The Story of an African Farm Part 17

"Phugh!" said Tant Sannie. "It's only because we're not accustomed to such noses in this country. In his country he says all the people have such noses, and the redder your nose is the higher you are. He's of the family of the Queen Victoria, you know," said Tant Sannie, wakening up with her subject; "and he doesn't think anything of governors and church elders and such people; they are nothing to him. When his aunt with the dropsy dies he'll have money enough to buy all the farms in this district."

"Oh!" said Trana. That certainly made a difference.

"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only forty-one, though you'd take him to be sixty. And he told me last night the real reason of his baldness."

Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age, Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady. How a deadly rival, jealous of his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a d.a.m.nable and insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How, applying it in the evening, on rising in the morning he found his pillow strewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the gla.s.s, beheld the shining and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The few remaining hairs were turned to a silvery whiteness, and the young lady married his rival.

"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace of G.o.d, and reading of the psalms, he says he would have killed himself. He says he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman and she won't."

"Alle wereld!" said Trana: and then they went to sleep.

Every one was lost in sleep soon; but from the window of the cabin the light streamed forth. It came from a dung fire, over which Waldo sat brooding. Hour after hour he sat there, now and again throwing a fresh lump of fuel on to the fire, which burnt up bravely, and then sank into a great bed of red coals, which reflected themselves in the boy's eyes as he sat there brooding, brooding, brooding. At last, when the fire was blazing at its brightest, he rose suddenly and walked slowly to a beam from which an ox riem hung. Loosening it, he ran a noose in one end and then doubled it round his arm.

"Mine, mine! I have a right," he muttered; and then something louder, "if I fall and am killed, so much the better!"

He opened the door and went out into the starlight.

He walked with his eyes bent upon the ground, but overhead it was one of those brilliant southern nights when every s.p.a.ce so small that your hand might cover it shows fifty cold white points, and the Milky-Way is a belt of sharp frosted silver. He pa.s.sed the door where Bonaparte lay dreaming of Trana and her wealth, and he mounted the ladder steps. From those he clambered with some difficulty on to the roof of the house. It was of old rotten thatch with a ridge of white plaster, and it crumbled away under his feet at every step. He trod as heavily as he could. So much the better if he fell.

He knelt down when he got to the far gable, and began to fasten his riem to the crumbling bricks. Below was the little window of the loft. With one end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist, how easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the broken panes, and to go in, and to fill his arms with books, and to clamber up again! They had burnt one book--he would have twenty. Every man's hand was against his--his should be against every man's. No one would help him--he would help himself.

He lifted the black damp hair from his knit forehead, and looked round to cool his hot face. Then he saw what a regal night it was. He knelt silently and looked up. A thousand eyes were looking down at him, bright and so cold. There was a laughing irony in them.

"So hot, so bitter, so angry? Poor little mortal?"

He was ashamed. He folded his arms, and sat on the ridge of the roof looking up at them.

"So hot, so bitter, so angry?"

It was as though a cold hand had been laid upon his throbbing forehead, and slowly they began to fade and grow dim. Tant Sannie and the burnt book, Bonaparte and the broken machine, the box in the loft, he himself sitting there--how small they all became! Even the grave over yonder.

Those stars that shone on up above so quietly, they had seen a thousand such little existences fight just so fiercely, flare up just so brightly and go out; and they, the old, old stars, shone on forever.

"So hot, so angry, poor little soul?" they said.

The riem slipped from his fingers; he sat with his arms folded, looking up.

"We," said the stars, "have seen the earth when it was young. We have seen small things creep out upon its surface--small things that prayed and loved and cried very loudly, and then crept under it again. But we,"

said the stars, "are as old as the Unknown."

He leaned his chin against the palm of his hand and looked up at them.

So long he sat there that bright stars set and new ones rose, and yet he sat on.

Then at last he stood up, and began to loosen the riem from the gable.

What did it matter about the books? The l.u.s.t and the desire for them had died out. If they pleased to keep them from him they might. What matter?

it was a very little thing. Why hate, and struggle, and fight? Let it be as it would.

He twisted the riem round his arm and walked back along the ridge of the house.

By this time Bonaparte Blenkins had finished his dream of Trana, and as he turned himself round for a fresh doze he heard the steps descending the ladder. His first impulse was to draw the blanket over his head and his legs under him, and to shout; but recollecting that the door was locked and the window carefully bolted, he allowed his head slowly to crop out among the blankets, and listened intently. Whosoever it might be, there was no danger of their getting at him; so he clambered out of bed, and going on tiptoe to the door, applied his eye to the keyhole.

There was nothing to be seen; so walking to the window, he brought his face as close to the gla.s.s as his nose would allow. There was a figure just discernible. The lad was not trying to walk softly, and the heavy shuffling of the well-known velschoens could be clearly heard through the closed window as they crossed the stones in the yard. Bonaparte listened till they had died away round the corner of the wagon-house; and, feeling that his bare legs were getting cold, he jumped back into bed again.

"What do you keep up in your loft?" inquired Bonaparte of the Boer-woman the next evening, pointing upwards and elucidating his meaning by the addition of such Dutch words as he knew, for the lean Hottentot was gone home.

"Dried skins," said the Boer-woman, "and empty bottles, and boxes, and sacks, and soap."

"You don't keep any of your provisions there--sugar, now?" said Bonaparte, pointing to the sugar-basin and then up at the loft.

Tant Sannie shook her head.

"Only salt, and dried peaches."

"Dried peaches! Eh?" said Bonaparte. "Shut the door, my dear child, shut it tight," he called out to Em, who stood in the dining room. Then he leaned over the elbow of the sofa and brought his face as close as possible to the Boer-woman's, and made signs of eating. Then he said something she did not comprehend; then said, "Waldo, Waldo, Waldo,"

pointed up to the loft, and made signs of eating again.

Now an inkling of his meaning dawned on the Boer-woman's mind. To make it clearer, he moved his legs after the manner of one going up a ladder, appeared to be opening a door, masticated vigorously, said, "Peaches, peaches, peaches," and appeared to be coming down the ladder.

It was now evident to Tant Sannie that Waldo had been in her loft and eaten her peaches.

To exemplify his own share in the proceedings, Bonaparte lay down on the sofa, and shutting his eyes tightly, said, "Night, night, night!" Then he sat up wildly, appearing to be intently listening, mimicked with his feet the coming down a ladder, and looked at Tant Sannie. This clearly showed how, roused in the night, he had discovered the theft.

"He must have been a great fool to eat my peaches," said Tant Sannie.

"They are full of mites as a sheepskin, and as hard as stones."

Bonaparte, fumbling in his pocket, did not even hear her remark, and took out from his coat-tail a little horsewhip, nicely rolled up.

Bonaparte winked at the little rhinoceros horsewhip, at the Boer-woman, and then at the door.

"Shall we call him--Waldo, Waldo?" he said.

Tant Sannie nodded, and giggled. There was something so exceedingly humorous in the idea that he was going to beat the boy, though for her own part she did not see that the peaches were worth it. When the Kaffer maid came with the wash-tub she was sent to summon Waldo; and Bonaparte doubled up the little whip and put it in his pocket. Then he drew himself up, and prepared to act his important part with becoming gravity. Soon Waldo stood in the door, and took off his hat.

"Come in, come in, my lad," said Bonaparte, "and shut the door behind."

The boy came in and stood before them.

"You need not be so afraid, child," said Tant Sannie. "I was a child myself once. It's no great harm if you have taken a few."

Bonaparte perceived that her remark was not in keeping with the nature of the proceedings, and of the little drama he intended to act. Pursing out his lips, and waving his hand, he solemnly addressed the boy.

"Waldo, it grieves me beyond expression to have to summon you for so painful a purpose; but it is at the imperative call of duty, which I dare not evade. I do not state that frank and unreserved confession will obviate the necessity of chastis.e.m.e.nt, which if requisite shall be fully administered; but the nature of that chastis.e.m.e.nt may be mitigated by free and humble confession. Waldo, answer me as you would your own father, in whose place I now stand to you; have you, or have you not, did you, or did you not, eat of the peaches in the loft?"

"Say you took them, boy, say you took them, then he won't beat you much," said the Dutchwoman, good-naturedly, getting a little sorry for him.

The boy raised his eyes slowly and fixed them vacantly upon her, then suddenly his face grew dark with blood.

"So, you haven't got anything to say to us, my lad?" said Bonaparte, momentarily forgetting his dignity, and bending forward with a little snarl. "But what I mean is just this, my lad--when it takes a boy three-quarters of an hour to fill a salt-pot, and when at three o'clock in the morning he goes knocking about the doors of a loft, it's natural to suppose there's mischief in it. It's certain there is mischief in it; and where there's mischief in, it must be taken out," said Bonaparte, grinning into the boy's face. Then, feeling that he had fallen from that high gravity which was as spice to the pudding, and the flavour of the whole little tragedy, he drew himself up. "Waldo," he said, "confess to me instantly, and without reserve, that you ate the peaches."