A Veldt Official Part 6

"Can't do it, unfortunately," said Roden. "Got to go back to office."

But the other accepted with alacrity, though it is I probable that the venatorial side of the programme is not, if the truth were known, const.i.tute the most attractive part. All the time they were at table he had been making the most of his opportunities, apparently to some purpose, for when they got up, and Mona declared she had some shopping to do, with her went Lambert in close attendance.

Although continuing to dine at Jones' dubious board, Roden had so far carried out his project that he had secured for himself a tiny red brick cottage, which boasted two rooms and a kitchen, with a back yard and stable. It was large enough for him, however, and he promptly proceeded to make himself comfortable therein, in a modest sort of way. Hither, having bidden good-bye to the Suffields, without waiting to see them inspan, he adjourned, and, in company with a solitary pipe, fell into a train of thought.

The first thing was to stifle a strong inclination to reconsider Suffield's proposal. It was not too late now. His pony was only grazing on the town commonage hard by; he could have him brought in less than half an hour. And then came the thought that the motive of this was not the prospect of sport, and the conviction was an unwelcome one.

As we have said, he had already seen a good deal of Mona Ridsdale.

There was something about her that attracted him powerfully. What was it? He was not in love with her; the bare idea that he might ever become so stirred him uncomfortably. She was a splendid creature, a physical paragon, but love! ah, that was another thing. Besides, what had he to do with love, even were he capable of feeling it? That sort of blissful delusion, veiling Dead Sea ashes, was all very well when one was young; which he no longer was. His life was all behind him now, which made it perhaps the more easy to start again almost where others left off. The modest salary wherewith the Colonial Government saw fit for the present to requite his services, did not const.i.tute his sole means of existence; he possessed something over and above it, though little, and all combined gave him just enough to get along with a moderate degree of comfort. And as his thoughts took this practical turn, the a.s.sociation of ideas caused him to rise suddenly in disgust.

It was time to be doing something when his meditations landed him in such a slough of grotesque idiocy, and with that intent he went straight away to his office.

But times were easy just then. He wrote a couple of official letters, and took down the deposition of a lanky Boer with a tallow countenance, adorned by a wispy beard, who, amid much expectoration and nervous shifting of his battered and greasy wide-awake from one hand to another, delivered himself of a long and portentous complaint against a neighbour, for rescuing by force certain cattle, which his servants were driving to the nearest pound. Then, having satisfied this seeker of redress, with the a.s.surance that justice would overtake the footsteps of the aggressor in the shape of a summons, and thus got rid of him, Roden took down two or three of the office volumes and set to work to study a little statute law, in which occupation he was presently disturbed by the cheery, bustling step of Mr Van Stolz.

"Well, Musgrave, not much doing!" cried the latter, perching himself on the side of the table and relighting his pipe. "What's this?" picking up the official letters. "'With reference to your circular--um--um-- asking for a return of--um--um--' Those d.a.m.n circulars! Every post we get about twenty of them. Return! They'll soon want a return of the number of b.u.t.tons each official wears on his shirt,"--signing the letters. "What's this? Another complaint? 'Pound rescue,--Willem Cornelia Gerhardus Van Wyk.' One of the biggest liars that ever trod G.o.d's earth. I've fined him over and over again for licking his n.i.g.g.e.rs or trying to do them out of their pay or something; and you'll see him in church on Sunday with a face as long as a fiddle; he's one of the 'elders,' too. He'll have to come in and swear this, though."

"He said he couldn't wait, sir, but he'll be in the first thing to-morrow, before court time."

"Oh, that'll do just as well, as I wasn't here, I say, Musgrave, old boy, we'll shut up shop and go for a walk. Got your pipe with you? Try some of this tobacco. Yes, we may as well take it easy while we can; we shall have enough to do next week with the monthly returns."

So away they started, leaving the little baked-mud town behind them; away over the open veldt, with its carpet of wax blossoms, lying beneath the slopes of the great hills which stood forth all green and gold in the afternoon sun.

"What do you think of the new doctor, Musgrave?" said the magistrate at last, as they were discussing things and people in general.

"Lambert? H'm! Well, strictly between ourselves--not much."

"Not, eh? I thought he seemed a nice fellow."

"I don't want to prejudice anybody against him, far from it; but I've noticed that between two given people there often exists an antipathy at sight. Now, Lambert may be a decent fellow enough in the main; but between him and me that antipathy exists."

He did not add that from unerring signs he had taken the measure of the subject under discussion, and that that measure was as mean as mean could be.

"You don't take to Lambert, then?"

"No. But I know nothing against him, and so it wouldn't be fair to say anything against him on the score of a mere instinctive dislike."

"How is it you didn't go out to the Suffields this afternoon, Mr Musgrave?" said the magistrate's wife as, having returned from their walk, they were sitting on the _stoep_ awaiting dinner--for with characteristic geniality his official superior had insisted upon Roden considering himself on a "run-of-the-house" footing.

"I don't know," was the reply. "There was something to be done at the office, I suppose, or perhaps I felt lazy."

Mrs Van Stolz laughed. She was a pretty, dark-eyed woman, also of Dutch extraction, as amiable and sunny-natured as her husband.

"Oh yes, of course," she retorted mischievously. "But Miss Ridsdale was consoling herself with the new doctor--at any rate, as they drove past here. He'll cut you out, Mr Musgrave, if you don't take care. But, seriously, how do you like her on further acquaintance?"

"Oh, we seem to get along fairly well. Fight without ceremony, and all that sort of thing."

"And make it up again. Take care, Mr Musgrave; she's dangerous. Poor Mr Watkins completely lost his heart."

"Well, I haven't got one to lose, Mrs Van Stolz; so I'm safe."

"I don't know. I've already heard in two quarters that you are engaged to her."

"Hardly surprising, is it? I believe we have been seen twice in the same street. That would be more than enough for Doppersdorp."

"Don't you let the new doctor cut you out," she rejoined merrily.

"He has the advantage of youth on his side, at any rate," responded Roden. And thus the conflict of chaff went on.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE VERDICT OF DOPPERSDORP.

Notwithstanding the exalted opinion of it professed by its inhabitants, the interests of Doppersdorp were from the very nature of things circ.u.mscribed. They embraced, for the most part, such entrancing topics as the price of wool, the last case of a.s.sault, ditto of water rights-- for the burgesses of Doppersdorp were alike a pugnacious and litigious crowd--the last Good Templar meeting, and the number of liquors Tompkins, the waggon builder, could put away without impairing his centre of gravity; whether Macsquirt, the general dealer, would bring his threatened libel action against the _Doppersdorp Flag_--a turgid sheet of no apparent utility, save for enveloping a bar of yellow soap-- that leader of public opinion having referred to him as "an insignificant 'winkler'" (i.e., small shopkeeper), instead of "that enterprising merchant," and whether he would succeed in obtaining a farthing of damages or costs from its out-at-elbows proprietor and editor, if he won--such, with slight variation, were the topics which exercised the minds and the tongues of this interesting community from year's end to year's end. Such a variation was afforded by the arrival of two new and important members in its midst. Upon these Doppersdorp was not slow to make up its mind, and whether foregathered in council and the bar of the Barkly Hotel, or secure in the privacy of home circle, hesitated not to express the same in no halting terms.

Now, the collective mind on the subject of Roden Musgrave was adverse.

His demerits were of a negative order, which is to say that his sins had been those of omission rather than of commission, and, as was sure to be the case, had rendered him unpopular. Who was he, Doppersdorp would like to know, that he shut himself up like an oyster, as if n.o.body was worth speaking to? though the possibility that the motive attributed to the bivalve delicacy might be wide of the mark did not occur to the originator of this felicitous simile. His predecessor, young Watkins, had been hail-fellow-well-met with everybody; was, in fact, as nice a young fellow as they could wish--and here Doppersdorp unwittingly answered its own indignant query.

Roden Musgrave had no idea of being "young Anybody" to d.i.c.k, Tom, and Harry, or hail-fellow-well-met--i.e., on terms to be patronised by the various ornaments of Doppersdorp society, shading off in imperceptible gradations to the local tailor, whom he would be obliged to indict nearly every Monday morning for having overstepped the limits of public order during the Sat.u.r.day night's "spree," and been run in by the police therefor. He had a wholesome belief in the old proverb regarding too much familiarity, seeing in it a happy application to a man holding the post he did in such a place as Doppersdorp. Wherein his reasoning was sound; but the collective sense of the community opined differently, and was wont to p.r.o.nounce with graphic, if somewhat profane indignation, that the new magistrate's clerk mistook himself for his omnipotent Creator, and, in fact, wanted taking down a peg.

Not all, however, were of this opinion: his official chief, for instance, as we have seen, and perhaps two or three others, among them the retiring District Surgeon, Lambert's predecessor, a somewhat cynical, at bottom, though on the surface rollicking, kind of individual. He to Roden, while making his adieux: "We are sure to tumble up against each other again somewhere, Musgrave, but one consolation is that it couldn't be among a set of more infernal scoundrels than we shall leave behind us here, as you'll find out by the time you get a quarter of my experience of them." Which caustic delivery Roden was at no pains to controvert, feeling sure that it covered a large substratum of truth. Indeed, he was not long in suspecting that to the dictum of Lambert's predecessor there was every possibility Lambert might contribute, in his own person, his full share of confirmation.

But whatever Roden's opinion of the new doctor, it was not shared by the community at large. Lambert possessed all those qualities calculated to make him "go down" in a place like Doppersdorp. He was young and energetic--he had a certain breezy geniality of manner, and was very much hail-fellow well-met with all cla.s.ses. Doppersdorp opened its arms and took him to its heart. He soon became as popular as the other was the reverse.

But, for his own unpopularity Roden Musgrave cared not a rush. He was not over eager to court the doubtful honour of being voted a "reel jolly good chep," by d.i.c.k, Tom, and Harry, as the price of his self-respect.

His ambition did not lie that way. In private life he was not given to the exchange of shoulder slaps, or jocose digs in the ribs, or other genialities in the way of horseplay dear to the heart of that surprising trinity; nor in his official capacity was he inclined to wink at certain preposterous swindles, which the honest pract.i.tioners of Doppersdorp were wont to plant upon their clients in the form of "bills of costs,"

which latter it was his business to tax, nor would he connive at any undue laxity in the matter of taking out licences, or other omissions which might fall within his sphere. So, officially and socially, he found scant favour in Doppersdorp.

He was seated in his office one day, doing some routine work, when the door was flung open unceremoniously, and a voice demanded angrily in German English--

"What is dis--what is dis?"

Roden looked up. "Dis" consisted of a sheet of blue paper, partly printed, partly written upon, and held out between a finger and thumb of doubtful cleanliness. At the other end of the uncleanly finger and thumb was an ordinary-looking individual of Teutonic and generally unwholesome aspect, bearded, and his poll thatched with a profusion of dark bush. This worthy held the office of postmaster at Doppersdorp--an office whose emolument was not great. Still it was something. Anybody ambitious of incurring Sonnenberg's enmity for life had only to hint at his being of Hebraic extraction, and indeed, if only from the horror in which he affected to hold such suggestion, it is highly probable he was.

For the rest he had all the self-conceit of the average Teuton, who has made, or is making, a fair success of life.

"What is dis--what is dis?" he repeated in a tone tremulous with rage, flinging the paper upon the table. Roden picked it up.

"A summons," he said, glancing down it. "A summons, citing one Adolphus Sonnenberg (that's yourself, isn't it?) to appear before the Resident Magistrate on Monday next, for neglecting to comply with the Revenue Acts, in keeping a retail shop without a licence. Perfectly correctly drawn, I think," looking up inquiringly. "Eh, what? 'd.a.m.ned impudence'

did you say? Well, yes. I'm inclined to agree with you. It is--on the part of a man who gets a civil reminder more than a week ago that he is liable to penalties, and treats it with contempt until he is summoned in due course, then comes bursting in here and kicks up a row, with no more regard for the laws of decent behaviour than for those of his adopted country. Yes. I quite agree with your definition of it. Anything more?"

This was said blandly--suavely. The other was bursting with rage.

"Anything more?" he bellowed. "Plenty more. Wait till I see Mr Van Stolz about it. We've known each other for years. See if he'll see me insulted by a twopenny-halfpenny magistrate's clerk."

"Quite so. He'll be here by-and-by. Meanwhile, kindly leave my office."

"I shall leave when I choose," was the defiant rejoinder.