Wild Honey Part 26

"Ach!" The old man spat scornfully, took from his pocket a stumpy bit of rolled tobacco, pitch-black in colour, and began to cut it into shreds using the palm of his hand for the operation. The stoep table was dark with tobacco juice and roughened by innumerable tiny cuts from this very business of tobacco cutting; but he always used his hand when he was preoccupied.

His vague eyes had long ago, at three miles' distance, distinguished that which Chrissie now descried crawling up the sloping land in clouds of red dust.

"A flock of sheep," she reported, "about fifty.--Some goats--Eight cows, two little calves, three mules--"

"A herd of rubbish belonging to that _pat-looper_ [Road-footer] Carol Uys, sure as a gun," grunted old man Retief.

"It looks like his Kaffir Jim driving them," Chrissie agreed. "And there is a man on horseback coming up behind."

"The _pat-looper_ himself no doubt. Coming to try and sell his broken-down beasts to me."

"Ach! Pa, you know you got the red heifer from him, and that pair of mules Farnie Roos offered you 30 pounds for last week."

"_Maar_! They were not worth 30 pounds when I took them from Carol Uys."

"No, and you did not give him 30 pounds for them! Sis, Pa, you must be fair, then, but!"

Chrissie's eye was sparkling. She could not keep her feet still. She was entranced at the prospect of seeing Carol Uys, who was one of her suitors. He was the least prosperous of them, and her father was always crying out upon him, for a _pat-looper_ because he had to augment his poor income by going about and doing a little cattle dealing, but she liked him better than Piet van der Merwe, or big Farnie Roos. She was not in love with any of them, but she was very much in love with love and life, was Chrissie, and could not help a little bubble of pleasure welling up from her heart and escaping from her lips in a girlish laugh as she turned back into the house. A jolly-out-of-doors, healthy girl, chock-full of animal spirits and laughter and fun. One of the kind that old mother Nature has her eye on for purposes of her own!

It was dark and cool inside the house, for Jackalsfontein, as in all decent Boer farms, had every door and window closed tight at six in the morning and not opened again until six in the evening, this being the Boer method of keeping out the scorching heat of summer. And a very good method too.

In her bedroom, Chrissie proceeded to tidy her crisp blonde hair which was always perfectly tidy, and tie a broad piece of blue ribbon round her neck in such fashion that a fascinating bow was under her hair and the two ends of it stuck out behind each ear making her eyes look so much bluer that they resembled two bits of radiant sky studding her merry face. For some time she meditated over a large silver locket with a flying crane engraved on it, and containing a tin-type photo of her mother. She usually wore this on Sundays, suspended by a black ribbon round her neck, and was aware that it lent great _chic_ to her appearance.

In the end, she decided not to wear it upon this occasion for fear her father should notice and ask her in front of Carol why she had it on.

Not for the world would she have had Carol think that she t.i.tivated herself for him.

At length, the sound of wheels grating in front of the house made her fly from her gla.s.s to the kitchen on the business of preparing coffee for the new-comer. For no matter how unwelcome the caller at a Boer house may be, he is always offered the hospitality of the country--a cup of coffee.

With her own hands, Chrissie set out the bright tin beakers on the table of the _Eat-kammer_, and piled high a plate of sweet hard rusks. Then opening the front door, she stepped once more into the sunshine.

And, after all, it was not Carol Uys who stood there mopping the beads from his brow with a white handkerchief, and talking to old man Retief.

It was a stranger with that red burn on his face and neck which only Britishers seem to achieve in the South African climate, and which long ago won for them the nick-name of "rooi-neks."

At the sight of him, Chrissie became shy and stood poised on one foot like a bird ready to take wing. It seemed she had arrived at an unpropitious moment. The old man's eyes were suffused with blood and his fist lay on the table as though he had just banged it down there.

His jaw stuck out aggressively. The stranger's jaw also stuck out, but his hazel eyes had a cool, collected stare in them. This he transferred to Chrissie and removed his hat with the usual Dutch greeting.

"_Dag Mevrow_."

She responded, and poised herself on the other foot for a change. After a moment, as old Retief put his pipe in his mouth and made no attempt at an introduction, the stranger continued, speaking with an air of quiet a.s.surance to which her various Boer swains had not accustomed Chrissie.

"Miss Retief?"

She nodded.

"My name is Richard Braddon and I am the engineer in charge of the railway-laying party. I'm trying to persuade your father that it is of no use kicking against the Government. He'd far better let us go about the business quietly."

"And I tell you you had better save your breath," snorted Nick, "and keep off my land or I'll blow you off from the barrel of my old Mauser."

The young man's red skin grew a shade redder, but he smiled dryly:

"I'm afraid I'll have to risk that, Mr Retief, when the time comes."

Chrissie secretly approved the I-don't-give-a-d.a.m.n-for-you-and-your-old-Mauser way in which he said it.

That was something to say to old Nick Retief all the same! She turned on her father now expostulating:

"Foy toch, Poppa! It is not his fault, then. He has to do what the Government tells him, but!"

"I'm not going to have the stink-engines on my land," repeated Nick.

"Well," said Braddon pleasantly. "Let's leave it at that. I'm camped out on Diepner's land now beyond the river but we may get orders to start the bridge any time--and then the rails on this side--I only want you to be reasonable, Mr Retief, and realise that it isn't our fault."

Nick rolled a blood-suffused eye on him.

"You start on my land, that's all," he said with heavy significance.

A minute later, he let out a terrific roar that shook the rafters of the verandah above him and was addressed to the native who had recently arrived with the sheep and cows.

"What is the matter with you, you base-born son of a baboon, that you put your master's scabby, leprous sheep into my calves' kraal when I told you they were to go into that one down by the sluit?"

Following this furious inquiry he arose and betook himself to the kraal, leaving Chrissie and Braddon together.

"Will you drink coffee?" she asked.

"Thank you, I'd like some very much."

She opened the door and went to fetch the beakers and rusks out on the stoep table. Braddon immediately bestirred himself to her a.s.sistance, proving himself still further unlike her several swains, for among the more ignorant cla.s.s of Boers it is the affair of the women to wait upon men as upon the lords of the earth.

Afterwards, the two sat down by the table and waited for the old man.

Braddon made polite conversation. He felt no embarra.s.sment, but neither did he feel much interest. He had met Dutch girls before and they had not "gone to his head" or to his heart either. Their complexions were invariably good, but as conversationalists they were draggy.

"It must be dull for you living out here," he remarked pleasantly.

"Oh, no," she answered smiling, "there is plenty of work to do on the farm."

He liked that spirit and understood it.

"I know. When one is working time flies, doesn't it? But there are occasional dull hours in the evenings I find."

"What do you do then?" she asked.

"Oh, study a bit and read the newspaper when I have one, and write home sometimes--and think a lot."

"What do you think about?" pursued Chrissie.

"Oh, I don't know--work, and my people at home, there's always something."

He examined her with a shade more interest. She was not so draggy after all, this Dutch girl. Certainly he had known them duller.

"What do _you_ think about?" he asked with a quizzical smile.