A Secret of the Lebombo. Mitford Bertram
now what I always say. It is time we had a Missis here. What is a farm without a Missis? It is like a schuilpaad (tortoise) without a shell.” And she went out, chuckling, to re-appear in about a minute with the rejected tray.
“Nouw ja! that is where Klein Missis’ place ought to be,” began old Sanna, pointing to the other end of the table. “But the Baas piles it up with rubbish and paper, and all sorts of stuff only good to collect dust and tarantulas. But he will have to make room for you soon there, Klein Missis. How soon?”
“Don’t you ask questions, old Sanna,” answered the girl with a laugh. “Meanwhile I prefer sitting here, nearer. We needn’t talk so loud then to make each other hear, do you see?”
The old woman’s yellow face puckered into delighted wrinkles. She was not altogether free from the failings of her race, but she had a very real and motherly affection for Wyvern, and would in all probability have gone through fire and water for him if put to the test.
“Mind you make the coffee extra well to-day, old Sanna,” called out Wyvern, as she turned back to the kitchen.
“Now help me, darling,” said the girl, as they sat down to table. “It is delightful, being all to ourselves like this. Isn’t it?”
“Heavenly,” he answered, dropping a hand upon hers, to the detriment of any speedy compliance with her last injunction. “But how did you manage to get away alone?”
“Father’s gone to a sale at the Krumi Post. He won’t be back till to-morrow.”
Wyvern’s face clouded.
“Has he? That accounts for it. Do you know, dearest, he seems to have changed towards me. Not over anxious for you to see too much of me in these days. Well, I know what that is going to mean.”
“Hush – hush! I am going to have some serious talk with you presently, but – not now. At table that sort of thing interferes with digestion I believe.”
Wyvern dropped his knife and fork, and looked at her fixedly.
“That means – trouble,” he said, a world of bitterness in his tone and face.
“No – no. It doesn’t. Perhaps quite the reverse. So be reassured! – and trust me. Now tell me. What have you been doing with yourself since we last met?”
“Oh, trying to put more of the too late drag on the coach that is whirling down the hill to its final crash.”
“No – no. Don’t talk despondently,” she said. “I want to think of you as strong – and despondency is not strength. You have me and I have you, does that count for nothing?”
“Good Lord, but you make me feel mean. Come now, we’ll throw off this gloomy talk,” with a sudden brightening that was not all forced, so stimulating was the effect of her presence, so soothing that of her love-modulated voice.
“That’s right. Now, what have you been doing with yourself?”
“The latest is that I had a sort of adventure this morning. I caught Sixpence ‘slaag-ing,’ caught him red-handed. There was another schelm in it with him.” And he told her the whole incident.
The colour heightened in her cheeks as she listened, and her eyes were opened wide upon his.
“But they would have killed you, the wretches,” she exclaimed.
“Such was their amiable intent. I believe it will take even Sixpence’s thick skull some little while to get over that stone I let him have.”
“Pity you didn’t kill him,” said the girl, fiercely; and meaning it too.
“No, dearest. Think again. Are times not hard enough in all conscience, without having to meet the costs of a trial for manslaughter, for that’s about what it would have meant. What? ‘Self defence?’ That might not have counted. There were no witnesses, and they’d have tried to make out I did it because I was mad with him for ‘slaag-ing.’”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of it in that light. Well, I should think the magistrate will let him have the ‘cat’ and plenty of it,” she added, vindictively.
“No, he won’t. I’ve concluded to let the poor devil off. I’ll deduct the value from his wages – it’s quite illegal of course, but far more satisfactory to both parties, in that it saves trouble all round – and the crack on the head he got can balance the rest of the account.”
The girl looked at him, a whole world of admiring love shining in her eyes. Then she shook her head.
“That’s quite wrong. You’re spoiling the people, you know. In fact you’re putting quite a premium on ‘slaag-ing.’ But you will do everything your own way and different to other people. Well, it wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”
“Which is an extenuating circumstance, I suppose, sweetheart,” he answered, dropping a hand on to hers. “And now, if we’ve done, I move that we go and continue this debate upon the stoep.”
Chapter Three.
“Light Through the Gloom…”
We have said that in purchasing Seven Kloofs, as his farm was named, Wyvern had been largely moved by a sense of its beautiful site, and it certainly had that redeeming feature. Now as these two sat there on the stoep, a fair and lovely panorama lay spread forth before them. The house was built on the slope of a hill, and, falling away in front, lay miles and miles of undulating veldt, now of a young and tender green – for the season had been a good one – alternating with darker patches of bush, and the lighter green, still, of the feathery mimosa. While beyond, walling in the river valley at some miles distant, ran a lofty ridge, far as the eye could see, stern with stately cliffs, alternating with the ruggedness of rock and boulder which crowned the height. Behind the homestead a network of dark and bushy kloofs interseamed the hills on that side; which, if a very Alsatia for mischievous wild animals, furnished a compensating element in affording sport to the owner – and his neighbours – in their periodical destruction.
Nor were the voices of Nature stilled in the sensuous glory of the unclouded sunlight. The strange call of strange birds echoed unceasingly, blending with the cheery whistle of the familiar spreeuw, ubiquitous in his sheeny flash from bough to bough, and the far-off, melodious call of the hoepoe, in the dusky recesses of bushy kloofs. Dove notes, too, in ceaseless cooing, and the shrill, noisy crow of cock-koorhaans was seldom stilled, any more than the murmuring hum of bees and the screech of crickets; but Nature’s voices are never inharmonious, and all these, and more, blended to perfection in a chorus of praise for a spring-reviving world.
“No – that is too far from you, dearest,” objected the girl, as Wyvern dragged forward the most comfortable of the cane chairs for her in the vine-trellised shade of the stoep. “Now, you sit there, and I’ll sit – here,” flinging down a couple of cushions beside his low chair, and seating herself thereon so as to nestle against him. “Now we shall be quite comfy, and can talk.”
She had taken from his hand the pouch from which he had begun to fill his pipe, likewise the pipe itself. This she now proceeded to fill for him.
“Aren’t you afraid of quite spoiling me, darling?” he murmured tenderly, passing a caressing hand over the soft brown richness of her abundant hair. “Would you always do it, I wonder?”
She looked up quickly.
“‘Would you,’” she repeated “Oughtn’t you rather to have said ‘Will you’?”
“My sweet grammarian, you have found me the exact and right tense,” he answered, a little sadly, wondering if she really had any approximate idea as to how badly things were going with him.
“That’s right, then. This is getting quite worn out,” examining the pouch. “How long ago did I make it? Well, I must make you another, anyhow.”
“That’ll be too sweet of you.”
“Nothing can be too sweet to be done for you.”
If it be doubted whether