"I DIE, AND FAR AWAY. HAST THOU KNOWN?"
A cheerful wood fire is crackling and sparkling in the grate, throwing
out tremulous shadows upon the plain, massive furniture and polished
floor, ever and anon lighting up the old room with a sudden glow.
The glow quivers upon a pale, beautiful face and on a coronal of dusky
hair, whose owner sits gazing into the bright caverns formed by the
burning wood, the picture of retrospective meditation. A book lies open
upon her lap, proclaiming that the twilight has overtaken her and
compelled her to give up reading in favour of a more idle but not always
more pleasant resource--reflection; which pastime, in the present
instance, seems to bring her more of sorrow than of joy, for there are
tears brimming in the sweet eyes, and the curves of her mouth are even a
little more wistfully sad than usual.
It is four months since we saw that horseman, with despair and gloom
upon his countenance, riding away in the cold grey dawn, on, whither he
knew not, neither cared; and Lilian Strange is still at Seringa Vale. A
few days before her projected departure, news came from the McColls to
the effect that they would not be returning to the colony for another
six months, and offering, if she wished it, to release her from her
engagement, otherwise they would be glad to have her back with them at
the time of their return. Mrs Brathwaite, however, who had secretly
formed a plan in her own mind for keeping Lilian altogether, soon
persuaded her to prolong her stay, at any rate until the McColls
returned. "You see, dear," she had said, "you are not nearly strong
enough to go back to work again yet, even if you had anywhere to go.
And just as we have got a little colour into your cheeks and set you up,
here you go getting ill again. Besides, we shan't be able to do without
your bright face, dearie, so if you can put up with such a quiet house
as this is now, don't say anything more about leaving." And Lilian,
lonely and friendless as she was, and shaken and upset by the recent
events, had thrown her arms round the old lady's neck and indulged in a
good cry, and declaring that she loved the dear old place almost beyond
her old home, had done as she was told.
"_You will be doing evil that good may come of it_." Was this so,
indeed? Had she better have broken that promise? Ah! better not dwell
on that now. And then would arise the thought of him--wandering afar
and alone, uncheered, heartsick and weary in spirit; it might be in
daily peril of death. It was at night--by day she could in a life of
usefulness in a measure lose herself--at night, in the dead, dark,
lonesome hours, that such thoughts would come upon her, and with an
awful feeling of forsakenness, she would lie through the long, silent
watches hardly able to sob out the bitter, voiceless anguish that
overwhelmed her soul. And as yet, Time, the merciful healer, had
brought little or no consolation. She would go about her daily
avocations even cheerfully, always tender and thoughtful, smiling often,
though as yet so sadly, for she would, as she had resolved to herself,
live in the happiness of others. And the event which had kindled this
resolve occurred very shortly after the death-blow to her own happiness.
One day Hicks and Laura, who had been taking a walk round the garden
together, came in looking a little flurried, and the former at once and
feverishly sought out his employer, whom he informed, with much
stammering and bashfulness, that he had just proposed to and been
accepted by Laura, and he trusted Mr Brathwaite would see no objection,
etc, etc. The old man heard him out, and then mused for a moment in
silence.
"H'm! You see, Hicks--you'll have to wait a bit, but I don't know that
that'll do you any harm," he replied. "My brother George'll be round
here in a few days--but you did quite right to tell me at once--then you
can speak to him yourself. I dare say he won't object, and I'll do what
I can for you. Ever since you've been with me you've given me nothing
but satisfaction in every respect, and I don't forget it, my lad.
You've learned your work well, and what's better, you've done it well;
go on as you've begun, and you'll make your way. But, as I told you
before, you'll have to wait a bit."
Hicks mumbled out a string of incoherent thanks, and wrung his
employer's hand.
"Ah, it's a grand thing to be young and to have all one's life before
one," said the old man, kindly. "Well, it's nearly time to go and
count--or perhaps I'd better do it. Your head will hardly hold such
commonplace things as sheep this evening," added he, with a good-natured
laugh, as he turned away.
In great elation Hicks bolted off, and, not looking where he was going,
collided against Lilian in the doorway, with such violence as nearly to
upset her.
"Oh, Miss Strange. I beg your pardon! What a blundering ass I am!
Have I hurt you?" he cried, in abject, remorseful consternation. "How
confoundedly careless of me! Do forgive me?"
"I'm not in the least hurt, really," answered Lilian, leaning against
the chair, which she had just seized in time to save herself from
falling. "But I'll forgive you, only upon one condition," she added,
with a smile. "That you tell me what you are looking so ridiculously
happy about."
Hicks told her, there and then.
"I'm so glad," Lilian said. "I congratulate you most truly. You will
be very happy, and from what I have heard of you, you will deserve to
be."
Again Hicks mumbled something as he pressed the hand she extended to
him, and passed on. Lilian gazed after him, and the tears rose to her
eyes; but they were grateful, healing tears. "Thank God!" she murmured,
"there is happiness left in the world for some people, and that is a
sight good to look upon." A warm glow crept round her heart--so
stricken and desolate--and she felt that life might be worth living
after all, to take part in the joys and sorrows of others. It was a
turning-point, and the crisis was past; but, oh! the road was to be an
uphill one upon whose thorny way the toiler would oft-times sink crushed
and heartbroken. Then she had kissed and congratulated Laura, who,
though outwardly very demure and reticent, yet felt thoroughly satisfied
with her bargain.
Mr Brathwaite was as good as his word, and with such a powerful
advocate Hicks' suit was bound to prosper. George Brathwaite, an
easy-going man in any matter wholly dissociated with politics, listened,
and was convinced, as his brother put the case before him. Hicks was a
quiet, steady, hard-working fellow, in fact, bound to make his way. He
had a little stock of his own, and lately some money had been left him,
not much, but enough to help him on a bit when he should set up for
himself, and with a little help from them, would do well enough. He was
good-tempered, and by no means a fool, and, in fact, Laura might have
done worse. And Laura's father thought the same, and the result was
notified to the pair concerned. They must wait, of course, but the
great thing was to have the consent of the authorities, and to know that
it was a settled thing. But a thorn in the rose lay in the fact that in
a couple of days or so George Brathwaite would take both his daughters
away with him--that being the errand upon which he had come to Seringa
Vale. However, they could write. A new experience to Hicks, by the
way, who, with the exception of a stereotyped and brief letter home at
rare intervals, seldom used the weapon mightier than the sword. But he
would find plenty to say now, never fear.
"How I wish Claverton was back again," Hicks had said to Laura, the day
before she left. "Poor old Arthur. I suppose he's started off on some
mad expedition. The place won't seem the same without him."
"Won't it? It would have been a good deal better for the place if it
had always remained without him," she retorted, rather bitterly.
He looked at her with surprise. "Why, Laura, what has he done? I
thought you all liked him no end?"
"Yes, rather too much," she rejoined, to herself--thinking of Ethel--but
she only said: "Well, I don't know why I said that. Never mind, Alfred,
perhaps I'll tell you what I mean, some day; perhaps I won't; probably I
won't. Try and forget it now, at any rate. You will, won't you?"
"On one condition," replied Hicks, looking at her.
What that condition was need not be specified. Nor does it concern the
thread of this narrative whether it was consented to or not.
Then the two girls had gone; and sorely did those left behind miss the
bright young presences and the merry, jestful times which had prevailed,
and the old farmhouse had settled down into the slumbrous quietude in
which we first saw it that glowing August evening, the best part of a
year back; and the events intervening had melted like a dream, for all
the outward traces they had left. But a dream from which that pale, sad
watcher, now gazing at the fire, would never awaken to life again.
Twice only had Claverton been heard of since he left. The first time he
had written to Mrs Brathwaite explaining how nothing but the gravest
reasons had induced him to leave thus suddenly--and more to the same
effect; directing where his things were to be sent, and concluding with
the sincerest expressions of appreciation and regard--and the old lady,
who knew pretty well by that time how matters stood, had felt inclined
to cry as she read it. The second letter, after an interval, was to
Hicks, and bore the Durban postmark. The writer was going up-country,
he said, far into the interior, to do a little shooting, and some
knocking about. He wanted to be quite independent, so would go alone,
with a nigger or two to carry the things and look after a spare horse.
He didn't want some cantankerous compatriot with him to worry his life
out at every turn, not he. A few things had been left at Seringa Vale
which Hicks might look after for him, and if he never came back could
stick to--a horse, for instance, and some gimcrackery in the shape of
riding-gear and one or two things. No doubt they'd clash again some of
these days; if not, well, it would come all right in the end, he
supposed, and life was not such a blissful thing, after all. It was not
worth while answering this, concluded the writer, for he would be away
on his travels almost before it had started.
And it is the crowd of memories and conjectures evoked by this letter
which Lilian is pondering over this evening, alone in the firelight. A
few days ago, Hicks had asked her if she would like to see it, as she
was not in the room when he read out its contents. She had kept it ever
since, and good-natured Hicks, noticing the light in her eyes, and the
tremor of her hand as he gave it her, had "forgotten" to ask her for it
again. She has read every word of it until she knows it by heart, and
has conjured up many and many a picture of that lonely traveller,
wandering on, mile after mile, far into that vast continent of which
this locality was merely the outskirts. And it is her doing! She can
"read between the lines" that time has brought no more healing to him
than to herself, and, thinking over it this evening, one of those
terrible paroxysms of woe is nearly upon her, and she half rises to
leave the room when a step is heard in the passage, then the door opens
and some one enters, whistling a lively tune which stops suddenly as the
whistler becomes aware of her presence.
"That you, Miss Strange? Good evening; are you trying to read in the
dark? By Jove, how cold it's turned!" rattles on Hicks, rubbing his
hands briskly, and kicking up the logs in the grate.
"Yes," answered Lilian, for the diversion has called her back to
herself. "And how the days are drawing in!"
"Rather! And cold? This morning, down there in Aasvogel Kloof, the
ground was white with frost, and at eight o'clock, long after the sun
was up, it was nipping cold. I had to keep changing my bridle-hand
about every minute and a half, keeping one in my pocket till it got
warm, you know; not that it did get warm even then, still it thawed a
bit."
"Fancy that. And yet there are people who would stare if you mentioned
the word cold, in connection with Africa."
"Yes, I know. `Afric's sunny fountains,' and all that kind of thing.
The only `fountains' we see here are after a jolly big rain, and then
they're not sunny, but precious muddy. Those poetic fellows do talk
awful bosh."
Lilian smiled. "Don't try to be satirical, it doesn't suit you at all,"
she said. "And now tell me what have you been doing all day?"
"Oh, I went down and counted at Umgiswe's. He's a regular old humbug,
and is always losing sheep. I'm certain he kills them. Don't I wish I
could catch him, that's all. I thought I had, the other day. Anyhow,
the _Baas_ ought to give him the sack."
"I shouldn't have thought it. I thought he had such a nice old face,
and he always says, `morning, missis,' to me, so prettily, whenever he
comes up here."
"A bigger humbug than him couldn't help doing that," said Hicks,
gallantly. "Well, then, I went on to Driscoll's, to see if I couldn't
beat him down in what he asks for that place of his. He wants a great
deal too much, the beggar does; far more than he offered it to Clav--"
and then honest Hicks, suddenly remembering that this very place was the
one Claverton had started to inspect on that day which, somehow, seemed
connected with his abrupt departure and Lilian's simultaneous
depression, waxed very red in the face, and, bending over the fire,
began stirring it and banging it about, as if he would pulverise the
charred, smouldering faggots.
"And did you succeed?" asked Lilian, so quietly that he thought the
reminiscence involved by the association of ideas had passed unnoticed
by her.
"N-no," replied Hicks. "But I think I'll manage it in time. He's a
tight fist, is old Driscoll."
"You will like settling in the old locality, I should think. You are
not one of those who are always longing for change just for the sake of
change."
"No. In fact, as it is, I hardly like leaving the old place."
"What--not even with Laura?" said Lilian, with a smile.
"Well, of course. But you know, when a fellow has been long on a place
like this, and had such a rare good time of it, as I've had, he's bound
to cut up a little rough when it comes to leaving it, no matter how."
"Naturally. But one must look forward--not back, unless it is for a
pure, strengthening recollection. One might look longingly back from
the rough, toilsome ascent of a steep hill into the sunlit, peaceful
valley one had rested in behind; then to keep on and on till the ascent
was conquered, and an easy road led smoothly down into another restful
calm. That is how you must look at life, when things go the reverse of
smoothly with you at first--as perhaps they will."
Poor Lilian! Not yet could she realise this herself, and she knew it.
Yet she laid it down in theory to her companion, for he had told her
that he liked that sort of talk--that it did him good, in fact--and its
remembrance encouraged him when he was inclined to take a gloomy view of
things. They had become great friends, those two, thrown together thus
by force of circumstances; and Lilian had never tired of listening to
her companion's hopes and fears, any more than he had ever tired of
confiding them to her--it must be confessed, with something of wearisome
reiteration, the more so that he had found so gentle and sympathetic a
listener.
"But I forgot. I must not talk like that, or you will say I'm getting
poetic; and `those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh,'" concluded
Lilian, looking up at him with a bright, arch smile.
"Oh, I say! As if I should think anything of the kind!" exclaimed
Hicks. "It was I who was talking nonsense. I suppose the firelight
makes a fellow get sentimental. The firelight in winter is pretty much
what the moonlight is in summer, I suppose."
But the sentimental side of this firelight talk was brought to an end by
the entrance of Mr Brathwaite, followed almost immediately by that of
his wife.
"Sharp evening!" he said, joining the two on the hearth. "We must
expect winter now, at the end of May; and this year it'll be a cold one.
I see there's a little snow on the mountains already--just a
sprinkling."
"When shall we have a good fall?" asked Lilian. "The mountains must
look perfectly beautiful, all covered, and with such a sun as this upon
them. It must be very cold up there."
"Cold? I believe you. I was nearly frozen to death up there myself
once. It was some years ago now. I was coming over the Katberg road
with a waggon-load of mealies--I and Ben Jackson. He had three waggons.
We were caught in a snowstorm, and had to outspan. Couldn't see ten
yards in front of us. Ten yards! Not one; for the wind whirled the
powdery stuff into our eyes till we were nearly blinded. It was no
joke, I can tell you. There are some lively _krantzes_ about there; and
it's the easiest thing in the world to drop a few hundred feet before
you know where you are."
"And how did you manage?"
"Well, we outspanned, and tied the oxen to the yokes. We couldn't make
a fire, so we turned into our blankets and piled up everything in the
way of covering; but that wasn't enough, and I was quite frozen.
Nothing to eat all the time, except a bit of frozen bread to gnaw at.
One of my Kafirs was nearly dead, and thirteen out of sixteen oxen died
from cold and starvation. Ben was more unlucky still, and lost two
whole spans. Yes, that was a time!"
Then came the lamp and supper.
"You were asking when we should have a good fall?" went on Mr
Brathwaite. "The first rains we get here will leave the mountains white
as a sugarloaf down to their very foot."
Thus, with many an anecdote and reminiscence, the evening wore on.
Eventually the lights were extinguished in the slumbering house, one by
one, till all was dark and silent. And shining upon upland and valley,
and upon homestead and fold, cleaving the frosty sky with a broad path
of pale incandescence, gleamed the Milky Way, with many a brilliant
constellation flashing around its track. Hour follows upon hour, but
the calm influences of the peaceful night bring no relief to that
broken-hearted woman lying there with her face buried in the pillows,
sorrowing as one who is without hope. And every now and then a great
anguished sob shook the prostrate form, for a very torrent of
long-pent-up grief had come over her this evening, fresh and poignant as
on that terrible day when the glories of the radiant summer world were
as staring mockeries.
Lilian rose and threw open the door. The cool night air flowed in
refreshing waves upon her burning brow, and, oh! how solemnly the golden
stars twinkled in the far blue vault as though the eyes of their Creator
Himself were visibly looking down upon her woe.
"Come back to me, darling!" she wailed, her brimming eyes fixed on the
cold, star-spangled sky. "Only come back. Ah, love! I sent you away
from me, drove you away with hard, cruel, bitter words, and now my heart
is breaking--breaking. My life is done. I killed it when I sent you
away."
A ghostly beam streamed in through the open casement. Above hung the
pointed moon, pale, glassy, and cold.
"My life, my love, come back!" she continued, sinking into a chair by
the window, with her hands tightly locked, in the extremity of her
anguish. "Come back, and we will never part again, never. I will
abjure my word, which I have pledged by a dying bed. I will risk
everything. We will never, never part again, no, not for an hour. Only
come back. Oh! What am I saying? I shall never see you again.
Perhaps even now you are--dead, and it is I who killed you. Ah, love,
my heart is broken! If you are not in life, come and look at me in
death--in pale, cold, still death--and take me with you. Only let me
look upon you once more!"
The moonbeam crept further along the polished floor, and a puff of air
entered. Ah! What was that? Was it a voice--a name--faint, dreamy,
more felt than heard--a voice from the awesome, mysterious spirit world?
Quickly Lilian raised her head.
"I thought you would come to me, darling," she murmured, in low, firm
tones, as though she had nerved herself for an effort. "I thought you
would come to me, even though dead. But let me see you! I can hear
your voice. I can hear you call me, once, twice. But, oh! let me see
you. Ah--!"
She sat upright and rigid, gazing in front of her. For a form floated
upon the shadowy moonlight, seeming to rest everywhere, yet nowhere.
And the features of the recumbent figure she knew too well--pale,
haggard, and drawn as they were.
"Ah, come to me, my love, my life!" she wailed, stretching out her arms
in wild entreaty, but the apparition vanished. She rushed to the open
window. Only the eyes of a myriad gleaming stars met hers, and a filmy
dark cloud passed over the moon, veiling it for a moment.
"I have seen his spirit," she exclaimed, passionately, her eyes fixed
upon the dim horizon. "I have seen him, but he is gone. Ah, Christ!
Thou hast a tender and a pitying heart. Let me see my love again--my
sweet lost love!"
Look out into the still night, Lilian. Fix your eyes upon those distant
mountain-tops, and then can your gaze travel many hundreds of miles
beyond them, you may see--what it is better that you should not see.
Far away on the wild border of Northern Matabililand, night draws on.
In one of a group of neat, circular kraals lying in a hollow between two
great mountains, it is evident that something momentous has either
happened or is going to happen this evening, for the chief men are
standing together in a knot, talking in low tones and with an anxious
look upon their grave, dignified faces. From the eastward, a mighty
black cloud is rolling up along the rugged, iron-girded heights, and
upon the fitful gusts is borne, ever and anon, a low, heavy boom. Down
the mountain paths the cattle are wending, the shrill whoop of the
children driving them, sounding loud and near, while the chatter of two
or three withered crones, gossiping outside one of the domed huts, is
strangely, distinct in the brooding atmosphere, hushed as it is before
the gathering storm. The shades deepen, and the red fires twinkle out
one by one in the gloaming; but still the men keep on their earnest
discussion.
"He will die," one of them is saying. "It will bring us ill-luck. The
king, when he hears of it, will visit it upon us--he wants to stand well
just now with the whites. And if this stranger dies here, he will say
it is our fault. Haow!"
And, with true savage philosophy, the speaker and his auditors refresh
themselves with a huge pinch of snuff.
"There is a white man living away beyond Intaba Nkulu," says another.
"He might be able to do something to save the stranger."
"No, he is only a trader--not a medicine-man," exclaim two or three
more, simultaneously.
A flash; a peal of thunder, loud and long, and one or two large drops of
rain. The Matabili start, look upward, and adjourn to carry on their
discussion inside a hut; but they are soon interrupted by the entrance
of a young Natal native, who, with anxiety and fear on his countenance,
cries:
"Mgcekweni--Sikoto--come quick and look. My chief is dying."
With a hurried exclamation the two addressed rise, and, following the
speaker, stoop and enter an adjoining hut. Lying on some native
blankets on the floor, is the form of a man--an Englishman. A rolled-up
mat serves him for a pillow, and he lies tossing about in the wild
throes of fever. A saddle and bridle, a waterproof cloak, a gun, and
one or two small things are scattered around; a bit of candle stuck in
the neck of a bottle, throwing a ghastly flickering light upon the
whole, and making the cockroaches which swarm in the thatch, glisten
like scales.
"Water, water," moans the sick man, throwing his arms wildly out of bed.
"_Aow! Manzi_!" murmur the two Matabili, not understanding, but with
ready wit guessing the burden of his cry, and simultaneously making a
move towards the earthen bowl containing the desired fluid.
But the young native was before them, and, motioning one of them to
raise him, he held the bowl to his master's lips.
"Ah-h-h," exclaimed the dying man, falling back with a relieved sigh,
and lying with closed eyes. Then he started again. "Where is it?" he
cried, his fingers clutching spasmodically at something in his breast,
which he drew out and held tightly clasped in his hand. "Lilian--
Lilian--It died with me. Your writing--the only thing I have left of
you--Lilian--!" He paused a moment, breathless.
Then he sprang up raving. "Sam! Sam! Where are you, you damned
rascal? Sam; do you hear? Go and tell her--find Lilian," and then as
if the beloved name calmed and soothed him, he sank back with a quiet
smile.
"What does he say?" asked the two Matabili of each other. "Liliane--
Liliane. Aow! That must be the name of the white man's God." And they
repeated the name over and over to themselves, so as to remember exactly
what the stranger had said, when they should report the matter to their
king.
He had come there, this stranger, but a few days previously, he and his
native attendant. He had come alone, travelling through their land, as
he said, on his way far, far into the interior beyond, and had stayed
with them, living as they lived, talking with them a little, but usually
grave, taciturn, and sad. He would wander about all day in the
mountains with his double gun, bringing back game at night, buck or
birds, which he shared freely with them, and now he had become ill; no
doubt caught the malaria while lying out all night down by the river,
trying to get a shot at the lion, whose spoor had been seen by a boy who
was wandering on its banks, and who had fled terrified at the sight of
the great round pads in the sand. And Mgcekweni, the petty chief of the
neighbourhood, was in sore perplexity about this stranger lying at the
point of death within their gates; and over and above the fear that his
royal master, with all the unreasoning caprice of a despot, would hold
him and his responsible, he had a genuine liking for the white man--the
grave, quiet traveller, whom he had at once set down as a big "_Inkoa_"
among his own people.
Crash!
The thunder pealed without; a vivid blaze of lightning lit up the
interior of the hut, leaving it more gloomy than before in its
semi-darkness; the rain poured in torrents, lashing up the hard earth
outside, and there, in the weird light, stood the tall, erect forms of
the Matabili chief and his brother, conversing in subdued whispers, and
with a world of concern clouding their dark, expressive faces. Kneeling
beside his master, intently watching every change of his countenance,
crouched the native boy, Sam. Again the thunder crashed and roared, and
the scathing blaze darted through the pouring rainfall which hurled
itself to the earth with a deafening rush; and amid the fierce warring
of the elements let loose the wanderer lay dying. Yes, dying. Alone in
a barbarous hut, racked with fever; tossing on a rude couch, almost on
the bare earth; far from friendly or loving glance or touch; not even a
countryman within hundreds of miles; alone in that gloomy apartment, the
cockroaches chasing each other along the wattles of the thatch overhead,
and tall, savage warriors watching his failing moments in wondering,
half-superstitious concern. Thus he lay.
Suddenly he raised himself and sat upright.
"Lilian! Lilian!" he cried, in a voice so loud and clear that it
startled his savage auditors. "Ah, I _will_ see you," he went on, his
eyes dilating and fixed on the opposite wall as if to pierce through it
and all space.
"I _will_ see you--and I can. I see you here, now, here beside me. Are
you going with me? Keep those sweet eyes upon mine, as they are now,
darling--ever--ever--ever."
His voice sank, and with a glad smile he fell back and lay perfectly
still, and without the faintest movement.
"He is dead!" exclaimed the savages, holding their breath.
Precisely at that moment Lilian Strange was uttering her passionate,
despairing invocation, as she gazed through her open casement far into
the clear, starry night.
The day broke upon Seringa Vale, and the rain gusts howled along the
wind-swept wastes--violent, biting, and chill. But by noon there was
not a cloud in the heavens, and Lilian had her wish, for the mountains
were thickly covered with snow to their very base. And as she gazed
upon the distant peaks starting forth from the blue sky, spotless and
dazzling in their whiteness, it seemed to her that they might be a meet
embodiment of her own frozen despair--ever the same--icebound sight and
day--through calm and through storm.
And the sun shone down upon the land in his undimmed glory, plenty and
prosperity reigned everywhere; not a whisper of war or disturbance was
in the air, indeed, all such had died away as completely as if it had
never been. And the hearts of the dwellers on the frontier were glad
within them--for the red tide, once threatening, had been stayed, and
upon their borders rested, in all its fulness, the blessing of Peace.
Part II.
Once where Amatola mountains rise up purple to the snow,
Where the forests hide the fountains,
And green pastures sleep below--
Sweeter far than song of battle,
On the breezes of the morn,
Came the lowing of our cattle
And the rustling of our corn.
Where our flocks and herds were feeding
Now the white man's homestead stands;
And while yet his sword lies bleeding,
Lo, his plough is in new lands.
_Lament of Tyala_--Anon.