The Fire Trumpet Part 40

"And was that Claverton, too?" tranquilly asked the owner of the patronymic in question. For Jessie Garrett, who had also been with Armitage and Gertie, now arrived on the scene--having lingered behind a little--similarly adorned.

"What a mischievous fellow he is!" cried Jim's wife, who had just come up. "We ought to make him go without his dinner."

"Or duck him--he deserves ducking," put in Jessie Garrett. "Mr Claverton; can't some of you duck him?"

"Too hot for any such violent exertion," replied Claverton, nonchalantly, as he turned away, and sat down on the ground by the side of Lilian Strange, while old Garrett was heard to remark that "young fellers would 'ave their fun."

"Do you know, I'm a shocking bad waiter," he observed. "I invariably upset everything--cut over a wing of chicken into somebody's lap, or pour a tumbler full of liquid down their back, or shoot some one opposite bang in the eye with a soda-water cork."

"But to-day you won't do any of these things," laughed Lilian. "And you seem to have taken care of me pretty well."

"Have I? As a rule, on these occasions, I skulk in the background, and pretend not to know that people have begun to feed. Then, when they are well under weigh, some motherly soul spots me, and makes a descent upon me, singing out: 'Why, I declare, you haven't got anything. Do come and have some of this and of that, and so on;' and I find myself looked after as if I was the prodigal calf--prodigal son. I mean--same thing.

Thus the public back is saved from a baptism of soda-water, and I from making an a.s.s of myself, and every one's happy."

"Don't be so utterly absurd," said Lilian, laughing as if she could never stop.

"Here, I say, what's the joke over there, Claverton?" cried Armitage.

"Roll it down this end."

"I was only telling Miss Strange about you tumbling into the puddle yonder, Jack," answered he.

"Did he? When? How? Do tell us, Mr Claverton," cried Gertie Wray.

"Oh, hang it, that's not fair," growled he most concerned.

"Well, he and Hicks went fishing here one Sunday. They were told that only naughty little boys went fishing on Sunday; but anyhow they went, and so were bound to come to grief, and come to grief they did--at least one of them did. The other was spared that he might take warning by it.

Friend Jack, finding it slow, I suppose, lay down on that first flat rock and went to sleep, and--_presto_!--he found himself floundering in deep water."

"You weren't there," retorted Jack.

"_No_; else you would not have been here to-day, for I should have deserved well of the State by leaving you in the deep. But the story goes that Hicks was so immensely tickled by the circ.u.mstance as to be unable for some time to render any help to poor Jack, who in consequence was nearly drowned, for the rock is perpendicular, and high out of the water, as you see. My impression is, that Hicks, likewise, wae in the land of Nod; but if so, no historian was present to record the fact."

There was a laugh all round at Armitage's expense, and amid the clatter of knives and forks, and the popping of corks, conversation and chaff waxed high.

"By the way, did any one go up to the cave?" asked Mr Brathwaite, suddenly.

"No, I think not," replied Hicks. While others inquired: "What cave?"

"Why, the cave up yonder. It's a regular Bushman's cave. A lot of them used to live there; but the Dutchmen, who owned the place just below, polished off the last of them. That was during the '46 war. Some of their bones are there still, I believe; but it's a long time since I've been into it."

"That sounds interesting, but rather ghastly," said Lilian. "But why were they killed? Did they join the Kafirs in the war?"

"No. The Kafirs hated them almost more than the Boers did. But they're mischievous little devils, you see. One scratch of their poisoned arrows, and it was all up with you."

"Where is the place?" asked Claverton.

"Just a little way down the bend, there," pointing to the jutting wall of cliff. "There's a path leading up to it--a sort of cattle track--you ought to go and look at it. And there are a lot of regular Bushman drawings in the rock, which are rather curious things if you haven't seen them before. Take Miss Strange up to see them, she might like to make sketches of them."

For Lilian was an adept in the art of water-colour drawing, and had already portrayed much of the wild bush scenery in the neighbourhood, which had never before been reduced to paper.

"That would be so nice," she said. "I've brought my drawing things with me, too."

"Claverton, old feller," cried old Garrett. "We 'aven't 'ad a gla.s.s together all day; let's have one now."

"All right."

"That's it. Better late than never. 'Ere's my respects," cried the old chap, nodding; his rubicund countenance aglow with geniality--and grog.

"I suppose, Miss Strange," he went on, turning to Lilian, "you'd never 'ave thought we could get up such a pleasant little picnic in these out-of-the-way parts, would you?"

"Well, yes, I think I should, Mr Garrett," she replied.

"Aha, yes. I dare say 'e's bin putting you up to the ropes," went on the old fellow, leering and winking at Claverton, and speaking in a tone which he thought was the perfection of genial banter; but which made its object wildly long to shy a bottle at his head. Ordinarily he looked upon old Garrett with a kind of amused contempt; but to be made the b.u.t.t of his muzzy jests, that was quite another thing. So, completely ignoring him, he drew Lilian's attention to an effect of light and shade high above them on the cliff opposite.

"Now we'll make for the cave," he said, as, feeding operations over, pipes began to appear.

"Yes. I'll get my drawing things," answered Lilian, rising.

"Are you going up to the cave?" said Miss Smithson, a pretty, fair-haired girl, who lived in the neighbourhood and whom they saw a good deal of. "That'll be delightful--I should so like to see it. Mr Gough, will you come, too; there are some beautiful ferns up there?"

Gough a.s.sented, while Claverton inwardly anathematised poor Lucy Smithson, little thinking how unjustly, for she was really going out of her way to render him a service.

The four started. No one else seemed inclined to embark in the undertaking, having had enough knocking about at present, they said; old Garrett adding: "We old fogies don't feel up to climbing, so we'll just sit and 'ave a nice comfortable chat and a smoke."

"And a big drink," added Claverton, cynically, to his companion. "What an infliction that old fool can become!"

"He is rather overpowering," a.s.sented Lilian. "Who can the old fellow have been?"

"A bricklayer, most likely, or a clodhopper of some sort. These fellows save a little coin, or make a lucky venture at the Diamond Fields, and buy a farm, and then, there they are. There's precious little cla.s.s distinction here."

"I suppose so. But as the country gets more thickly settled, that'll all come."

"Yes. You see, in the old times when all these older men had to rough it together, and were dependent on each other for mutual help and defence, it was the smartest fellow who was made most of, irrespective of social grade. And these bricklayer chaps and journeymen were always in request, and could not only command high wages at any time, but didn't care what they did, so they made their pile quickly enough. In a few generations most of the cla.s.s distinctions of the old country will prevail here, as education and the importation of educated people grows.

As it is, the rising generation, if you notice, is better educated than its parents, and in many instances undisguisedly looks down on its grandparents."

"Yes, I've noticed that," said Lilian. "And my predilection generally lies with the old people, who, if somewhat uncultured, are kindness itself."

"And their very roughness makes them the fittest people to open up a new colony," went on Claverton. "Now look at that scowling fellow Jeffreys--how weary I am of his eternal scowl, by the way. Well, his grandfather would hardly have been taken on as valet to Mr Brathwaite's father in the old country, and yet here the Jeffreys mix with us as equals, and are among the most well-to-do people anywhere about. Isn't this shade delightful?"

For they were walking beneath a growth of ma.s.sive yellow-wood trees, whose great twisted limbs overhead shut out the sunlight, though here and there it struggled through and lay in a golden network on the ground. Ma.s.ses of lichen festooned from trunk and bough, and monkey ropes and trailers of every description hung here straight and cord-like, there tangled together in the most hopeless confusion. A gloom lay beneath the shadowing trees, but it was the softened gloom of a cathedral aisle; and the column-like trunks, firm and ma.s.sive, stood in rows along the coa.r.s.e of the stream which bubbled along--now in little clear pools, now brawling over a stony shallow.

"Yes, perfectly sweet," answered Lilian.

"Then, like all things to which that description applies, it isn't to last, for here we turn upward."

A ragged track, half path, half water-course, diverged from the stream, leading up the bush-covered hillside, steep as a flight of steps.

"Wait a minute," called out Lucy Smithson, who was overtaking them. "I don't think I'll go up after all. It's turned out so hot, and here we leave the shade. Do you mind, Mr Gough?" she added to her companion.

"But don't let me keep you from going, I can easily go back alone. It isn't far."