Aletta Part 3

"There would be every excuse, wouldn't there?" he answered, entering into the joke, and, moreover, hugely amused, remembering that almost the last words May had spoken to him had been to chaff him about these very girls, and now almost their first words had been to chaff him about her.

"You ought not to say that in our presence," said Andrina, with a mimic pout.

"Of course not. But if you had not interrupted me I was going to add--'but for the fact of the propinquity of Ratels Hoek and the entrancing but utterly perplexing choice of counter-attractions it affords.'"

"Why will you make those girls talk such a lot of nonsense, Mr Kershaw?" laughed Mrs De la Rey. "They always do whenever you come here. I declare you are making them very dreadful."

"Didn't know I exercised such influence over the young and tender mind.

It isn't I who do it, Mrs De la Rey. It's Adrian there. Depend upon it, he is the delinquent."

Now Adrian was a good-looking, well-set-up young fellow, who, his fiery "patriotism" notwithstanding, had his clothes built by an English tailor and talked English fluently. Indeed, in the De la Rey household it was spoken almost as frequently as the mother tongue, and the above conversation had been carried on about equally in both languages, gliding imperceptibly from one to the other and back again.

"Adrian? Why, there isn't a grain of fun left in Adrian these days,"

said Condaas, mischievously. "See how solemn he looks. I believe he thinks about nothing but fighting the English."

"Well, we have just ridden two solid hours together, and he didn't want to fight me," said Colvin.

But the young "patriot" was not enjoying this form of chaff, for he turned away, indignantly muttering to the effect that some matters were too high and too great to be made fun of by a pair of giggling girls.

"Now we have made him _kwaatj_," said Andrina. "See now, I'll get him to laugh again." Then, raising her voice, "Adrian! Adrian! wait. I want to stroll round the garden with you and hear about The Cause."

"That has made him more _kwaat_ than ever," whispered Condaas; for the badgered one, who had hesitated, turned away again with an angry jerk, scenting more chaff on his sacred subject. Andrina looked knowing.

"Adrian!" she hailed again--"Wait. I want to tell you about Aletta.

Really. You know, I heard from her yesterday."

The effect was magical, also comical. The affronted "patriot" stopped short. There was no irresolution now about his change of front.

"Come, then," he said.

With a comical look at the other two, Andrina tripped off, and that she had satisfactorily carried out her stated intention was manifest by the animated way in which they appeared to be conversing.

"That drew him," chuckled Condaas. "You know, Mr Kershaw, he was awfully mashed on Aletta the last time she came home."

"Condaas, what sort of expressions are you using?" said her mother reprovingly. "I don't know where you learnt them, or what Mr Kershaw will think."

"Why we learnt them from him, of course, Ma," replied the girl. "You don't suppose we picked up that kind of thing from the very solemn old maid you got for us as English governess."

"Not from me. Maybe it was from Frank Wenlock," said Colvin, who was speculating how the object of their present merriment could pa.s.s by the charms of Andrina, who was undeniably a pretty girl, in favour of her elder sister. The latter he had never seen. She had been absent in Cape Town, at school or with relatives, ever since his own arrival in that part of the country, but there were photographic portraits of her, decking the wall of the sitting-room and the family alb.u.m. These, to his impartial eye, conveyed the impression of rather a heavy-looking girl, at the awkward stage, with bunched-up shoulders and no pretensions whatever to good looks. To be sure, he had heard a great deal on the subject of the absent one, her attainments and attractiveness, but such he unhesitatingly attributed to family bias.

Struck with a sudden idea, he moved into the sitting-room, and casually, as it were, drew up in front of a framed portrait which stood upon the piano.

"That is the latest of Aletta," said Condaas, who had followed him in.

"She sent it up to us only a post or two ago; since you were here."

"So?"

He bent down and examined it intently. It represented a girl of about nineteen or twenty. The idea of awkwardness conveyed by the other portraits was no longer there, but in looks he failed to detect any improvement Aletta De la Rey was plain, a.s.suredly plain, he decided.

"_Oh, goeije_! here come a lot of people," exclaimed Condaas. "The 'Patriot,' I suppose."

A rumbling sound was audible, drawing nearer and nearer. Both made for the window. A cavalcade of Boers was approaching the house, and in the midst, as though escorted by it, moved the white tent of a Cape cart.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE CONVERSION OF STEPHa.n.u.s DE LA REY.

A striking contrast no less than a striking personality was offered by the two leading figures in this group as Stepha.n.u.s De la Rey advanced to welcome his noted visitor. Both were fine types of their nationality and cla.s.s--the one calm-faced, reposeful, with the air of a thoroughly contented and prosperous man; the other bright-eyed, restless, alert, with the nervous rapidity of movement of one existing in a state of chronic tension. The greeting between the two was cordial enough, and there was much handshaking, as the others, to the number of a round dozen, dropped in by twos and threes.

"Why, who is this?" exclaimed the delegate, a shade of distrust coming into his face as he shook hands with Colvin Kershaw--for among Boers the ceremony of introduction is but seldom performed. "An Englishman, I believe?"

"That is so, Mynheer Botma. And one who is very proud to make the acquaintance of so famous and gifted a man as yourself," replied Colvin, who spoke the _taal_ very fairly well.

The delegate shot a keen glance at the speaker, then he became quite cordial. He hated the English, but it suddenly occurred to him that this particular Englishman had a look of one who might be turned to some account. Accordingly he engaged him in conversation, during which Colvin adroitly contrived to insinuate that his sympathies were all with the Transvaal cause, and that for the person of Oom Paul in particular he entertained feelings of the profoundest admiration.

"That is good," said Jan Grobbelaar, showing his tusks approvingly. "We were having much talk about this only last evening, brother," Turning to the delegate: "Colvin is a neighbour of mine. He is not like other English."

Whether the object of this comment was gratified thereby or not, he made no sign; but one result of the voucher thus made was that the a.s.sembled Boers, to most of whom he was well known, conversed with far less restraint--both then and during the course of the evening. And the burden of their conversation was confined well-nigh entirely to the very strained relations then existing between the Transvaal and the suzerain Power, and what was going to be done upon the final and certain rupture thereof.

Not much was said during the evening meal, and that little was mainly confined to local and farming matters and the prospects or the reverse of a speedy rain. The Boer guests fell to with a will, and did ample justice to the springbuck stew and other delicacies of the veldt as there set forth in abundance; for Mrs De la Rey had antic.i.p.ated just such an inroad as had taken place. Moreover, she was a model housewife, and possessed of wonderful Dutch recipes of old-time Cape and Batavian origin, and within her domain here were none of the insipid and over-sweetened dishes which prevailed in the ordinary and rougher cla.s.s of Boer household. After supper--when pipes were in full blast, in such wise, indeed, that it was hardly possible to see across the room--it was not long before the subject engrossing all minds came to the fore.

"_So_, Colvin. _You_ smoke Transvaal tobacco, then?" said one young Boer with a wink at his neighbours, and affecting surprise.

"Rather, Marthinus. Why not?"

"Why, because you're an Englishman, to be sure."

"Ha-ha. But then, Marthinus, I happen to be an Englishman who smokes what he likes. And I like Transvaal tobacco. Shall I tell you what else I like? I like _dop_. So just send along that decanter that's at the other side of Barend Van Zyl's elbow, will you?"

There was a great laugh at this, and Barend Van Zyl aforesaid made believe to withhold the decanter on the ground that its contents might impair the speaker's patriotism. It led to a lot of chaff with regard to the political situation, some of which, albeit good-humoured, was keen enough to have thrown some Englishmen, Frank Wenlock, for instance, into a real fighting rage. This one, however, was made of different stuff. It didn't ruffle him in the least. Moreover, he knew that they were merely "taking the measure of his foot."

"And they say that we can't shoot any more, we young ones," said another Boer. "I saw it in a Cape English newspaper which Piet Lombard had sent him. They say that we are all going off in our shooting, and are good for nothing; that we cannot bring down game like out fathers could."

"_Maagtig_! but they are liars, those English newspaper men," a.s.sented somebody else. "_Nee wat_. I would like to get the miserable ink-squirter who wrote that, and make him run at five hundred yards from my Martini. We would soon show him whether we young ones are so _sleg_."

"Hallo, Marthinus, that's a little too loud," cut in Colvin Kershaw with a laugh. "Why, man, how about that old springbuck ram I saw you miss twice running that shoot we had at Tafelfontein at the end of last season there, _oerkant_, by the vlei? He wasn't a step over four hundred yards. Come now, what would you do with your runaway man at five hundred?"

"That's true," a.s.sented Marthinus a little crestfallen. Then brightening up: "But then the English newspaper man would be running too hard. _Ja, kerelen_. Now, an English newspaper man _would_ run!"

"Do you know how I was taught to shoot, Colvin?" asked a wiry, middle-aged Boer with a long light beard, pushing his tobacco bag made of dressed buckskin across to the Englishman. "When I was eight years old my father used to put a loaded rifle into my hand. It was a muzzle-loader--we had no Martinis or Mausers in those days. _Maagtig_-- no. He didn't give me a second charge for reloading either. He would start me out into the veldt at daybreak, and if I returned without having shot a buck I got no breakfast. Then he would start me off again, and if I returned a second time without having shot a buck I was allowed some dinner, but first of all I got plenty of 'strop.' Then I was turned out again, and if I failed again I got still more 'strop,'

and went to bed without any supper. But it was not more than two or three times that happened. _Nee, kerelen_! Well, that is the way to teach a youngster to shoot."

"That's all very well, Izaak," replied Colvin; "but it might be the way to teach some youngsters not to shoot. The fact of knowing they hadn't another chance might get upon their nerves and make them miss."

But the other, whose name was Izaak van Aardt, and who was known amongst his neighbours as second to none for a sure and deadly game shot, only shook his head, unconvinced.

"But," struck in the young Dutchman who had started the chaff about the Transvaal tobacco, "it is only English youngsters who have nerves. Boer youngsters have no nerves." And he winked at the others as at first.