says--"Seem!"  To you it says--As you
approximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your
knowledge great, and the power to labour is with you, so you shall gain all
that human heart desires. To us it says--Strength shall not help you, nor
knowledge, nor labour. You shall gain what men gain, but by other means.
And so the world makes men and women.

"Look at this little chin of mine, Waldo, with the dimple in it. It is but
a small part of my person; but though I had a knowledge of all things under
the sun, and the wisdom to use it, and the deep loving heart of an angel,
it would not stead me through life like this little chin. I can win money
with it, I can win love; I can win power with it, I can win fame. What
would knowledge help me? The less a woman has in her head the lighter she
is for climbing. I once heard an old man say, that he never saw intellect
help a woman so much as a pretty ankle; and it was the truth. They begin
to shape us to our cursed end," she said, with her lips drawn in to look as
though they smiled, "when we are tiny things in shoes and socks. We sit
with our little feet drawn up under us in the window, and look out at the
boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving hand is laid on
us: 'Little one, you cannot go,' they say, 'your little face will burn,
and your nice white dress be spoiled.'  We feel it must be for our good, it
is so lovingly said: but we cannot understand; and we kneel still with one
little cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterwards we go and
thread blue beads, and make a string for our neck; and we go and stand
before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil, and the
white frock, and we look into our own great eyes. Then the curse begins to
act on us. It finishes its work when we are grown women, who no more look
out wistfully at a more healthy life; we are contented. We fit our sphere
as a Chinese woman's foot fits her shoe, exactly, as though God had made
both--and yet he knows nothing of either. In some of us the shaping of our
end has been quite completed. The parts we are not to use have been quite
atrophied, and have even dropped off; but in others, and we are not less to
be pitied, they have been weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but our
limbs have not grown to them; we know that we are compressed, and chafe
against them.

"But what does it help? A little bitterness, a little longing when we are
young, a little futile searching for work, a little passionate striving for
room for the exercise of our powers,--and then we go with the drove. A
woman must march with her regiment. In the end she must be trodden down or
go with it; and if she is wise she goes.

"I see in your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing at
him; "I always know what the person I am talking to is thinking of. How is
this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I? I will show you by a
very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, both poor,
both young, both friendless; there is not much to choose between us. Let
us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. This evening you
will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come alone on foot,
will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee and a bed. If he has
no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can go on your way,
with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to the same place
tonight, will have strange questions asked me, strange glances cast on me.
The Boer-wife will shake her head and give me food to eat with the Kaffers,
and a right to sleep with the dogs. That would be the first step in our
progress--a very little one, but every step to the end would repeat it. We
were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurses' knees. We will
be equals again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep!"

Waldo looked in wonder at the little quivering face; it was a glimpse into
a world of passion and feeling wholly new to him.

"Mark you," she said, "we have always this advantage over you--we can at
any time step into ease and competence, where you must labour patiently for
it. A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation, a
little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say: "Come,
be my wife!"  With good looks and youth marriage is easy to attain. There
are men enough; but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and a new
name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both
earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the beautifulest
external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the
uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world."  She ran her little finger
savagely along the topmost bar, shaking off the dozen little dewdrops that
still hung there. "And they tell us we have men's chivalrous attention!"
she cried. "When we ask to be doctors, lawyers, law-makers, anything but
ill-paid drudges, they say--No; but you have men's chivalrous attention;
now think of that and be satisfied! What would you do without it?"

The bitter little silvery laugh, so seldom heard, rang out across the
bushes. She bit her little teeth together.

"I was coming up in Cobb & Co.'s the other day. At a little wayside hotel
we had to change the large coach for a small one. We were ten passengers,
eight men and two women. As I sat in the house the gentlemen came and
whispered to me, 'There is not room for all in the new coach, take your
seat quickly.'  We hurried out, and they gave me the best seat, and covered
me with rugs, because it was drizzling. Then the last passenger came
running up to the coach--an old woman with a wonderful bonnet, and a black
shawl pinned with a yellow pin.

"'There is no room,' they said; 'you must wait till next week's coach takes
you up;' but she climbed on to the step, and held on at the window with
both hands.

"'My son-in-law is ill, and I must go and see him,' she said.

"'My good woman,' said one, 'I am really exceedingly sorry that your son-
in-law is ill; but there is absolutely no room for you here.'

"'You had better get down,' said another, 'or the wheel will catch you.'

"I got up to give her my place.

"'Oh, no, no!' they cried, 'we will not allow that.'

"'I will rather kneel,' said one, and he crouched down at my feet; so the
woman came in.

"There were nine of us in that coach, and only one showed chivalrous
attention--and that was a woman to a woman.

"I shall be old and ugly, too, one day, and I shall look for men's
chivalrous help, but I shall not find it.

"The bees are very attentive to the flowers till their honey is done, and
then they fly over them. I don't know if the flowers feel grateful to the
bees; they are great fools if they do."

"But some women," said Waldo, speaking as though the words forced
themselves from him at that moment, "some women have power."

She lifted her beautiful eyes to his face.

"Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should
have power or not? It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain of
water, and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and do its
work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there; it is there. And it
will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil; but it will act.
If Goethe had been stolen away a child, and reared in a robber horde in the
depths of a German forest, do you think the world would have had "Faust"
and "Iphegenie?"  But he would have been Goethe still--stronger, wiser than
his fellows. At night, round their watch-fire, he would have chanted wild
songs of rapine and murder, till the dark faces about him were moved and
trembled. His songs would have echoed on from father to son, and nerved
the heart and arm--for evil. Do you think if Napoleon had been born a
woman that he would have been contented to give small tea-parties and talk
small scandal? He would have risen; but the world would not have heard of
him as it hears of him now--a man great and kingly with all his sins; he
would have left one of those names that stain the leaf of every history--
the names of women, who, having power, but being denied the right to
exercise it openly, rule in the dark, covertly, and by stealth, through the
men whose passions they feed on and by whom they climb.

"Power!" she said, suddenly, smiting her little hand upon the rail. "Yes,
we have power; and since we are not to expend it in tunnelling mountains,
nor healing diseases, nor making laws, nor money, nor on any extraneous
object, we expend it on you. You are our goods, our merchandise, our
material for operating on; we buy you, we sell you, we make fools of you,
we act the wily old Jew with you, we keep six of you crawling to our little
feet, and praying only for a touch of our little hand; and they say truly,
there was never an ache or pain or broken heart but a woman was at the
bottom of it. We are not to study law, nor science, nor art, so we study
you. There is never a nerve or fibre in a man's nature but we know it. We
keep six of you dancing in the palm of one little hand," she said,
balancing her outstretched arm gracefully, as though tiny beings disported
themselves in its palm. "There, we throw you away, and you sink to the
devil," she said, folding her arms composedly. "There was never a man who
said one word for woman but he said two for man, and three for the whole
human race."

She watched the bird pecking up the last yellow grains; but Waldo looked
only at her.

When she spoke again it was very measuredly.

"They bring weighty arguments against us when we ask for the perfect
freedom of women," she said; "but, when you come to the objections, they
are like pumpkin devils with candles inside, hollow, and can't bite. They
say that women do not wish for the sphere and freedom we ask for them, and
would not use it!

"If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will not leave
it, why keep the door so very carefully shut? Why not open it, only a
little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against
the bars, but would fly if the doors were open?"  She knit her forehead and
leaned further over the bars.

"Then they say, 'If the women have the liberty you ask for, they will be
found in positions for which they are not fitted!'  If two men climb one
ladder, did you ever see the weakest anywhere but at the foot? The surest
sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but where there is
handicapping. Nature, left to herself, will as beautifully apportion a
man's work to his capacities as long ages ago she graduated the colours on
the bird's breast. If we are not fit, you give us, to no purpose, the
right to labour; the work will fall out of our hands into those that are
wiser."

She talked more rapidly as she went on, as one talks of that over which
they have brooded long, and which lies near their hearts.

Waldo watched her intently.

"They say women have one great and noble work left them, and they do it
ill. That is true; they do it execrably. It is the work that demands the
broadest culture, and they have not even the narrowest. The lawyer may see
no deeper than his law-books, and the chemist see no further than the
windows of his laboratory, and they may do their work well. But the woman
who does woman's work needs a many-sided, multiform culture; the heights
and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of her vision; she
must have knowledge of men and things in many states, a wide catholicity of
sympathy, the strength that springs from knowledge, and the magnanimity
which springs from strength. We bear the world, and we make it. The souls
of little children are marvellously delicate and tender things, and keep
forever the shadow that first falls on them, and that is the mother's or at
best a woman's. There was never a great man who had not a great mother--it
is hardly an exaggeration. The first six years of our life make us; all
that is added later is veneer; and yet some say, if a woman can cook a
dinner or dress herself well she has culture enough.

"The mightiest and noblest of human work is given to us, and we do it ill.
Send a navvie to work into an artist's studio, and see what you will find
there! And yet, thank God, we have this work," she added, quickly--"it is
the one window through which we see into the great world of earnest labour.
The meanest girl who dances and dresses becomes something higher when her
children look up into her face and ask her questions. It is the only
education we have and which they cannot take from us."

She smiled slightly. "They say that we complain of woman's being compelled
to look upon marriage as a profession; but that she is free to enter upon
it or leave it, as she pleases.

"Yes--and a cat set afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till it dies
there, it is under no obligation to wet its feet; and a drowning man may
catch at a straw or not, just as he likes--it is a glorious liberty! Let
any man think for five minutes of what old maidenhood means to a woman--and
then let him be silent. Is it easy to bear through life a name that in
itself signifies defeat? to dwell, as nine out of ten unmarried women must,
under the finger of another woman? Is it easy to look forward to an old
age without honour, without the reward of useful labour, without love? I
wonder how many men there are who would give up everything that is dear in
life for the sake of maintaining a high ideal purity."

She laughed a little laugh that was clear without being pleasant.

"And then, when they have no other argument against us, they say, 'Go on;
but when you have made woman what you wish, and her children inherit her
culture, you will defeat yourself. Man will gradually become extinct from
excess of intellect, the passions which replenish the race will die.'
Fools!" she said, curling her pretty lip. "A Hottentot sits at the
roadside and feeds on a rotten bone he has found there, and takes out his
bottle of Cape-smoke and swills at it, and grunts with satisfaction; and
the cultured child of the nineteenth century sits in his armchair, and sips
choice wines with the lip of a connoisseur, and tastes delicate dishes with
a delicate palate, and with a satisfaction of which the Hottentot knows
nothing. Heavy jaw and sloping forehead--all have gone with increasing
intellect; but the animal appetites are there still--refined,
discriminative, but immeasurably intensified. Fools! Before men forgave
or worshipped, while they were weak on their hind legs, did they not eat
and drink, and fight for wives? When all the latter additions to humanity
have vanished, will not the foundation on which they are built remain?"

She was silent then for a while, and said somewhat dreamily, more as though
speaking to herself than to him,

"They ask, What will you gain, even if man does not become extinct?--you
will have brought justice and equality on to the earth, and sent love from
it. When men and women are equals they will love no more. Your highly-
cultured women will not be lovable, will not love.

"Do they see nothing, understand nothing? It is Tant Sannie who buries
husbands one after another, and folds her hands resignedly,--'The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord,'--
and she looks for another. It is the hard-headed, deep thinker who, when
the wife who has thought and worked with him goes, can find no rest, and
lingers near her till he finds sleep beside her.

"A great soul draws and is drawn with a more fierce intensity than any
small one. By every inch we grow in intellectual height our love strikes
down its roots deeper, and spreads out its arms wider. It is for love's
sake yet more than for any other that we look for that new time."

She had leaned her head against the stones, and watched with her sad, soft
eyes the retreating bird. "Then when that time comes," she said lowly,
"when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means of making
bread, when each woman's life is filled with earnest, independent labour,
then love will come to her, a strange, sudden sweetness breaking in upon
her earnest work; not sought for, but found. Then, but not now--"

Waldo waited for her to finish the sentence, but she seemed to have
forgotten him.

"Lyndall," he said, putting his hand upon her--she started--"if you think
that that new time will be so great, so good, you who speak so easily--"

She interrupted him.

"Speak! speak!" she said, "the difficulty is not to speak; the difficulty
is to keep silence."

"But why do you not try to bring that time?" he said with pitiful
simplicity. "When you speak I believe all you say; other people would
listen to you also."

"I am not so sure of that," she said with a smile.

Then over the small face came the weary look it had worn last night as it
watched the shadow in the corner, Ah, so weary!

"I, Waldo, I?" she said. "I will do nothing good for myself, nothing for
the world, till some one wakes me. I am asleep, swathed, shut up in self;
till I have been delivered I will deliver no one."

He looked at her wondering, but she was not looking at him.

"To see the good and the beautiful," she said, "and to have no strength to
live it, is only to be Moses on the mountain of Nebo, with the land at your
feet and no power to enter. It would be better not to see it. Come," she
said, looking up into his face, and seeing its uncomprehending expression,
"let us go, it is getting late. Doss is anxious for his breakfast also,"
she added, wheeling round and calling to the dog, who was endeavouring to
unearth a mole, an occupation to which he had been zealously addicted from
the third month, but in which he had never on any single occasion proved
successful.

Waldo shouldered his bag, and Lyndall walked on before in silence, with the
dog close to her side. Perhaps she thought of the narrowness of the limits
within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its nearest of
mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual
experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard. Whatever her
thoughts may have been, she was soon interrupted. Waldo came close to her,
and standing still, produced with awkwardness from his breast-pocket a
small carved box.

"I made it for you," he said, holding it out.

"I like it," she said, examining it carefully.

The workmanship was better than that of the grave-post. The flowers that
covered it were delicate, and here and there small conical protuberances
were let in among them. She turned it round critically. Waldo bent over
it lovingly.

"There is one strange thing about it," he said earnestly, putting a finger
on one little pyramid. "I made it without these, and I felt something was
wrong; I tried many changes, and at last I let these in, and then it was
right. But why was it? They are not beautiful in themselves."

"They relieve the monotony of the smooth leaves, I suppose."

He shook his head as over a weighty matter.

"The sky is monotonous," he said, "when it is blue, and yet it is
beautiful. I have thought of that often; but it is not monotony, and it is
not variety makes beauty. What is it? The sky, and your face, and this
box--the same thing is in them all, only more in the sky and in your face.
But what is it?"

She smiled.

"So you are at your old work still. Why, why, why? What is the reason?
It is enough for me," she said, "if I find out what is beautiful and what
is ugly, what is real and what is not. Why it is there, and over the final
cause of things in general, I don't trouble myself; there must be one, but
what is it to me? If I howl to all eternity I shall never get hold of it;
and if I did I might be no better off. But you Germans are born with an
aptitude for borrowing; you can't help yourselves. You must sniff after
reasons, just as that dog must after a mole. He knows perfectly well he
will never catch it, but he's under the imperative necessity of digging for
it."

"But he might find it."

"Might!--but he never has and never will. Life is too short to run after
mights; we must have certainties."

She tucked the box under her arm and was about to walk on, when Gregory
Rose, with shining spurs, an ostrich feather in his hat, and a silver-
headed whip, careered past. He bowed gallantly as he went by. They waited
till the dust of the horse's hoofs had laid itself.

"There," said Lyndall, "goes a true woman--one born for the sphere that
some women have to fill without being born for it. How happy he would be
sewing frills into his little girl's frocks, and how pretty he would look
sitting in a parlour, with a rough man making love to him! Don't you think
so?"

"I shall not stay here when he is master," Waldo answered, not able to
connect any kind of beauty with Gregory Rose.

"I should imagine not. The rule of a woman is tyranny; but the rule of a
man-woman grinds fine. Where are you going?"

"Anywhere."

"What to do?"

"See--see everything."

"You will be disappointed."

"And were you?"

"Yes; and you will be more so. I want things that men and the world give,
you do not. If you have a few yards of earth to stand on, and a bit of
blue over you, and something that you cannot see to dream about, you have
all that you need, all that you know how to use. But I like to see real
men. Let them be as disagreeable as they please, they are more interesting
to me than flowers, or trees, or stars, or any other thing under the sun.
Sometimes," she added, walking on, and shaking the dust daintily from her
skirts, "when I am not too busy trying to find a new way of doing my hair
that will show my little neck to better advantage, or over other work of
that kind, sometimes it amuses me intensely to trace out the resemblance
between one man and another: to see how Tant Sannie and I, you and
Bonaparte, St. Simon on his pillow, and the emperor dining off larks'
tongues, are one and the same compound, merely mixed in different
proportions.

"What is microscopic in one is largely developed in another; what is a
rudimentary in one man is an active organ in another; but all things are in
all men, and one soul is the model of all. We shall find nothing new in
human nature after we have once carefully dissected and analyzed the one
being we ever shall truly know--ourself. The Kaffer girl threw some coffee
on my arm in bed this morning; I felt displeased, but said nothing. Tant
Sannie would have thrown the saucer at her and sworn for an hour; but the
feeling would be the same irritated displeasure. If a huge animated
stomach like Bonaparte were put under a glass by a skilful mental
microscopist, even he would be found to have an embryonic doubling
somewhere indicative of a heart, and rudimentary buddings that might have
become conscience and sincerity. Let me take your arm Waldo.

"How full you are of mealie dust. No, never mind. It will brush off. And
sometimes what is more amusing still than tracing the likeness between man
and man, is to trace the analogy there always is between the progress and
development of one individual and of a whole nation; or, again, between a
single nation and the entire human race. It is pleasant when it dawns on
you that the one is just the other written out in large letters; and very
odd to find all the little follies and virtues, and developments and
retrogressions, written out in the big world's book that you find in your
little internal self. It is the most amusing thing I know of; but of
course, being a woman, I have not often time for such amusements.
Professional duties always first, you know. It takes a great deal of time
and thought always to look perfectly exquisite, even for a pretty woman.
Is the old buggy still in existence, Waldo?"

"Yes, but the harness is broken."

"Well, I wish you would mend it. You must teach me to drive. I must learn
something while I am here. I got the Hottentot girl to show me how to make
sarsarties this morning; and Tant Sannie is going to teach me to make
kapjes. I will come and sit with you this afternoon while you mend the
harness."

"Thank you."

"No, don't thank me; I come for my own pleasure. I never find any one I
can talk to. Women bore me, and men, I talk so to--'Going to the ball this
evening? Nice little dog that of yours. Pretty little ears. So fond of
pointer pups!'  And they think me fascinating, charming! Men are like the
earth, and we are the moon; we turn always one side to them, and they think
there is no other, because they don't see it--but there is."

They had reached the house now.

"Tell me when you set to work," she said, and walked toward the door.

Waldo stood to look after her, and Doss stood at his side, a look of
painful uncertainty depicted on his small countenance, and one little foot
poised in the air. Should he stay with his master or go? He looked at the
figure with the wide straw hat moving toward the house, and he looked up at
his master; then he put down the little paw and went. Waldo watched them
both in at the door and then walked away alone. He was satisfied that at
least his dog was with her.

Chapter 2.V. Tant Sannie Holds An Upsitting, and Gregory Writes A Letter.

It was just after sunset, and Lyndall had not yet returned from her first
driving-lesson, when the lean coloured woman standing at the corner of the
house to enjoy the evening breeze, saw coming along the road a strange
horseman. Very narrowly she surveyed him, as slowly he approached. He was
attired in the deepest mourning, the black crepe round his tall hat totally
concealing the black felt, and nothing but a dazzling shirt-front relieving
the funereal tone of his attire. He rode much forward in his saddle, with
his chin resting on the uppermost of his shirt-studs, and there was an air
of meek subjection to the will of Heaven, and to what might be in store for
him, that bespoke itself even in the way in which he gently urged his
steed. He was evidently in no hurry to reach his destination, for the
nearer he approached to it the slacker did his bridle hang. The coloured
woman having duly inspected him, dashed into the dwelling.

"Here is another one!" she cried--"a widower; I see it by his hat."

"Good Lord!" said Tant Sannie; "it's the seventh I've had this month; but
the men know where sheep and good looks and money in the bank are to be
found," she added, winking knowingly. "How does he look?"

"Nineteen, weak eyes, white hair, little round nose," said the maid.

"Then it's he! then it's he!" said Tant Sannie triumphantly; "little Piet
Vander Walt, whose wife died last month--two farms, twelve thousand sheep.
I've not seen him, but my sister-in-law told me about him, and I dreamed
about him last night."

Here Piet's black hat appeared in the doorway, and the Boer-woman drew
herself up in dignified silence, extended the tips of her fingers, and
motioned solemnly to a chair. The young man seated himself, sticking his
feet as far under it as they would go, and said mildly:

"I am Little Piet Vander Walt, and my father is Big Piet Vander Walt."

Tant Sannie said solemnly: "Yes."

"Aunt," said the young man, starting up spasmodically; "can I off-saddle?"

"Yes."

He seized his hat, and disappeared with a rush through the door.

"I told you so! I knew it!" said Tant Sannie. "The dear Lord doesn't send
dreams for nothing. Didn't I tell you this morning that I dreamed of a
great beast like a sheep, with red eyes, and I killed it? Wasn't the white
wool his hair, and the red eyes his weak eyes, and my killing him meant
marriage? Get supper ready quickly; the sheep's inside and roaster-cakes.
We shall sit up tonight."

To young Piet Vander Walt that supper was a period of intense torture.
There was something overawing in that assembly of English people, with
their incomprehensible speech; and moreover, it was his first courtship;
his first wife had courted him, and ten months of severe domestic rule had
not raised his spirit nor courage. He ate little, and when he raised a
morsel to his lips glanced guiltily round to see if he were not observed.
He had put three rings on his little finger, with the intention of sticking
it out stiffly when he raised a coffee-cup; now the little finger was
curled miserably among its fellows. It was small relief when the meal was
over, and Tant Sannie and he repaired to the front room. Once seated
there, he set his knees close together, stood his black hat upon them, and
wretchedly turned the brim up and down. But supper had cheered Tant
Sannie, who found it impossible longer to maintain that decorous silence,
and whose heart yearned over the youth.

"I was related to your aunt Selena who died," said Tant Sannie. "My
mother's stepbrother's child was married to her father's brother's
stepnephew's niece."

"Yes, aunt," said the young man, "I know we were related."

"It was her cousin," said Tant Sannie, now fairly on the flow, "who had the
cancer cut out of her breast by the other doctor, who was not the right
doctor they sent for, but who did it quite as well."

"Yes, aunt," said the young man.

"I've heard about it often," said Tant Sannie. "And he was the son of the
old doctor that they say died on Christmas-day, but I don't know if that's
true. People do tell such awful lies. Why should he die on Christmas-day
more than any other day?"

"Yes, aunt, why?" said the young man meekly.

"Did you ever have the toothache?" asked Tant Sannie.

"No, aunt."

"Well, they say that doctor--not the son of the old doctor that died on
Christmas-day, the other that didn't come when he was sent for--he gave
such good stuff for the toothache that if you opened the bottle in the room
where any one was bad they got better directly. You could see it was good
stuff," said Tant Sannie; "it tasted horrid. That was a real doctor! He
used to give a bottle so high," said the Boer-woman, raising her hand a
foot from the table, "you could drink at it for a month and it wouldn't get
done, and the same medicine was good for all sorts of sicknesses--croup,
measles, jaundice, dropsy. Now you have to buy a new kind for each
sickness. The doctors aren't so good as they used to be."

"No, aunt," said the young man, who was trying to gain courage to stick out
his legs and clink his spurs together. He did so at last.

Tant Sannie had noticed the spurs before; but she thought it showed a nice
manly spirit, and her heart warmed yet more to the youth.

"Did you ever have convulsions when you were a baby?" asked Tant Sannie.

"Yes," said the young man.

"Strange," said Tant Sannie; "I had convulsions too. Wonderful that we
should be so much alike!"

"Aunt," said the young man explosively, "can we sit up tonight?"

Tant Sannie hung her head and half closed her eyes; but finding that her
little wiles were thrown away, the young man staring fixedly at his hat,
she simpered, "Yes," and went away to fetch candles.

In the dining room Em worked at her machine, and Gregory sat close beside
her, his great blue eyes turned to the window where Lyndall leaned out
talking to Waldo.

Tant Sannie took two candles out of the cupboard and held them up
triumphantly, winking all round the room.

"He's asked for them," she said.

"Does he want them for his horse's rubbed back?" asked Gregory, new to up-
country life.

"No," said Tant Sannie, indignantly; "we're going to sit up!" and she
walked off in triumph with the candles.

Nevertheless, when all the rest of the house had retired, when the long
candle was lighted, when the coffee-kettle was filled, when she sat in the
elbow-chair, with her lover on a chair close beside her, and when the vigil
of the night was fairly begun, she began to find it wearisome. The young
man looked chilly, and said nothing.

"Won't you put your feet on my stove?" said Tant Sannie.

"No thank you, aunt," said the young man, and both lapsed into silence.

At last Tant Sannie, afraid of going to sleep, tapped a strong cup of
coffee for herself and handed another to her lover. This visibly revived
both.

"How long were you married, cousin?"

"Ten months, aunt."

"How old was your baby?"

"Three days when it died."

"It's very hard when we must give our husbands and wives to the Lord," said
Tant Sannie.

"Very," said the young man; "but it's the Lord's will."

"Yes," said Tant Sannie, and sighed.

"She was such a good wife, aunt: I've known her break a churn-stick over a
maid's head for only letting dust come on a milk cloth."

Tant Sannie felt a twinge of jealousy. She had never broken a churn-stick
on a maid's head.

"I hope your wife made a good end," she said.

"Oh, beautiful, aunt: she said up a psalm and two hymns and a half before
she died."

"Did she leave any messages?" asked Tant Sannie.

"No," said the young man; "but the night before she died I was lying at the
foot of her bed; I felt her foot kick me.

"'Piet,' she said.

"'Annie, my heart,' said I.

"'My little baby that died yesterday has been here, and it stood over the
wagon-box,' she said.

"'What did it say?' I asked.

"'It said that if I died you must marry a fat woman.'

"'I will,' I said, and I went to sleep again. Presently she woke me.

"'The little baby has been here again, and it says you must marry a woman
over thirty, and who's had two husbands.'

"I didn't go to sleep after that for a long time, aunt; but when I did she
woke me.

"'The baby has been here again,' she said, 'and it says you mustn't marry a
woman with a mole.'  I told her I wouldn't; and the next day she died."

"That was a vision from the Redeemer," said Tant Sannie.

The young man nodded his head mournfully. He thought of a younger sister
of his wife's who was not fat, and who had a mole, and of whom his wife had
always been jealous, and he wished the little baby had liked better staying
in heaven than coming and standing over the wagon-chest.

"I suppose that's why you came to me," said Tant Sannie.

"Yes, aunt. And pa said I ought to get married before shearing-time. It
is bad if there's no one to see after things then; and the maids waste such
a lot of fat."

"When do you want to get married?"

"Next month, aunt," said the young man in a tone of hopeless resignation.
"May I kiss you, aunt?"

"Fie! fie!" said Tant Sannie, and then gave him a resounding kiss. Come,
draw your chair a little closer," she said, and their elbows now touching,
they sat on through the night.

The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant Sannie's bedroom, she
found the Boer-woman pulling off her boots preparatory to climbing into
bed.

"Where is Piet Vander Walt?"

"Just gone," said Tant Sannie; "and I am going to marry him this day four
weeks. I am dead sleepy," she added; "the stupid thing doesn't know how to
talk love-talk at all," and she climbed into the four-poster, clothes and
all, and drew the quilt up to her chin.

...

On the day preceding Tant Sannie's wedding, Gregory Rose sat in the blazing
sun on the stone wall behind his daub-and-wattle house. It was warm, but
he was intently watching a small buggy that was being recklessly driven
over the bushes in the direction of the farmhouse. Gregory never stirred
till it had vanished; then, finding the stones hot, he slipped down and
walked into the house. He kicked the little pail that lay in the doorway,
and sent it into one corner; that did him good. Then he sat down on the
box, and began cutting letters out of a piece of newspaper. Finding that
the snippings littered the floor, he picked them up and began scribbling on
his blotting-paper. He tried the effect of different initials before the
name Rose: G. Rose, E. Rose, L. Rose, Rose, L.L., L.L. Rose. When he had
covered the sheet, he looked at it discontentedly a little while, then
suddenly began to write a letter:

"Beloved Sister,

"It is a long while since I last wrote to you, but I have had no time.
This is the first morning I have been at home since I don't know when. Em
always expects me to go down to the farmhouse in the morning; but I didn't
feel as though I could stand the ride today.

"I have much news for you.

"Tant Sannie, Em's Boer stepmother, is to be married tomorrow. She is gone
to town today, and the wedding feast is to be at her brother's farm. Em
and I are going to ride over on horseback, but her cousin is going to ride
in the buggy with that German. I don't think I've written to you since she
came back from school. I don't think you would like her at all, Jemima;
there's something so proud about her. She thinks just because she's
handsome there's nobody good enough to talk to her, and just as if there
had nobody else but her been to boarding-school before.

"They are going to have a grand affair tomorrow; all the Boers about are
coming, and they are going to dance all night; but I don't think I shall
dance at all; for, as Em's cousin says, these Boer dances are low things.
I am sure I only danced at the last to please Em. I don't know why she is
fond of dancing. Em talked of our being married on the same day as Tant
Sannie; but I said it would be nicer for her if she waited till the
shearing was over, and I took her down to see you. I suppose she will have
to live with us (Em's cousin, I mean), as she has not anything in the world
but a poor fifty pounds. I don't like her at all, Jemima, and I don't
think you would. She's got such queer ways; she's always driving about in
a gig with that low German; and I don't think it's at all the thing for a
woman to be going about with a man she's not engaged to. Do you? If it
was me now, of course, who am a kind of connection, it would be different.
The way she treats me, considering that I am so soon to be her cousin, is
not at all nice. I took down my album the other day with your likenesses
in it, and I told her she could look at it, and put it down close to her;
but she just said, Thank you, and never even touched it, as much as to say-
-What are your relations to me?

"She gets the wildest horses in that buggy, and a horrid snappish little
cur belonging to the German sitting in front, and then she drives out
alone. I don't think it's at all proper for a woman to drive out alone; I
wouldn't allow it if she was my sister. The other morning, I don't know
how it happened, I was going in the way from which she was coming, and that
little beast--they call him Doss--began to bark when he saw me--he always
does, the little wretch--and the horses began to spring, and kicked the
splashboard all to pieces. It was a sight to see Jemima! She has got the
littlest hands I ever saw--I could hold them both in one of mine, and not
know that I'd got anything except that they were so soft; but she held
those horses in as though they were made of iron. When I wanted to help
her she said, 'No thank you: I can manage them myself. I've got a pair of
bits that would break their jaws if I used them well,' and she laughed and
drove away. It's so unwomanly.

"Tell father my hire of the ground will not be out for six months, and
before that Em and I will be married. My pair of birds is breeding now,
but I haven't been down to see them for three days. I don't seem to care
about anything any more. I don't know what it is; I'm not well. If I go
into town on Saturday I will let the doctor examine me; but perhaps she'll
go in herself. It's a very strange thing, Jemima, but she never will send
her letters to post by me. If I ask her she has none, and the very next
day she goes in and posts them herself. You mustn't say anything about it,
Jemima, but twice I've brought her letters from the post in a gentleman's
hand, and I'm sure they were both from the same person, because I noticed
every little mark, even the dotting of the i's.

"Of course it's nothing