By Veldt and Kopje Part 8

Dumani, after an enormous meal of meat, lay down in his hut and slept for nearly forty-eight hours. Then he quietly resumed his herding of cattle. He still kept his own counsel; in fact it was not until after his marriage, several years subsequently, that he revealed how he came to save little Lucy from a horrible death. He married an extremely well-favoured damsel who dwelt at the location upon the adjoining farm, and his master contributed liberally towards the dowry. His wife drew the story from him bit by bit. She was too proud of her husband's achievement to keep it to herself.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MR BLOXAM'S CHOICE.

_One_.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang oft agley."

One summer evening in the early fifties, three wagons, each drawn by a team of twelve oxen, might have been seen descending the Zuurberg Pa.s.s, on the road leading from Grahamstown to Port Elizabeth. The heavy thumping of the lumbering, springless vehicles and the wild yellings of the uncouth names of the individual members of the teams--without which no self-respecting wagon-driver feels that he does his duty to his responsible post--no doubt scared the bushbucks and the monkeys for miles along the bush-covered range.

Each turn-out had a festive appearance; the vehicles were newly-painted, the "tents" were of the whitest canvas, and a stick, surmounted by the tail of an ox, was fixed vertically to each front yoke. Even the Hottentot drivers and leaders showed signs of the prevailing smartness, for their clothes had evidently been recently washed and their hats and veldschoens were new.

The wagons were nearly empty. In fact, with the exception of one, each contained nothing but a provision chest, a portmanteau and some bedding.

The exception contained, in addition, two gentlemen in their shirt-sleeves. Walking dejectedly some few yards behind it, was another gentleman, similarly denuded. It could be seen at a glance that all were ministers of the Gospel.

The pedestrian was the youngest of the three. He was a man of about thirty, with a somewhat tall and slight, but well-knit figure. His dark, handsome, clean-shaven face wore an expression of mingled sadness, apprehension and discontent. Of the two in the wagon the elder was apparently over forty-five. His smooth, red face had a jovial expression. The expanse of his forehead carried more than a suggestion of approaching baldness. With a figure short and rotund, his whole appearance was suggestive of the flesh-pots of Egypt.

His companion, who looked five or six years younger, was a spare-built man of middle height. He had thin lips, light-brown hair, steel-blue eyes and a reticent expression. He sat upright and gravely regarded the stout gentleman, who, comfortably propped by pillows, gave vent to the highest spirits and enlivened the situation by a succession of frivolous remarks and occasional s.n.a.t.c.hes of song.

These clerics belonged to a religious body which has done much useful work among both Europeans and natives in South Africa. Severally bachelors, they were now on their way to Algoa Bay with the intention of forthwith entering into the bonds of holy matrimony--for the ship bearing the three ladies who had agreed to share their respective hearths and homes had, after a prosperous voyage, reached port.

It will, of course, be understood that the parties to these alliances were absolute strangers one to another. Half a century ago the daughters of the land suitable as helpmeets to men in the position of ministers were scarce, and it was not uncommon for several ministers to request their particular Mission Society to select and send out to them suitable partners. All the parties had to sign an undertaking to the effect that they, individually, would conform to certain regulations governing the apportionment. Judged from a purely sentimental standpoint, the system may have had its disadvantages; there is, however, reason to believe that the results were, as a rule, satisfactory. It was not so popular with the younger as with the older men. It may well be imagined that the former would have preferred doing their own love-making to having it done for them by the Mission Board; but the princ.i.p.al reason was that upon the arrival of each batch of brides seniority carried the privilege of first selection, and thus the youngest and prettiest girls were apt to fall to the older men, and the younger a man was the more danger there was of his being obliged to wed some elderly lady of comparatively unprepossessing appearance. This was the reason of the perturbation noticeable in the rather handsome face of the Reverend Mark Wardley, the young man walking behind the waggon. He knew that, being junior of the three, he would have last choice--or rather no choice at all, for he would have to content himself with the lady deemed least attractive by his companions. There was, however, a special reason in this particular instance why the youngest of the three postulants at Hymen's shrine should feel the disadvantages of his position.

Similar conditions, no doubt, accounted for the exceedingly complacent and even radiant look which the rubicund countenance of the Reverend Peter Bloxam wore. He knew that as the eldest of the party he would have first pick, and he revelled in antic.i.p.ation accordingly. Both he and Mr Wardley had been confidently informed, through letters received by the previous mail, that one of the three ladies selected was a girl of extremely well-favoured appearance; and the friends who wrote on the subject gave to each respectively a very warm inventory of her charms.

Little was known of her antecedents, but this did not matter; the responsible position of a minister's wife was the mould in which her character would be formed--if it required formation--and each was quite prepared to take whatever risks there were in the matter. She was the orphan daughter of a minister who had died in India, and she had been reared and educated at the expense and under the supervision of the Mission Society.

Mr Bloxam smiled to himself as he thought of how he had cheated old Time, and chuckled with the liveliest satisfaction over the fact that he was no longer a young man. He was, as a matter of fact, very much in love with the girl he had never seen, or rather with the ideal he had formed from the written description. Exactly the same might be said of Mr Wardley.

The third postulant, the Reverend Samuel Winterton, appeared to take things very coolly. If he derived satisfaction from the fact that the right of second selection from the little flock of ewe lambs was his, such was more sober than enthusiastic. Ardour, except for the Kingdom of Heaven, had been left entirely out of his composition, and he was very much wrapped up in a somewhat narrow religion.

Mr Bloxam and Mr Wardley laboured at reclaiming the heathen, and dwelt at country mission stations; Mr Winterton had spiritual charge of a mixed congregation, and dwelt in a small country village in Lower Albany, which, as everybody ought to know, is inhabited by the descendants of the British settlers of 1820.

It was sundown when the drivers called a halt at a gra.s.sy glade on the bank of a clear stream which was fringed with mimosa and acacia trees.

Here the teams were "outspanned" and turned out to graze. Soon a fire was lit, mutton chops were grilled, tea was brewed, and the three lovers made a frugal repast. The only talkative one of the party was Mr Bloxam, whose tongue continually tingled with ponderous jocoseness that had a strongly Scriptural flavour. He rallied Mr Wardley on his subdued manner and his bad appet.i.te. Mr Winterton came in for a share in the chaff as well, but the shafts seemed to fall dead from the armour of his imperturbability. Mr Wardley, on the other hand, distinctly winced at every thrust, so there was far more fun to be got out of him.

"Come, Brother Wardley," said Mr Bloxam; "a contented mind is, I know, a continual feast, but it does not do to travel on--that is, by itself.

It will never do for you to arrive looking hungry. You must try and look your best, man. Eh, Winterton?"

Mr Winterton's mouth was too full to admit of his answering. Mr Wardley smiled uneasily, and helped himself to a chop, which he bravely attempted to eat.

"Just think of these three Roses of Sharon blooming for us, and soon to be transplanted to our homes," said Mr Bloxam, unctuously. "Wardley is, I am afraid, thinking of the thorns already. If, however, he had studied the botany of Scripture he would have known that Roses of Sharon have no thorns."

"I trust their ages may be suitable to ours," said Mr Wardley in a nervous voice. "It is so important in marriage that husband and wife be not too different in this respect."

"Scripture does not bear you out, brother," said Mr Bloxam in a positive tone. "Take the case of Ruth and Boaz, for instance; and we must not forget King David's having taken Abis.h.a.g the Shunamite to comfort him in his old age."

"You could hardly call Abis.h.a.g the wife of David," interjected Mr Winterton, whose knowledge of Scripture was precise.

"Quite so, quite so," said Mr Bloxam, airily, "yet she comforted him in his old age. The princ.i.p.al functions of the wife of a minister of the Gospel lie in a.s.sisting her husband in his duties and comforting him when the powers of evil seem temporarily to prevail against his efforts.

Now, a young woman, if she have the necessary dispositions, may be able to perform such duties effectively at the side of a man even considerably her senior."

"But," said Mr Wardley, with a touch of heat, "a young man also requires a helpmeet and a comforter, and surely one who--"

"Quite so, quite so; and you will get one, my brother. The hand of Providence directs us in these things, and we must pray for its guidance at this important juncture of our lives. As the eldest and most experienced I shall have the responsibility of making first selection.

Although I continually pray for guidance, I feel the responsibility a great burthen."

"If it weighs so heavily, why not let it rest on the shoulders of a younger man?" said Mr Winterton, who possessed a hitherto unsuspected sense of humour. "I have no doubt Wardley will feel equal to sustaining it."

"I a--fear that would hardly do," replied Mr Bloxam, as Mr Wardley looked up with a rather sickly smile. "You see, this practice of throwing the responsibility of first choice upon the senior is, no doubt, ordained for some wise purpose."

"In the sixth chapter of the First Book of Chronicles," said Mr Winterton, with a steely twinkle in his eye, "we read how certain cities were apportioned to the priests and Levites by lot. Now, it struck me that in a case of this kind, where the guidance of--"

"Brother Winterton," said Mr Bloxam, severely, "when a practice such as this has, so to speak, been 'made an ordinance in Israel,' no minister should dare to think himself justified in departing from it. I shall certainly follow the course laid down by wiser men than myself. In making the choice I shall be guided by the light which I have prayed may be vouchsafed to me, and if by means of that light I see unmistakable signs of a--that is, if I, as it were, see the finger of Providence pointing out any particular lady as the one most suitable as a partner, I shall not allow such a trivial consideration as mere youth on her part to deter me from following the path of duty."

At this Mr Wardley set down on the ground his plate with the hardly-tasted chop and gazed into indefinite distance with an extremely doleful expression. Mr Winterton went on eating his supper with a countenance of inscrutable gravity.

Soon after supper the two elder men laid themselves down to sleep--Mr Bloxam to dream of the black eyes, the rosy lips, and the girlish graces which, he fondly hoped, were going to turn the near-approaching winter of his years into a halcyon spring. Mr Winterton was neither delighted nor disturbed by dreams. He had a good conscience, an excellent digestion, and Nature had not blessed or cursed him with an imagination.

Mr Wardley climbed the steep side of the hill at the base of which the wagons were outspanned, for a short distance, and then sat down on a stone and gazed at the thrilling sky, from which the veil of haze was now withdrawn. His heart was heavy with foreboding, and the same eyes, lips, and youthful, feminine graces which gilded the visions of Mr Bloxam brought him the pains of Tantalus. He sat thus until the mocking, sentimental promise of the unarisen moon filled all the west, and then he fled back to the wagons to try and escape from the burthen of his thoughts.

At next morning's dawn the sleepers were aroused, and the oxen stepped forward with the unladen wagons lightly as though treading the flowery path of Love.

_Two_.

Five days previous to the opening of this story the Reverend Josiah Wiseman, with Louisa, his wife, stepped down from the parsonage on "The Hill," to the jetty at Port Elizabeth, immediately after the good ship _Silver Linings_ of Leith, cast anchor in the roadstead, and engaged the services of a boatman to convey them to the vessel. The day was fine and the sea was smooth, or else Mrs Wiseman would never have trusted herself even on this, the fringe of the great waters. She was one of those motherly parties who never become old in heart or feeling, and consequently never cease to take an interest in the love-affairs of their acquaintances. Neither the forty-eight years of her life nor her ma.s.sive bulk had tamed her sprightliness or dimmed her merry eye. She had looked more or less the same for the past twenty years; even her increase of size had been so gradual that, however striking her portly presence may have been to strangers, her husband and her intimate acquaintances did not notice it as being anything remarkable. She had come gently down the hill of Time like a s...o...b..ll rolling down a gradual slope and continually gathering accretions without altering much in general appearance. Her only child, a girl, had died in its infancy many years previously, and the unexpended motherhood of her nature seemed to expand and envelop every girl in love, or about to marry, in its sympathetic folds. She had come out in her youth under circ.u.mstances similar to those of the three ladies sent out as brides for the ministers whose acquaintance we have made, and who were pa.s.sengers by the _Silver Lining_. These damsels were to be her guests until their marriage, and she was now on her way to welcome them.

As the boat drew near the vessel's side, the bright, pretty face of a young girl, who was gazing intently at the sh.o.r.e, might have been seen above the rail. She had very large, dark eyes, brown wavy hair, rosy cheeks, and a mouth like a rosebud in a hurry to blossom. Add to the foregoing a stature rather below the middle height, a neatly turned figure and remarkably pretty feet and hands, and you have a fairly recognisable portrait of Miss Stella Mason, the delineation of whose charms had already impressed the middle-aged but inflammable heart of the Reverend Peter Bloxam and filled the sentimental bosom of the Reverend Mark Wardley with hopeless woe.

Sitting together under an awning aft of the companion hatch were two austere-looking damsels of uncertain age, who, in spite of considerable diversity of appearance, might have been taken for sisters, so much did they resemble each other in dress, deportment and expression. Each had a book of a highly moral tone lying open upon her discreet lap, and was reading therein in ostentatious disregard of what minds less absorbed by the higher spheres of morality would have considered the interesting prospect afforded by this, the first glimpse of the land which was to be their future home. They had, as a matter of fact, already taken a good look at the sh.o.r.e from their cabin windows; but now the abiding abstract principles that governed their circ.u.mspect lives again claimed their attention to the exclusion of unimportant detail.

They both wore dresses of brown linsey, b.u.t.toned very high at the throat, and black straw hats innocent of all but the very simplest of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. Their white, rather bony hands were skirted by immaculate cuffs. The elder of the two, Miss Lavinia Simpson, had light-brown hair, brushed smoothly back from a high forehead, and her longish upper lip protruded over a somewhat receding chin. Her face was pale and narrow, and she wore spectacles over eyes of an indeterminate hue. Her companion, Miss Matilda Whitmore, had hair of a darker shade of brown, and wide, light-blue eyes. Her face was broad and her cheekbones rather high. The thin lips of her pursed mouth strongly suggested a potatoes, prunes, and prism training. These ladies seemed to exhale an atmosphere of uncompromising and aggressive virtue.

Mr Wiseman ascended the companion ladder and introduced himself. Mrs Wiseman's courage failed her at the prospect of an ascent, so she remained in the boat, where the three strangers were duly presented to her, after being handed over by the captain's wife. The boat then returned to the sh.o.r.e, and the party climbed the hill to the hospitable threshold of the Parsonage.

It soon became apparent that Miss Mason had been, so to say, sent to Coventry by the other two, for they kept a marked physical and moral distance from her. Mrs Wiseman from the first felt drawn towards the young girl, and the friendly expression of this impulse was at once resented by the others, who stiffened up and formed themselves into a defensive alliance, which suggested possibilities of becoming offensive as well.

The fair Stella, however, did not appear to be chilled in the slightest degree by the cold shoulders turned towards her by her companions on the road to Hymen's shrine, for she chatted in the friendliest manner with Mr and Mrs Wiseman, made herself quite at home at the Parsonage, and appeared to turn up her pretty little nose at the proper airs of the others. These, as a matter of fact, had been highly scandalised at what they considered a flirtation between her and the second mate of the _Silver Linings_ and even gone the length of remonstrating with her on the subject of her frivolity. The second mate was a muscular young Scotsman named Donald Ramsay; with him Stella had struck up a perfectly innocent friendship, but the severe virtue of Lavinia and Matilda had received such shocks from what they imagined to be the real state of affairs, that it became like erected porcupine quills whenever she approached. Mrs Wiseman soon saw what the true drift of things was, so she lodged the two elder ladies in one room and put Stella by herself in another.

The post for Grahamstown was timed to leave next morning, so Mr Wiseman retired to his study and wrote to the three expectant ones, informing them of the arrival of the _Silver Lining_ with her precious freight, after a prosperous voyage.

After the ladies had retired to their respective chambers kind Mrs Wiseman wrapped herself in a loose dressing-gown of heroic proportions, and wandered forth in search of gossip. She first tapped lightly at the door of the room occupied by Lavinia and Matilda. She heard a whispered colloquy going on inside, but there was no response to her knock. Then she turned the handle, with the idea of opening the door and thus saving her guests the trouble of getting up, in case they were already in bed.

She found, however, that the key had been turned in the lock, so she stole thankfully away to Stella's room. A faint "Come in," uttered in a voice that strongly suggested tears, reached her through the panel, and she entered, to find the girl, whose previous manner had been as that of one without a single care, flung on the bed, with her face buried in the pillow, and sobbing as though her heart were breaking. The motherly sympathy of the women went out to the desolate girl, and she folded her to a breast where loving kindness and bulk were in proportions of like vastness.