ERNEST’S LOVE-LETTER
Cheer after cheer arose from the Englishmen around, and angry curses
from the Dutchmen, as Jeremy turned to look at the senseless carcass of
the giant. But, even as he turned, exhausted Nature gave out, and he
fell fainting into Ernest’s arms.
Then did selected individuals of his fellow-countrymen come forward and
bear him reverently to a restaurant called the “European,” where the
proprietor—himself an old Eton fellow—met him, and washed and clothed
and restored him, and vowed with tears in his eyes that he, Jeremy,
should live at his expense for as long as he liked—ay, even if he chose
to drink nothing meaner than champagne all day long; for thus it is
that Englishmen greet one who ministers to that deepest rooted of all
their feelings—national pride. And then, when at length he had been
brought to, and refreshed with a tumblerful of dry Monopole, and
wonderingly shaken Ernest by the hand, the enthusiasm of the crowd
outside burst its bounds, and they poured into the restaurant, and,
seizing Jeremy and the chair whereon he sat, they bore him in triumph
round the market-square to the tune of “God save the Queen.” This was a
proceeding that would have ended in provoking a riot had not an
aide-de-camp from his Excellency the Special Commissioner, who sent a
message begging that they would desist, succeeded in persuading them to
return to the restaurant. And here they all dined, and forced Jeremy to
drink a great deal more dry Monopole than was good for him, with the
result that for the first and last time in his life he was persuaded
into making an after-dinner speech. As far as it was reported it ran
something like this:
“Dear friends” (cheers) “and Englishmen” (renewed cheers)—pause—” all
making great fuss about nothing” (cheers, and shouts of “No, no!”).
“Fight the Dutchman again to-morrow—very big, but soft as putty—anybody
fight him” (frantic cheering). “Glad I wasn’t thrashed, as you all seem
so pleased. Don’t know why you are pleased; ’spose you didn’t like the
Dutchman. ’Fraid he hurt himself over my shoulder. Wonder what he did
it for? Sit down now. Dear friends, dear old Ernest—been looking for
you for long while;” and he turned his glassy eye on to Ernest, who
cheered frantically, under the impression that Jeremy had just said
something very much to the point. “Sit down now” (“No, no; go on”).
“Can’t go on—” quite pumped—very thirsty, too” (“Give him some more
champagne; open a fresh case”). “Wish Eva and Doll were here, don’t
you?” (loud cheers). “Gemman” (cheers)—“no, not gemman—friends” (louder
cheers)—“no, not gemman—friends—English brothers” (yet louder cheers),
“I give you a toast. Eva and Doll: you all know ’em and love ’em, or if
you don’t you would, you see, if you did, you know.” (Frantic outburst
of cheering, during which Jeremy tries to resume his seat, but
gracefully drops on to the floor, and begins singing “Auld lang syne”
under the table; whereupon the whole company rise, and with the
exception of Ernest and a jovial member of the Special Commissioner’s
staff, who get upon the table to lead the chorus, join hands and sing
that beautiful old song with all the solemnity of intoxication; after
which they drink more champagne, and jointly and severally swear
eternal friendship, especially Ernest and the member of his
Excellency’s staff, who shake hands and bless each other, till the
warmth of their emotions proves too much for them, and they weep in
chorus there upon the table.)
For the rest, Ernest had some vague recollection of helping to drive
his newly found friend home in a wheelbarrow that would persist in
upsetting in every “sluit” or ditch, especially if it had running water
in it; and that was about all he did remember.
In the morning he woke up, or rather first became conscious of pain in
his head, in a little double-bedded room attached to the hotel. On the
pillow of the bed opposite to him lay Jeremy’s battered face.
For a while Ernest could make nothing of all this. Why was Jeremy
there? Where were they? Everything turned round and seemed
phantasmagorial; the only real, substantial thing was that awful pain
in the head. But presently things began to come back to him, and the
sight of Jeremy’s bruised face recalled the fight, and the fight
recalled the dinner, and the dinner brought back a vague recollection
of Jeremy’s speech and of something he had said about Eva. What could
it have been? Ah, Eva! Perhaps Jeremy knew something about her; perhaps
he had brought the letter that had been so long in coming. O, how his
heart went out towards her! But how came Jeremy there in bed before
him? how came he to be in South Africa at all?
At that moment his reflections were interrupted by the entry of
Mazooku, bearing the coffee which it is the national habit in South
Africa to drink early in the morning.
The martial-looking Zulu, who seemed curiously out of place carrying
cups of coffee, seeing that his master was awake, saluted him with the
customary “Koos,” lifting one of the cups of coffee to give emphasis to
the word, and nearly upsetting it in the effort.
“Mazooku,” said Ernest, severely, “how did we get here?”
The substance of the retainer’s explanation was as follows: When the
moon was getting low—vanishing, indeed, behind the “horned house”
yonder (the Dutch church with pinnacles on it), it occurred to him,
waiting on the verandah, that his master must be weary; and as most had
departed from the “dance” in the “tin house” (restaurant), evidently
made happy by the “twala” (drink), he entered into the tin house to
look for him, and found him overcome by sleep under the table, lying
next to the “Lion-who-threw-oxen-over-his-shoulder” (i.e., Jeremy), so
overcome by sleep, indeed, that it was quite impossible to conduct him
to the waggon. This being so, he (Mazooku) considered what was his duty
under the circumstances, and he came to the accurate conclusion that
the best thing to do was to put them into the white man’s bed, since he
knew that his master did not love the floor to lie on. Accordingly,
having discovered that this was a room of beds, he and another Zulu
entered, but were perplexed to find the beds already occupied by two
white men, who had lain down to rest with their clothes on. But, under
all these circumstances, he and the other Zulu, considering that their
first thought should be towards their own master, had taken the liberty
of lifting up the two white men, who were slumbering profoundly after
the “dance,” by the head and by the heels, and putting them out in the
sweet cool air of the night, leaving thus “made a place,” they then
conveyed first Ernest, and having removed his clothes, put him into one
bed, and next, in consideration of his undoubted greatness, they
ventured to take the “Lion-who, &c.,” himself, and put him in the
other. He was a very great man, the “Lion,” and his art of throwing
greater men over his shoulder could only be attributed to witchcraft.
He himself (Mazooku) had tried it on that morning with a Basutu, with
whom he had a slight difference of opinion, but the result had not been
all that could be desired, inasmuch as the Basutu had kicked him in the
stomach, and forced him to drop him.
Ernest laughed as heartily as his headache would allow at this story,
and in doing so woke up Jeremy, who at once clapped his hands to his
head and looked round; whereupon Mazooku, having saluted the awakened
“Lion-who, &c.,” with much fervour, and spilled a considerable quantity
of hot coffee over him in doing so, took his departure abashed, and at
length the two friends were left alone. Thereupon, rising from their
respective pallets, they took a step in all the glory of their undress
uniform into the middle of the little room, and, after the manner of
Englishmen, shook hands and called each other “old fellow.” Then they
went back to bed and began to converse.
“I say, old fellow, what on earth brought you out here?”
“Well, you see, I came out to look you up. You did not write any
letters, and they began to get anxious about you at home, so I packed
up my duds and started. Your uncle stands unlimited tin, so I am
travelling like a prince in a waggon of my own. I heard of you down in
Maritzburg, and guessed that I had best make for Pretoria; and here I
am and there you are, and I am devilish glad to see you again, old
chap. By Jove, what a head I have! But, I say, why didn’t you write?
Doll half broke her heart about it, and so did your uncle, only he
would not say so.”
“I did write. I wrote from Secocoeni’s country, but I suppose the
letter did not fetch,” answered Ernest, feeling very guilty. “The fact
is, old fellow, I had not the heart to write much; I have been so
confoundedly down on my luck ever since that duel business.”
“Ah!” interposed Jeremy, “that shot was a credit to you. I didn’t think
you could have done it.”
“A credit! I’ll tell you what, it is an awful thing to kill a man like
that. I often see his face as he fell, at night in my sleep.”
“I was merely looking at it as a shot,” replied Jeremy, innocently, “I
don’t trouble myself with moral considerations, which are topsy-turvy
sort of things; and, considered as a shot at twenty paces and under
trying circumstances, it was a credit to you.”
“And then, you see, Jeremy, there was another thing, you
know—about—about Eva. Well, I wrote to her, and she has never answered
my letter, unless,” with a gleam of hope, “you have brought an answer.”
Jeremy shook his aching head.
“Ah! no such luck. Well, it put me off, and that’s the fact. Since she
has chucked me up, I don’t care twopence about anything. I don’t say
but what she is right; I daresay that I am not worth sticking to. She
can do much better elsewhere;” and Ernest groaned, and thought that his
head was very bad indeed. “But there it is. I hadn’t the heart to write
any more letters, and I was too proud to write again to her. Confound
her! let her go! I am not going to grovel to any woman under heaven,
no, not even to her!” and he kicked the bedclothes viciously.
“I haven’t learned much Zulu yet,” replied Jeremy, sententiously; “but
I know two words—‘hamba gachlé.’”
“Well, what of them?” said Ernest, testily.
“They mean, I am told, ‘take it easy,’ or ‘look before you leap,’ or
‘never jump to conclusions,’ or ‘don’t be in a confounded hurry’; “very
fine mottoes, I think.”
“Of course they do; but what have they got to do with Eva?”
“Well, just this: I said I had got no letter; I never said—”
“What?” shouted Ernest.
“Hamba gachlé,” replied Jeremy, the imperturbable, gazing at Ernest out
of his blackened eyes. “I never said that I had not got a message.”
Ernest sprang clean out of the little truckle-bed, shaking with
excitement. “What is it, man?”
“Just this. She told me to tell you that she ‘loved you dearly.’”
Slowly Ernest sat down on the bed again, and, throwing a blanket over
his head and shoulders, remarked, in a tone befitting a sheeted ghost:
“The devil she did! Why couldn’t you say so before?”
Then he got up again and commenced walking, blanket and all, up and
down the little room with long strides, and knocking over the water-jug
in his excitement.
“Hamba gachlé,” again remarked Jeremy, rising and picking up the
water-jug. “How are we going to get any more water? I’ll tell you all
about it.”
And he did, including the story of Mr. Plowden’s shaking, at which
Ernest chuckled fiercely.
“I wish I had been there to kick him,” he remarked, parenthetically.
“I did that too; I kicked him hard,” put in Jeremy; at which Ernest
chuckled again.
“I can’t make it all out,” said Ernest, at length, “but I will go home
at once.”
“You can’t do that, old fellow. Your respected uncle, Sir Hugh, will
have you run in.”
“Ah, I forgot! Well, I will write to her to-day.”
“That’s better; and now let’s dress. My head is rather clearer. By
George, though, I am stiff! It is no joke fighting a giant.”
But Ernest answered not a word. He was already, after his quick-brained
fashion, employed in concocting his letter to Eva.
In the course of the morning he drafted it. It, or rather that part of
it with which we need concern ourselves, ran thus:
“Such then, my dearest Eva, was the state of my mind towards you. I
thought—God forgive me for the treason!—that perhaps you were, as so
many women are, a fairweather lover, and that now that I am in trouble
you wished to slip the cable. If that was so, I felt that it was not
for me to remonstrate. I wrote to you, and I knew that the letter came
safely to your hands. You did not answer it, and I could only come to
one conclusion. Hence my own silence. And to be plain I do not at this
moment quite understand why you have never written. But Jeremy has
brought me your message, and with that I must be content; for no doubt
you have reasons which are satisfactory to yourself, and if that is so,
no doubt, too, they would be equally satisfactory to me if I only knew
them. You see, my dearest love, the fact is that I trust and believe in
you utterly and entirely. What is right and true, what is loyal and
sincere to me and to yourself—those are the things that you will do.
Jeremy tells me a rather amusing story about the new clergyman who has
come to Kesterwick, and who is, it appears, an aspirant for your hand.
Well, Eva, I am sufficiently conceited not to be jealous; although I am
in the unlucky position of an absent man, and worse still, an absent
man under a cloud, I do not believe that he will cut me out. But on the
day that you can put your hand upon your heart, and look me straight in
the eyes, and tell me, on your honour as a lady, that you love this or
any other man better than you do me, on that day I shall be ready to
resign you to him. But till that day comes—and there is something which
tells me that it is as impossible for it to come as for the
mountain-range I look on as I write to move towards the town and bury
it—I am free from jealousy, for I know that it is impossible that you
should be faithless to your love.
“Oh, my sweet, the troth we plighted was not for days, or years, or
times—it was for ever. I believe that nothing can dissolve it, and that
Death himself will be powerless against it. I believe that with each
new and progressive existence it will re-arise as surely as the flowers
in spring, only, unlike them, more fragrant and beautiful than before.
Sometimes I think that it has already existed through countless ages.
Strange thoughts come into a man’s mind out there on the great veldt,
riding alone hour after hour, and day after day, through sunlight and
through moonlight, till the spirit of Nature broods upon him, and he
begins to learn the rudiments of truth. Some day I shall tell them all
to you. Not that _I_ have ever been quite alone, for I can say honestly
that you have always been at my side since I left you; there has been
no hour of the day or night when you have not been in my thoughts, and
I believe that, till death blots out my senses, no such hour will ever
come.
“Day by day, too, my love has grown stronger even in its despair. Day
by day it has taken shape and form and colour, and become more and more
a living thing, more and more an entity, as distinct as soul and body,
and yet as inextricably blended and woven into the substance of each.
If ever a woman was beloved, you are that woman, Eva Ceswick; if ever a
man’s life, present and to come, lay in a woman’s hands, my life lies
in yours. It is a germ which you can cast away or destroy, or which you
can nourish till it bursts into bloom, and bears fruit beautiful beyond
imagining. You are my fate, my other part. With you my destiny is
intertwined, and you can mould it as you will. There is no height to
which I cannot rise by your side; there is no depth to which I may not
sink without you.
“And now, what does all this lead up to? Will you make a sacrifice for
me, who am ready to give all my life to you—no, who have already given
it? That sacrifice is this: I want you to come out here and marry me;
for, as you know, circumstances prevent me from returning to you. If
you will come, I will meet you at the Cape, and marry you there. Ah,
surely you will come! As for money, I have plenty from home, and can
make as much more as we shall want here, so that need be no obstacle.
It is long to wait for your answer—three months—but I hope that the
faith that will, as the Bible tells us, enable people to move
mountains—and my faith in you is as great as that—will also enable me
to bear the suspense, and in the end prove its own reward.”
Ernest read selected portions of this exalted composition to Mr. Alston
and Jeremy. Both listened in solemn silence, and at the conclusion
Jeremy scratched his head and remarked that it was deep enough to
“fetch” any girl, though for his part he did not quite understand it.
Mr. Alston relit his pipe, and for awhile said nothing; but to himself
he thought that it was a remarkable letter for so young a man to have
written, and revealed a curious turn of mind. One remark he did make,
however, and that was rather a rude one:
“The girl won’t understand what you are driving at. Master Ernest; she
will think that you have gone off your head in these savage parts. All
you say may or may not be true—on that point I express no opinion; but
to write such things to a woman is to throw your pearls before swine.
You should ask her about her bonnets, my boy, and tell her what sort of
dresses she should bring out, and that the air is good for the
complexion. She would come then.”
Here Ernest fired up.
“You are beastly cynical, Alston, and you should not speak of Miss
Ceswick like that to me. Bonnets, indeed!”
“All light, my lad—all right. Time will show. Ah, you boys! you go
building up your ideals of ivory and gold and fine linen, only to find
them one day turned into the commonest of clay, draped in the dirtiest
of rags. Well, well, it is the way of the world; but you take my
advice, Ernest: burn that letter, and go in for an Intombi. It is not
too late yet, and there is no mistake about the sort of clay a Kafir
girl is made of.”
Here Ernest stamped out of the room in a passion.
“Too cock-sure, wanted cooling down a little,” remarked Mr. Alston to
Jeremy; “should never be cock-sure where a woman is concerned; women
are fond of playing dirty tricks, and saying they could not help it. I
know them; for, though you mightn’t think it, I was once young myself.
Come on; let us go and find him, and go for a walk.”
They found Ernest sitting on the box of the waggon, which was
outspanned together with Jeremy’s, just outside the town, and looking
rather sulky.
“Come on, Ernest,” said Mr. Alston, apologetically; “I will throw no
more mud at your ideal. In the course of the last thirty years I have
seen so many fall to pieces of their own accord that I could not help
warning you. But perhaps they make them of better stuff in England than
we do in these parts.”
Ernest descended and soon forgot his pique. It was but rarely that he
bore malice for more than half an hour. As they walked along one of the
by-streets they met the young fellow who had acted as second to Jeremy
in the big fight of the previous day. He informed them that he had just
been to inquire how the giant was. It appeared that he had received an
injury to the spine, the effect of Jeremy’s “lift,” from which there
was little hope of his recovery. He was not, however, in much pain.
This intelligence distressed Jeremy not a little. He had earnestly
desired to thrash the giant, but he had had no wish to injure him. With
his usual promptitude he announced his intention of going to see his
fallen enemy.
“You are likely to meet with a warm reception if you do,” said Mr.
Alston.
“I’ll risk it. I should like to tell him that I am sorry.”
“Very good; come along—that is the house.”
The injured man had been carried to the house of a relative just
outside the town, a white thatched building that had been built
five-and-thirty years before, when the site of Pretoria was a plain,
inhabited only by quaggas, eland, and vilderbeeste. In front of the
door was a grove of orange-trees, which smelled sweet and looked golden
with hanging fruit.
The house itself was a small white building, with a double-swinging
door, like those used in stables in this country. The top half of the
door was open, and over the lower portion of it leaned a Boer, a
rough-looking customer, smoking a huge pipe.
“‘Dagh, Oom’” (Good-day, uncle), said Mr. Alston, stretching out his
hand.
The other looked at him suspiciously, and then held out a damp paw to
each in turn, at the same time opening the door. As Ernest passed the
threshold he noticed that the clay flooring was studded with
peach-stones well trodden into its substance to prevent wear and tear
from passing feet. The door opened into a fair-sized room with
whitewashed walls called the “sit-kam” or sitting-room, and furnished
with a settee, a table, and several chairs seated with “rimpi,” or
strips of hide. On the biggest of these chairs sat a woman of large
size, the mother of the family. She did not rise on their entry, but
without speaking held out a limp hand, which Mr. Alston and the others
shook, addressing her affectionately as “tanta,” or aunt. Then they
shook hands with six or seven girls and young men, the latter sitting
about in an aimless sort of way, the former clearing off the remains of
the family meal, which had consisted of huge bones of boiled fresh
beef. So fresh was it, indeed, that on the floor by the side of the
table lay the gory head and skin of a newly killed ox, from which the
beef had been cut. Ernest, noticing this, wondered at the superhuman
strength of stomach that could take its food under such circumstances.
The preliminary ceremony of hand-shaking having been got through, Mr.
Alston, who spoke Dutch perfectly, explained the object of their visit.
The faces of the Dutchmen darkened as he did so, and the men scowled at
Jeremy with hatred not unmingled with terror. When he had done, the
oldest man said that he would ask his cousin if he would see them,
adding, however, that he was so ill that he did not think it likely.
Raising a curtain, which served as a door, he passed from the
sitting-room into the bedroom, or “slaap-kam.” Presently he returned,
and beckoned to the Englishmen to enter. They passed into a small
chamber about ten feet square, which was hermetically sealed from air,
after the fashion of these people in cases of any illness. On a large
bed that blocked up most of the room, and on which it was the usual
habit of the master of the house and his wife to sleep _in their
clothes,_ lay the fallen giant. So much as could be seen of his face
was a mass of hideous bruises, and one of his hands, which lay on the
bed, was in splints; the chief injury, however, was to his back, and
from this he could never expect to recover. By his side sat his little
wife, who had on the previous day urged the thrashing of the Hottentot.
She glared fiercely at Jeremy, but said nothing. On catching sight of
his victor, the giant turned his face to the wall, and asked what he
wanted.
“I have come,” said Jeremy, Mr. Alston interpreting for him, “to say
that I am sorry that you are injured so much; that I wanted to beat
you, but had no idea that I should hurt you so. I know that the trick
of throwing a man as I threw you is very dangerous, and I only used it
as a last resource, and because you would have killed me if I had not.”
The Boer muttered something in reply about its being very bitter to be
beaten by such a little man.
It was evident to Ernest that the man’s pride was utterly broken. He
had believed himself the strongest man, white or black, in Africa, and
now an English lad had thrown him over his shoulder like a plaything.
Jeremy next said that he hoped that he bore no malice, and would shake
hands.
The giant hesitated a little, and then stretched out his uninjured
hand, which Jeremy took.
“Englishman,” he said, “you are a wonderful man, and you will grow
stronger yet. You have made a baby of me for life, and turned my heart
to a baby’s too. Perhaps one day some man will do the same for you.
Till then you can never know what I feel. They will give you the
Hottentot outside. No, you must take him; you won him in fair fight. He
is a good driver, though he is so small. Now go.”
The sight was a painful one, and they were not sorry to get away from
it. Outside they found one of the young Boers waiting with the
Hottentot boy, whom he insisted on handing over to Jeremy.
Any scruples the latter had about accepting him were overcome by the
look of intense satisfaction on the features of the poor wretch himself
when he learnt that he was to be handed over.
His name was “Aasvögel” (vulture), and he made Jeremy an excellent and
most faithful servant.