The Fire Trumpet Part 21

In due course the shearers arrived, and all being ready, operations were begun at once. No more long rides or bushbuck bants or anything of the kind, time was too valuable; and for about three weeks Mr Brathwaite and his two lieutenants had their hands full in superintending and otherwise furthering that most important phase of farm routine-- shearing; and from rosy morn till dewy eve, and often till late within the latter, were they strictly on duty.

Yes, those were busy times indeed. There were the Fingo shearers to be set to their work and kept to it, wool bales to be pressed and sewn up, rationing to be attended to, and a hundred and one things, large or small, to tax the mind and employ the hand. Moreover, a sharp eye had to be kept on the natives aforesaid, lest in their laudable anxiety to make the largest possible tally, they should inflict grievous bodily harm upon the animals under operation, and haply remove the cuticle as well as the fleece. But those there employed were old hands at the craft, and gave no trouble to speak of. They would clip away by the hour, chatting among themselves in that seemingly disjointed way wherein these people are wont to exchange gossip. Now and then they varied the pastime by humming a barbarous tune on about three notes, whose terrible monotony would be distracting were it not that the ear gets accustomed to the wretched crooning, even as to the hum of a threshing machine or the ticking of an obtrusive clock, but through this, as through all other sounds, the clip, clip, clip of the shears went steadily on, from morning till night, from day to day.

"I've just had another letter from Lilian Strange," said Mrs Brathwaite, one evening towards the close of the busy time above mentioned.

"What does she say?" asked the old settler, who was nodding in a roomy arm-chair, tired with the heat and exertion of the day.

"She says she won't be able to come to us this week after all, because the McColls have put off their start. She may have to wait another ten days in consequence."

"H'm. Don't know that it isn't just as well. It would have been difficult to send for her during shearing time--means two days away from home. Hicks might have gone to fetch her, or Arthur, but they are both wanted here. Naylor's busy, too, and so is Jim. Yes, it's just as well, as things go."

"She thinks she will have an opportunity in about a fortnight, which will save us the trouble of sending."

"Well, that's better still. Besides, who's going to bring her?"

"She doesn't say," answered Mrs Brathwaite. "She only promises to let us know."

To one, at least, of the auditors of this dialogue, the postponement of the expected guest's arrival was not a source of unmixed grief. That one was Ethel. She would not own to herself that so commonplace a failing as jealousy had anything to do with it; still the fact remained that they were all very jolly together as it was. "Two's company, three's a bore," applies in principle to circles, and now it was horribly likely that this Miss Strange would be, from Ethel's point of view, _de trop_. Her aunt had spoken in warm terms of the other's beauty and attractiveness. But Ethel herself was conscious of the possession of a larger share of those commodities than most people. Had the other been of the colourless and inane order she could have tolerated her--bore as she might be. As matters stood, however, it was not in feminine human nature that Ethel should be prepared to welcome the unexpected guest with open arms.

"What has become of Arthur?" asked Mrs Brathwaite, as they sat down to supper.

"Oh, he'll be here in a minute," said Hicks. "I left him yarning with Xuvani. He says the old chap's teaching him Kafir, and I'll be hanged if ever I knew a fellow pick it up so quickly. He didn't know a word when he came here, but Xavani says he must have really, and was keeping it dark. He let drop two or three idiomatic expressions which showed that he must have known something about the language or the structure of it."

At that moment the door opened, admitting the object of their discussion.

"Late, I'm afraid," he said, sliding into his place. "That long-legged humbug, Ntyesa, swore he had left his jacket in the shearing-house, and I had to go and unlock it again for him. Awfully sorry."

"Mr Claverton can't tear himself away, even at half-past eight," said Ethel, maliciously. "He will soon be quite glued to the wool bales."

He glanced up with an amused look. "While there is light, there is work--in shearing time," he replied.

"Bother shearing time!" rejoined she, pettishly. "I wish you'd be quick and finish it. We can't get about at all, because there's no one to take us. Laura and I have wanted to go over to Thirlestane, and to Jim's, and a host of places, but we can't. We are just as much shut up in here as you are in there. Aren't we, Laura?"

"Ha--ha--ha," laughed her uncle, with whom she was a prime favourite, and who spoilt her outrageously. "You'd better come and give us a hand, Ethel. You and Laura. We shall get it over ever so much sooner then.

You shall have six shillings a hundred. Eh?"

"They oughtn't to have more than five, because they don't bring their own shears," cut in Hicks.

"They've got nail-scissors, though," murmured Claverton.

"Ah, I could see you were going to say something horrid," cried Ethel.

"There are those two sparring again," was Laura's comment, "as usual."

Now there was a good deal more underlying Ethel's impatience with the shearing time than appeared on the surface. It deprived them of their usual escort on their journeyings abroad, even as she had said, and with her own particular body-guard on those occasions she found herself less and less able to dispense. And yet, as her sister had just remarked, they two were always at daggers-drawn. She had begun by cordially detesting this man, as she thought. In reality, there had been more of resentment than of dislike in the matter. She had resented his coolness, his utter indifference to her charms, his way of treating her like a spoilt child; laughing at her petulance, and turning off her most pointed shafts on an impenetrable shield of mild satire, mingled with surprised amus.e.m.e.nt. She, Ethel Brathwaite, at whose shrine, when she shone in the society of the capital, all crowded and fell down and worshipped, to be thus treated! She counted, among her sworn admirers, more than one whose name was in many mouths, who boasted much-prized decorations, well and fairly won, and yet here on the distant frontier this man, whom, in reality, no one had ever heard of, treated her with a sort of good-humoured indulgence! And in spite of it--shall we not rather say, because of it?--she was not angry with him. It was a new thing to find one who, instead of looking up at, if anything, looked down to her; and to the wilful little beauty the change was positively refreshing. Then how helpless she had been in his hands on one or two occasions--that of the storm, for instance, and the subsequent terrifying episode--and he had not been wanting. There were many men within and without the circle of her admirers whom she could snub capriciously and ruthlessly tyrannise over, but Arthur Claverton was not one of them, and this she knew full well. And now she had discovered that his society was becoming very necessary to her, and what had forced that discovery irresistibly upon her mind was the announcement, two weeks ago, of the arrival of a new character upon the stage whereon she and one other were the chief actors. Verily it seemed to Ethel as if a bomb had emanated from that harmless-looking postbag, and was destined shortly to explode in their midst.

Then had come the shearing, and, except on Sundays, from dawn till dark, Mr Brathwaite's two lieutenants found the whole of their time taken up.

In the middle of the day they would come in, by turns, to get their dinners, but it was a case of off again directly after. No more long rides home in the twilight, or quiet strolls in the sunny afternoon, at least not for some time to come, and then--another would have appeared on the scene, thought Ethel, with a dire presentiment that those times which now she looked back on with a sinking kind of regret would never come round again. Will it be better for her--for both of them--if they do not? We shall see.

She is looking bewitchingly pretty to-night as she sits throwing her bright shafts of laughter and mockery at those around, and at Claverton in particular--at the latter, indeed, to such an extent as to call forth Laura's remark. But a very close observer might have detected a kind of latent wistfulness beneath the brilliant, lively manner, and only then if he had specially looked for it.

"So you have been trying your hand at shearing, I hear, Mr Claverton?"

she said.

"I have."

"How did you get on, and how did you like it?" asked Laura.

"Hicks will best tell you how I got on. As for liking it, the occupation would be a wholly delightful one had a beneficent Providence but seen fit to arrange the small of one's back upon hinges. By the way, Armitage wasn't here to-day, was he? We could have sworn we heard that laugh of his; couldn't we, Hicks?"

"No; he hasn't been here--and a good thing too," rejoined Mr Brathwaite. "He'd only have got playing the fool, or something. He carries that habit of his rather far at times. You heard what he did over at Naylor's the year before last?"

"No. What was it?"

"Well, Naylor was hard at work with his shearing, and one day, in turning out a lot of old hurdles to fence in the yard with, they came upon a snake--a thundering big ringhals--and killed it. Jack Armitage dropped in just afterwards, and Edward showed him the snake, rather crowing over having killed such a big one. Jack said nothing at the time, but a little while after, when they were all in the shearing-house, they heard a yell, and a big black brute of a ringhals came scooting in among them all, and there stood that villain Jack in the door, grinning and chuckling, and nearly splitting his sides with laughter."

"The beggar!" said Claverton. "Did he scare them?"

"Didn't he! You never saw such a commotion as it made. The shearers gave one 'whouw,' dropped their sheep, and made for the door with a rush--they're mortally afraid of a snake, you know--and there were sheep rushing about the place half shorn, and kicking against the shears which the fellows had let drop, and making a most infernal clatter. And the n.i.g.g.e.rs were all crowding to get out, and raising a hubbub, and all the rest of it. The worst of it, though, was that they got so mad that they one and all struck work--flatly refused to come back--and it was some time before Naylor could persuade them to."

"The mischief! And what did Jack do?"

"Do? Jumped on his horse and rode away, laughing fit to kill himself.

Naylor was very savage with him though, and now he vows he won't have Jack on the place at shearing time, not at any price. By the way, that long fellow, Ntyesa, was one of them. You ask him to-morrow if he remembers the snake in the shearing-house."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

LILIAN.

"There. I'm quite ready now. I'm so sorry if I have delayed you, and I fear I have."

"Not at all. We are starting in very good time as it is, and have the whole day before us."

The place is the drawing-room of an hotel in Grahamstown; the time, rather early in the morning; and the first of the two speakers, a tall, beautiful girl, who has just finished fastening together two or three articles of light hand-baggage as the second enters to tell her that the conveyance is all ready at the door. She wears a close-fitting dress of cool white, which, though making her appear taller, sets off to the fullest advantage a graceful, undulating figure. Waves of dark hair, touched, as it were, with a glint of bronze, half conceal the smooth brow, and the beautiful oval face, with its straight, delicately-chiselled features, is most killingly and becomingly framed in a large garden hat, lined with soft lace. The eyes are of that difficult-to-determine hue which is best defined as green hazel, and a sensitive curve about the lips imparts to the whole face a tinge of melancholy when in repose. In fact, there is a trifle of coldness about its normal expression. But when it lights up--when its owner smiles--as she now does very sweetly upon him, who is to be her travelling companion and escort throughout that day--then its charm becomes dangerous, so inexpressibly captivating is it.

"_Is sweetly pretty, and has the loveliest eyes I ever saw_," had been Mrs Brathwaite's dictum. And Claverton there and then mentally acquitted the old lady of one jot of exaggeration as his glance rested for the first time upon Lilian Strange when she entered the room prepared for the journey--fresh, cool, and in all the composure of her stately beauty. She greeted him perfectly naturally and unaffectedly, and apologised for delay, real or imaginary, as we have seen.

He had called at the hotel the evening before, to deliver a note from Mrs Brathwaite, and to inform Miss Strange in person about her journey.

In the latter object he was disappointed. Miss Strange sent down a message, apologising for being unable to see him, on the ground of fatigue. She would, however, be quite ready to start at the hour named.

And Claverton, beyond a slight curiosity to inspect one who would be for a considerable time an inmate of the same household as himself, didn't care one way or another. Miss Strange would be there all right on the morrow, and he meanwhile would go and look up a friend at the very poor attempt at a club which the city boasted.

He had expected to see a pretty girl, possibly a very pretty girl, but nothing like this. As it has been said, he was not a susceptible man.

In point of fact, he rather looked down on the fair s.e.x, a few individual members of it excepted. Yet now, as he handed his charge into the light buggy which stood waiting at the door, he was conscious of an unwonted quickening of the pulse. Not then was he able to a.n.a.lyse the subtle fascination of her beauty and of her manner, the extraordinary charm of her voice--such a voice as it was, too; low, rich, musical; the kind of voice that could not by any possibility have belonged to a plain woman.

"Thanks; they are not in my way in the least," said that bewildering voice as Claverton was making impossible efforts to move certain parcels in the bottom of the trap--impossible, because of the very limited s.p.a.ce afforded by the confines of a buggy--at the same time keeping a firm hand on the rather fresh pair of horses which were bowling down the street at a fine pace. Early as it was, the streets were filling with traffic; huge loads of wool on buck-waggons from up the country crawling in behind their long spans of oxen; farmers' carts and buggies; hors.e.m.e.n; and everywhere the inevitable native, male and female.