And, faith, he'll prent it."--Burns.
_One_.
It was by a mere coincidence that Raymond Benson and John Allister, who
were both bound for Rossdale, met in the train running from Cape Town to
the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. Rossdale is a large mission
institution situate in one of what are known as the Native Territories.
It is liberally endowed by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland,
and has for its object the evangelisation and education of Bantu
natives.
Benson, a Cape Colonist by birth, had obtained through the Cape
Education Department the appointment of second teacher at the
Institution; Allister had just arrived from Scotland, and had been
selected by the Central Mission Board as book-keeper and general
accountant. As he had acquired a fair amount of medical knowledge--he
had, as a matter of fact, only been prevented by financial misfortune
from finishing his courses at the University of Edinburgh and qualifying
as a physician--he was also expected to practise the healing art among
the residents at the Mission.
Benson possessed a good constitution and a keen sense of humour. He was
a clean-built man of middle height and dark complexion, with features of
a slightly Jewish cast. His object in going to Rossdale was the
acquirement of the Bantu language spoken in the vicinity. Moreover, he
had no intention of staying more than a short time should the life there
prove uncongenial.
Allister was a big, raw-boned Scotsman with a strong, clean-shaven face.
His usual expression was extremely morbid, but now and then a very
sweet smile would light up his rugged features. His speech had always a
strong Scotch twang, and he occasionally--especially when excited--broke
into the very broadest Doric.
Benson and Allister became very good friends during the course of the
journey. From the railway terminus they travelled for a couple of days
and nights in the post-cart, which delivered them at a village some
twenty miles from their destination. At this village a trap from
Rossdale, driven by a Kaffir who was quite ignorant of any but his
mother-tongue, met them.
Allister, like Benson, had no missionary zeal. In fact he was
absolutely without religious convictions of any kind, a circumstance
which he had carefully concealed from the Mission Board. A weakness of
the chest had rendered it highly advisable that he should leave Scotland
for a year or two and seek some warmer clime. But his intention was to
return to Scotland as soon as he should have saved enough money to admit
of a continuance of his studies.
A fine autumn evening was drawing to its golden close when the rickety
cart bearing the two strangers descended the hillside at the foot of
which Rossdale lay. The vehicle, far too light for its springs, had
shaken the inmates cruelly; nevertheless they had been able to extract a
good deal of enjoyment from the incidents of the journey. Their course
lay through an undulating, grassy country thickly dotted over with
little villages composed of beehive-shaped huts, among which numbers of
naked children were playing. Every now and then they passed groups of
men and women. The former had lost much of their picturesqueness owing
to being dressed mainly in shoddy European clothing, but each carried at
least one long, strong stick, and stalked along with a look of dignified
disdain. The women were all draped in ochre-coloured blankets, fastened
under the arm-pits and reaching to below the knee. But they held
themselves erect and walked with a gait duchesses might have envied.
The Institution was an important one and employed a large staff. The
Industrial Arts were important items in the curriculum. It lay more or
less in the centre of a hollow about a mile in circumference. The
buildings were massive and extensive. Around them lay a large
plantation of blue-gum and oak trees, with here and there patches of
orchard. On every side the landscape showed gently-swelling hills of
inconspicuous height, thickly dotted with groups of huts. Herds of
cattle browsed contentedly on the rich grass. The gracious autumn
gloaming shed a soft radiance over the settlement. It looked like a
spot consecrated to civilisation and peace--an oasis in the desert of
savagery. Benson drew a deep breath of satisfaction; something seemed
to whisper to him that life here might include compensations other than
humorous ones. He communicated this thought to his companion, who,
however, cynically replied to the effect that appearances were apt to be
deceitful.
The vehicle drew up in front of the large central building, one wing of
which was used as a dormitory for the boys, the other as quarters by
most of the European staff. A neat-looking native servant-maid received
the strangers and conducted them to their rooms upstairs. Soon
afterwards, the ringing of a very discordant bell sounded through the
premises. Benson and Allister then descended to the refectory, where,
they had been informed, tea would be served.
Large tables were ranged across the room, and at these the native boys,
each with a plate and a large tin mug before him, were seated. A small
table in one of the corners was reserved for the Europeans; at this Mr
Duncan Mactavish, the boarding-master, Miss Mellish, the matron, and
Miss Angus, the assistant matron, were seated. Benson and Allister,
upon introducing themselves, were greeted with a reserve which, on the
part of any but Scotch people, would hardly have been civil.
Mr Mactavish was a tall, dark, dour-looking man of about forty-five.
Miss Mellish was stout, light-haired, pallid, and severe-looking. Miss
Angus was a little, dark, withered-visaged woman; she had a nervous
habit of winking her eyes continually when spoken to or when speaking.
When Miss Mellish made a remark, as she seldom did, her mouth closed
immediately afterwards with a kind of snap. Mr Mactavish being a
bachelor, these ladies attended to the domestic arrangements of this
branch of the Institution, under his supervision. They considered him a
very great man indeed; he considered them women of discrimination.
A hymn was sung, a prayer was said (extempore) and a very lengthy
blessing invoked upon the food; then all sat down to supper. The two
strangers seemed to be looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion.
Mr Mactavish applied himself with systematic diligence to the food and
did not utter a word until his robust appetite had been assuaged.
Benson and Allister were too hungry to mind the lack of conversation.
"I'm thinkin' it's a fine drive ye'll have had," said Mr Mactavish,
after having subjected Allister to long and intent scrutiny.
"Middling" was the laconic response.
"Ye'll be new to yer wark, mebbe," resumed Mactavish, addressing Benson.
"Not quite," he replied; "I have spent the last three years teaching in
Cape Town."
"Ah, but that's anither thing; ye'll have lots to learn o' oor methods
here."
"I believe I came rather to teach than to learn," replied Benson,
gently.
Three indignant pairs of eyes focussed themselves upon the speaker, who,
however, looked blandly unconscious of giving offence. Mr Mactavish
turned once more to Allister--"Ye'll have some skill as a physeecian,
I'm told."
"It depends upon what's wrang wi' ye," replied Allister, with
imperturbability. "I can pull teeth fine, and I've learnt to shoe a
horse."
This seemed to strike Mr Mactavish with momentary helplessness.
However, after a pause, he returned to the attack--
"I suppose ye found the roads awfu'; that's ane o' the things we've to
put up wi' here--havin' oor bones mashed when we travel. But a sense o'
duty's a graund thing to gie ye patience."
Allister remained silent, so Benson replied--"Yes, we got a bit bumped.
The road is certainly not a credit to whoever is responsible for keeping
it in order. That last drift, after you descend the hill beyond the
trees, is a proper boneshaker."
Mr Mactavish glared. He happened to be responsible for the state of
this particular drift, and he looked upon certain repairs recently there
effected as a triumph of engineering skill.
At the conclusion of supper, Mr Mactavish, with an attempt at geniality,
invited the strangers to accompany him to the residence of the Principal
of the Institution, the Rev Mr Campbell. The visitors were ushered
into a sitting-room which was furnished and decorated with exceedingly
good taste. Mr Campbell was a widower, and childless. His niece,
Jeanie, a girl of nineteen, kept house for him. Benson felt a certain
mild curiosity as to what Jeanie Campbell was like. She had been
described to him as being a remarkably pretty girl.
Mr Mactavish sat nervously on the edge of a chair which was slightly
higher than the others and gazed intently at the closed door. Benson
and Allister examined the engravings with which the walls were
decorated. Suddenly and noiselessly the door opened and Jeanie entered
with smiling face and outstretched hand.
"How do you do, Mr Mactavish--and you are Mr Benson, I'm sure. Oh,
there is no need to introduce us. And Mr Allister, welcome to Rossdale.
I knew you had both arrived, and was most anxious to see you. How good
of you to come over at once."
Benson for once found the reality transcend the ideal he had formed.
Jeanie was remarkably pretty. She had a beautiful figure, with nearly
perfect hands and feet. Her eyes were steel-grey, bright with vitality
and full of expression; her hair was dark, plentiful and wavy. As is
usual in the case of South African girls, her colouring was somewhat
wanting in tone, but her skin was smooth and clear and her lips red and
tempting. Her mobile face seemed to be constantly changing its
expression.
Mr Mactavish shifted his feet, cleared his throat and behaved generally
like a nervous schoolboy. He more than once struggled to speak but
found the effort beyond his strength. All this amused Benson and
Allister vastly. It could be seen at a glance that the elderly
boarding-master was in love with the girl, and Benson was fairly dazzled
by the possibilities of amusement which the situation promised. He
looked at Jeanie and happened to intercept a lightning-like glance from
her. She could see that Benson had rightly gauged the situation and a
double flash of sympathetic electricity passed between them.
"I'm hopin', Miss Jeanie, that your tea-meetin' at the Girls' School was
a successful one," said Mr Mactavish. This remark suggested, as it
were, the mouse brought forth by the mountain, it was so utterly trivial
as compared with the labour and trepidation which preceded it.
"Oh," answered Jeanie, lightly, "it was not either more or less
dissipated than usual. Do you like tea-meetings, Mr Benson?"
"It depends, of course, upon who one meets and who pours out the tea.
Don't you think so, Mr Mactavish?"
"Oor tea-meetin's have a purpose," said Mr Mactavish, severely; "they
are a feature in oor method o' educatin' and civilisin' the natives."
"In Scotland they're talkin' o' suppressin' tea-meetin's by statute,"
said Allister, with a look at Jeanie, "they gie such occasions for
ungodly gossip amang the weemen."
"Oor tea's flavoured wi' the sugar o' Christian charity and the milk o'
human kindness," retorted Mr Mactavish, sternly.
Just then the door again opened and Mr Campbell, the Principal, entered.
He was a big, red-bearded man with bushy eyebrows. Jeanie very
prettily introduced the strangers to him, and he soon was deep in
conversation with Allister, who knew several of his friends in Scotland.
Benson crossed the room and took a low seat close to Jeanie. Mr
Mactavish evidently regarded this proceeding with disapproval, for he
turned his chair slightly, so as to get the girl and her companion out
of the range of his vision, and took an apparently absorbing interest in
the conversation of the others.
"You are a Colonist, are you not?" asked the girl.
"Yes," replied Benson, "I hope you don't object."
"Object? I should think not. Good gracious! If they had sent two more
Scotsmen here I should have run away and become an hospital nurse or
a..."
"Were you going to say `barmaid'?" asked Benson, sinking his voice.
"How--how did you know?" gasped the girl.
"Sympathetic intuition, I suppose. But why do you object to Scotsmen?
I thought you were Scotch yourself."
"Mr Benson, if you ever dare to say such a thing again, we shall
quarrel. Because you were born in South Africa are you a Hottentot? I
happened to be born in Scotland, but you can hardly blame me for a thing
that happened when I was so very young; I was only a year old when I
came away. No, I am a Cape Colonist; I have breathed Cape air and eaten
Cape food ever since I was a baby. In fact, I'm just Cape from head to
foot."
"I'm very glad to be able to sympathise with you, for I happen to be
very fond of the Cape myself, but just now will you satisfy a perhaps
impertinent curiosity by telling me why you object so much to Scotch
people?"
"You will know, without being told, before you have been here many
months. One does not object to leg of mutton, or even pumpkin on the
table now and then. But suppose you were to be fed, say, on pumpkin for
breakfast, dinner and supper, including entrees and dessert, every day
for several years, you'd long for a change of diet, would you not?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Scotch people are very good indeed, `unco' guid' in fact--and no one
would dispute the fact did they not carry inscriptions of their virtues
printed all over them in large letters. And then--the way they run down
everything South African. What puzzles me is, why they ever left their
own superior country. I'm sure we could manage our own affairs well
enough without them."
"Well, for my part," replied Benson, "I have liked most of the Scotch
people I have met. I must, at the same time, own it to be evident that
when the individual prayed `Lord, gi'e us a guid conceit o' oorsels,'
not alone must the prayer have been literally granted, but it must have
been put up on behalf of the whole nation."
On the way homeward Benson tried to draw Mr Mactavish into conversation,
but without success. Allister was unwontedly silent. He had, as he
said, been "takin' notes."
As a matter of fact, the boarding-master was not at all pleased at the
evident pleasure Jeanie had shown in Benson's society. Mr Mactavish was
badly in love; he scented untoward complications. For a long time he
had been hovering on the brink of a proposal, and, although Jeanie had
never given him the least encouragement, his "guid conceit" made him as
sanguine of acceptance as ever was the Laird o' Cockpen.
Mr Mactavish was the senior member of the Institution staff--so far as
length of service went. He had seen Principals come and Principals go,
but since the birth of the Institution there had been but one
boarding-master, and his name was Mactavish. Consequently, he had come
to regard the fortunes of the establishment as being bound up with his
own personality. As a matter of fact none of the various Principals had
ever properly asserted himself; each had tacitly acquiesced in the dour
boarding-master's assumption that he was the pivot upon which the whole
organisation revolved.
He now determined upon making both Benson and Allister feel the full
weight of his authority. Benson he would tackle first.
"Ye'll begin your wark i' the mornin'," said he to Benson as they
separated for the night.
"Oh, we'll see. Perhaps I'll take a day off and look around the place
before putting on the collar."
"We're no idlers here; you'll hae plenty o' time to look around after
school hours."
Benson had to bite his lip to prevent himself from telling Mr Mactavish
with emphasis to mind his own business. But he was not an ill-natured
fellow, and, having gauged the boarding-master's feelings towards Jeanie
correctly, had no difficulty in ascribing this churlishness to its true
source.
After all, Benson took over his class next day. The teacher whose place
he was taking was anxious to leave at once, and could only do so on
condition of Benson's foregoing his "day off." Mr Mactavish quite
mistakenly took the circumstance as indicating submission to his
authority.
The class numbered some forty boys, their ages ranging between eleven
and fifteen years. Benson was agreeably surprised at the tone of the
school. The lads were fairly intelligent, and discipline had been well
kept up. But he noticed that the names, rather than the sense of things
taught, were retained, that memory was quite out of proportion to
understanding. However, the boys were evidently anxious to learn, and
the schoolroom was lofty, commodious and well lighted. Benson felt as
though he were going to enjoy his work.
At noon he went over to his room; he met Allister on the way.
"I've been takin' a walk round," said the latter, "and have had a long
talk wi' Maclean, the carpenter. He's just burstin' wi' gall an'
general information. Losh! but doesn't he hate Mactavish."
"Well, let me have some information without the gall. I want to know as
much as possible about these people."
"Man, but we'll have lots o' fun. It appears that Mactavish is in love
wi' young Jeanie, and both Miss Mellish and Miss Angus are in love with
Mactavish. But these are trifles. The main thing is that the place has
been groanin' under Mactavish's tyranny for ever so long; all is ripe
for a revolution. Losh! but it's a Christian community."
"Well," replied Benson, "I, for one, will not join in any revolution. I
have my own work to do; I'll take care no one interferes with that. But
I mean to lead a quiet life if they will let me."
"I'm thinkin' ye'll have to tak' sides. `Whoso is not wi' us is against
us' is a very philosophical text. Are ye goin' to fish?"
"Fish? Rather; it's my favourite sport. But where? I've not heard of
any river about here."
"I was meanin' in the Apostolic sense--`fishers o' men,' you know."
"Oh, that's quite out of my line. I'm a pedagogue, not a missionary."
"Well, ye'll have to cast a line at the prayer-meetin' here. If ye
don't, Mactavish'll gie ye drumsticks. It appears they have fowls for
dinner five days a week regularly--sometimes oftener. It's the rule
that if ye don't fish ye'll never get a wing, but if ye cast a good long
line wi' a takin' text for bait, not alone will ye get a wing, but
sometimes a piece of liver as well."
"Oh, nonsense; the carpenter has been pulling your leg."
"All right; just wait an' ye'll see."
Just then the dinner-bell sounded, and the two friends descended to the
refectory together. The only meat on the table was a pair of boiled
fowls. Mr Mactavish, with great deliberation and a skill born of long
practice, dismembered them. Then he paused as though to rest after his
exertions.
"Ye'll be comin' to oor prayer-meetin' this evenin'?" he said,
addressing Benson.
"I don't know that I shall."
"But we've counted on a discoorse from ye, and I've told Mr Campbell
that ye'll tak' your turn to-night."
"Very good of you, I'm sure," replied Benson, nettled, "but I know what
I've engaged to do, and holding prayer-meetings is not included. You
had no authority to tell Mr Campbell anything of the kind."
"Well, Mr Allister, we'll just have to ca' your services into
requisition."
"Ye'll find me in the office frae nine till five every day. Outside
that time I'll do no wark, unless ye want me to pull a tooth or compound
a powder. In these cases I'll oblige at any hour of the
four-an'-twenty."
Mr Mactavish uttered, with alarming intonation, a sound which cannot be
expressed by the whole twenty-six-fold force of the alphabet, but which
used to be expressed as "humph!" Then he proceeded to divide the
members of the fowls. One of these had been rather more debilitated
than the other. The inferior drumsticks were, after the ladies had been
helped, duly apportioned to Benson and Allister, respectively. Benson
looked up and caught Allister's eye which was bent on him with great
gravity. Then his sense of humour overcame the schoolmaster and he fell
into an absolutely uncontrollable fit of laughter.
All proceedings stopped. Miss Mellish glared indignantly at the
delinquent; Miss Angus gasped and winked her eyes with hysterical
vigour. Allister's face expressed nothing but sombre surprise; the
boarding-master turned purple with inarticulate fury. The contagion of
Benson's laughter spread to the boys; within a few seconds the forms
rocked with mirth. Then Mr Mactavish leaped up, seized the smallest boy
on the nearest form and dragged him out of the room. Benson, who had
regained command of himself under stress of the tragic situation,
noticed that the ejected boy had given little or no cause for complaint.
Dinner over, Benson went to his room, threw himself on the bed, and
laughed so violently that the room shook. Allister came in, lit his
pipe, and regarded his distressed friend with inscrutable gravity.
"Well," he said, "was I not right?"
"Oh yes," replied Benson, between paroxysms, "but I think I'll roll
under the table and die if such a thing happens again."
"I don't despair o' oor gettin' wings, and even an occasional liver,
although we don't fish," said Allister, after a contemplative pause.
"Leg, wing or liver, for mercy's sake don't look at me again as you did
to-day. I hate putting myself in the wrong, and my performance was very
discreditable."
"An interestin' fact I ascertained from Maclean was that Mactavish
suffers from severe gout periodically, and that the malady only yields
to treatment wi' colchicum," said Allister, with a suspiciously innocent
expression.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Two_.
Next day Benson and Allister received a note apiece from Jeanie, asking
them to come over to the Girls' School in the afternoon and take tea.
On arrival they were ushered into a prim little parlour. This soon
became filled to overflowing with guests. Here they met, for the first
time, Mr Drew, the senior teacher of the theology section, and his wife.
Mr Drew was short, stout, dark and wide-awake-looking. He appeared to
be under the influence of his wife, who was evidently much older than
he. She was a woman of large frame, with hollow cheeks and light-red
hair. Her face and eyes were pale; her voice suggested pulmonary
delicacy.
The three ladies having charge of the female department of the
Institution acted jointly as hostesses. Miss Meiklejohn, the eldest,
was a tall, angular Scotswoman with a strong, intellectual face. She
spoke with measured deliberation and was evidently unaccustomed to
having her authority questioned. Miss Struben was short and exceedingly
stout. She had a depressed and disappointed look, and whenever she made
a remark, glanced apprehensively at Miss Meiklejohn to see how it would
be taken. These two had been for many years members of the Institution
staff; they regarded Mr Mactavish with the utmost reverence. Apart from
their work they had one object only in life, and that was to see a match
between the boarding-master and Miss Mellish. They had noted and
deplored the Great Man's weakness for Jeanie. However, as they looked
upon this untoward circumstance as due to her siren wiles, they regarded
the aberration with pity rather than blame.
Miss Robertson, the junior teacher, had only recently been imported from
Scotland. A comely girl with rosy cheeks, bright brown eyes and a
generous figure, she gave one the idea that she longed for a different
life and that she felt as irksome the perpetually revolving treadmill of
ultra propriety that Fate compelled her to climb. In fact she struck
Benson as having a healthy spice of the World, the Flesh and the Devil
under her coil of abundant hair.
Jeanie was the only one of the ladies who appeared to be at ease; she
laughed and chatted gaily, while the others only interjected formal
remarks now and then. Allister felt drawn towards little Miss
Robertson; the suppressed vitality in her brown eyes aroused his
interest and sympathy. With some difficulty he made his way across the
crowded room to where she was sitting.
"You and I are among the latest arrivals, I believe," he said
pleasantly.