By Veldt and Kopje Part 15

"I suppose ye found the roads awfu'; that's ane o' the things we've to put up wi' here--havin' oor bones mashed when we travel. But a sense o'

duty's a graund thing to gie ye patience."

Allister remained silent, so Benson replied--"Yes, we got a bit b.u.mped.

The road is certainly not a credit to whoever is responsible for keeping it in order. That last drift, after you descend the hill beyond the trees, is a proper boneshaker."

Mr Mactavish glared. He happened to be responsible for the state of this particular drift, and he looked upon certain repairs recently there effected as a triumph of engineering skill.

At the conclusion of supper, Mr Mactavish, with an attempt at geniality, invited the strangers to accompany him to the residence of the Princ.i.p.al of the Inst.i.tution, the Rev Mr Campbell. The visitors were ushered into a sitting-room which was furnished and decorated with exceedingly good taste. Mr Campbell was a widower, and childless. His niece, Jeanie, a girl of nineteen, kept house for him. Benson felt a certain mild curiosity as to what Jeanie Campbell was like. She had been described to him as being a remarkably pretty girl.

Mr Mactavish sat nervously on the edge of a chair which was slightly higher than the others and gazed intently at the closed door. Benson and Allister examined the engravings with which the walls were decorated. Suddenly and noiselessly the door opened and Jeanie entered with smiling face and outstretched hand.

"How do you do, Mr Mactavish--and you are Mr Benson, I'm sure. Oh, there is no need to introduce us. And Mr Allister, welcome to Rossdale.

I knew you had both arrived, and was most anxious to see you. How good of you to come over at once."

Benson for once found the reality transcend the ideal he had formed.

Jeanie was remarkably pretty. She had a beautiful figure, with nearly perfect hands and feet. Her eyes were steel-grey, bright with vitality and full of expression; her hair was dark, plentiful and wavy. As is usual in the case of South African girls, her colouring was somewhat wanting in tone, but her skin was smooth and clear and her lips red and tempting. Her mobile face seemed to be constantly changing its expression.

Mr Mactavish shifted his feet, cleared his throat and behaved generally like a nervous schoolboy. He more than once struggled to speak but found the effort beyond his strength. All this amused Benson and Allister vastly. It could be seen at a glance that the elderly boarding-master was in love with the girl, and Benson was fairly dazzled by the possibilities of amus.e.m.e.nt which the situation promised. He looked at Jeanie and happened to intercept a lightning-like glance from her. She could see that Benson had rightly gauged the situation and a double flash of sympathetic electricity pa.s.sed between them.

"I'm hopin', Miss Jeanie, that your tea-meetin' at the Girls' School was a successful one," said Mr Mactavish. This remark suggested, as it were, the mouse brought forth by the mountain, it was so utterly trivial as compared with the labour and trepidation which preceded it.

"Oh," answered Jeanie, lightly, "it was not either more or less dissipated than usual. Do you like tea-meetings, Mr Benson?"

"It depends, of course, upon who one meets and who pours out the tea.

Don't you think so, Mr Mactavish?"

"Oor tea-meetin's have a purpose," said Mr Mactavish, severely; "they are a feature in oor method o' educatin' and civilisin' the natives."

"In Scotland they're talkin' o' suppressin' tea-meetin's by statute,"

said Allister, with a look at Jeanie, "they gie such occasions for unG.o.dly gossip amang the weemen."

"Oor tea's flavoured wi' the sugar o' Christian charity and the milk o'

human kindness," retorted Mr Mactavish, sternly.

Just then the door again opened and Mr Campbell, the Princ.i.p.al, entered.

He was a big, red-bearded man with bushy eyebrows. Jeanie very prettily introduced the strangers to him, and he soon was deep in conversation with Allister, who knew several of his friends in Scotland.

Benson crossed the room and took a low seat close to Jeanie. Mr Mactavish evidently regarded this proceeding with disapproval, for he turned his chair slightly, so as to get the girl and her companion out of the range of his vision, and took an apparently absorbing interest in the conversation of the others.

"You are a Colonist, are you not?" asked the girl.

"Yes," replied Benson, "I hope you don't object."

"Object? I should think not. Good gracious! If they had sent two more Scotsmen here I should have run away and become an hospital nurse or a..."

"Were you going to say 'barmaid'?" asked Benson, sinking his voice.

"How--how did you know?" gasped the girl.

"Sympathetic intuition, I suppose. But why do you object to Scotsmen?

I thought you were Scotch yourself."

"Mr Benson, if you ever dare to say such a thing again, we shall quarrel. Because you were born in South Africa are you a Hottentot? I happened to be born in Scotland, but you can hardly blame me for a thing that happened when I was so very young; I was only a year old when I came away. No, I am a Cape Colonist; I have breathed Cape air and eaten Cape food ever since I was a baby. In fact, I'm just Cape from head to foot."

"I'm very glad to be able to sympathise with you, for I happen to be very fond of the Cape myself, but just now will you satisfy a perhaps impertinent curiosity by telling me why you object so much to Scotch people?"

"You will know, without being told, before you have been here many months. One does not object to leg of mutton, or even pumpkin on the table now and then. But suppose you were to be fed, say, on pumpkin for breakfast, dinner and supper, including entrees and dessert, every day for several years, you'd long for a change of diet, would you not?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Scotch people are very good indeed, 'unco' guid' in fact--and no one would dispute the fact did they not carry inscriptions of their virtues printed all over them in large letters. And then--the way they run down everything South African. What puzzles me is, why they ever left their own superior country. I'm sure we could manage our own affairs well enough without them."

"Well, for my part," replied Benson, "I have liked most of the Scotch people I have met. I must, at the same time, own it to be evident that when the individual prayed 'Lord, gi'e us a guid conceit o' oorsels,'

not alone must the prayer have been literally granted, but it must have been put up on behalf of the whole nation."

On the way homeward Benson tried to draw Mr Mactavish into conversation, but without success. Allister was unwontedly silent. He had, as he said, been "takin' notes."

As a matter of fact, the boarding-master was not at all pleased at the evident pleasure Jeanie had shown in Benson's society. Mr Mactavish was badly in love; he scented untoward complications. For a long time he had been hovering on the brink of a proposal, and, although Jeanie had never given him the least encouragement, his "guid conceit" made him as sanguine of acceptance as ever was the Laird o' c.o.c.kpen.

Mr Mactavish was the senior member of the Inst.i.tution staff--so far as length of service went. He had seen Princ.i.p.als come and Princ.i.p.als go, but since the birth of the Inst.i.tution there had been but one boarding-master, and his name was Mactavish. Consequently, he had come to regard the fortunes of the establishment as being bound up with his own personality. As a matter of fact none of the various Princ.i.p.als had ever properly a.s.serted himself; each had tacitly acquiesced in the dour boarding-master's a.s.sumption that he was the pivot upon which the whole organisation revolved.

He now determined upon making both Benson and Allister feel the full weight of his authority. Benson he would tackle first.

"Ye'll begin your wark i' the mornin'," said he to Benson as they separated for the night.

"Oh, we'll see. Perhaps I'll take a day off and look around the place before putting on the collar."

"We're no idlers here; you'll hae plenty o' time to look around after school hours."

Benson had to bite his lip to prevent himself from telling Mr Mactavish with emphasis to mind his own business. But he was not an ill-natured fellow, and, having gauged the boarding-master's feelings towards Jeanie correctly, had no difficulty in ascribing this churlishness to its true source.

After all, Benson took over his cla.s.s next day. The teacher whose place he was taking was anxious to leave at once, and could only do so on condition of Benson's foregoing his "day off." Mr Mactavish quite mistakenly took the circ.u.mstance as indicating submission to his authority.

The cla.s.s numbered some forty boys, their ages ranging between eleven and fifteen years. Benson was agreeably surprised at the tone of the school. The lads were fairly intelligent, and discipline had been well kept up. But he noticed that the names, rather than the sense of things taught, were retained, that memory was quite out of proportion to understanding. However, the boys were evidently anxious to learn, and the schoolroom was lofty, commodious and well lighted. Benson felt as though he were going to enjoy his work.

At noon he went over to his room; he met Allister on the way.

"I've been takin' a walk round," said the latter, "and have had a long talk wi' Maclean, the carpenter. He's just burstin' wi' gall an'

general information. Losh! but doesn't he hate Mactavish."

"Well, let me have some information without the gall. I want to know as much as possible about these people."

"Man, but we'll have lots o' fun. It appears that Mactavish is in love wi' young Jeanie, and both Miss Mellish and Miss Angus are in love with Mactavish. But these are trifles. The main thing is that the place has been groanin' under Mactavish's tyranny for ever so long; all is ripe for a revolution. Losh! but it's a Christian community."

"Well," replied Benson, "I, for one, will not join in any revolution. I have my own work to do; I'll take care no one interferes with that. But I mean to lead a quiet life if they will let me."

"I'm thinkin' ye'll have to tak' sides. 'Whoso is not wi' us is against us' is a very philosophical text. Are ye goin' to fish?"