Some five years after, Julian Borne came up to Rosebery by the
early train. He awoke at dawn and threw up the window. He was
traveling in a sleeping compartment deluxe. He had appearances to
keep up now.
The sun had tilted up a golden arc and the withered landscape
took a lavish glory.
Julian's eyes fell on some shabby thatched roofs that the blaze
was brightening. 'Mount Pleasant Mission!' he said to himself.
'and to think I wasted three good years of my life there. Three
bob a day with rations and no drinks. Good Lord!' He filled his
pipe as the poverty-stricken homestead passed out of sight. 'Yet
it wasn't all waste,' he went on. 'I got to know the country and
its questions. I got to know how to manage men.' He laughed a
little to himself complacently. 'No, I couldn't manage Hunter.
They told me last week he was nearly dead with blackwater. I
wonder if he's dead by now. Not one head of cattle to bless
himself with, I'll bet, and no banking account ever opened in his
name. He was quite unmanageable.'
'Ah! But I managed some of them. What about the Canon
Superintendent?' A white-haired vision, creasy-chinned and rosy,
passed before his eyes. 'Toad!' he muttered and kicked the
foot-warmer. 'Even so,' he growled. 'Butter for the clergy, palm-oil
for the laity, big stick for the incorruptible!' His face grew
hard as he thought over some contemplated applications. His face
was little changed in five years save for the wrinkles about the
eyes.
The train drew up at the platform. Julian found a good many
acquaintances as he passed along it. But he was not disposed to
make himself too cheap. Some got a wintry nod, others a summer
smile. One high official who represented big interests got two
minutes' talk and a drink. Then Julian jumped into his mule-cart,
and drove away. He reflected with satisfaction on the quantity
and quality of the greetings that morning. Meanwhile his Cape-boy
coachman whipped up the mules and took him along the main street
in style.
Julian had not been in Rosebery for six months now. He had made
great strides in those months the most momentous of his life.
From being a coming man he had reached the summit of arrival. He
had arrived without a doubt. His company's shares had risen
super-excellently. He had made a big coup at the end of last
year. The fullness of time had now brought to him the prospect of
another. As he whirled on into Suburbia, he fell to considering
relative prosperities. He set names to the houses he was passing.
No, he wouldn't change with any one of their owners. Not one
stood better just now. Not one was more the man of the moment. He
could give points and a beating to how many!
He drove through a gate and up a drive. He was at home again. His
house had been enlarged and re-decorated since he was last there.
It looked solidly prosperous. Its second floor shouted 'money'
in a country where most houses could boast no first floor.
Its critics might have called its colors harrowing and its
architecture the reverse of inspired, but Julian cared not a
jot for that sort of up-in-the-air criticism. He sat down to
breakfast with a thankful heart, and made himself quite amiable
to Tommy Bates.
Tommy Bates was five years older than Julian, and had acted as
his Secretary these two years past. He had small eyes set in a
rather big pasty face. His goatee beard was trim, but scarcely
pleasing.
Julian got through his letters at breakfast and after, breakfast
with Tommy's help. Amongst the letters was one from Mount
Pleasant Mission enclosing a card. 'Hunter's mad,' said Julian
crossly. He tore up the envelope viciously, but he did not tear
up the card it contained. He placed that in his pocket-book
carefully. Tommy looked at him in interrogation, but Julian was
not communicative.
After they had discussed a business letter or two, and had a
drink together, Julian started for the Club. He made himself
agreeable to one or two, and got a deal of pleasure out of
snubbing another. Then he gathered some important news from a
business acquaintance. It was great news. He wanted time to think
over it. He sent off two or three wires to labor agents and one
to a Native Commissioner.
He must have boys at any cost, and quickly, to develop certain
properties. He
"... turned an easy wheel
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel."
Then he interviewed an agent in an office, and did some very
delicate work indeed in the drafting of a prospectus. He had
earned a drink by then. His brain interested him he was inclined
to self-analysis of a sort its chiaroscuro of limelight effects
and faint nuances indicated rather than expressed. It was good to
be alive to-day, and to pull as many strings as he was pulling.
He did not stop at one drink; over the second, the expert made a
proposition to him. It dazzled him, but he would not give an
answer just then. To-morrow morning would do.
After that he lunched at the Club with Sir Charles Guestling who
was just back from England, and had brought a younger brother out
with him to see the country. It would have been a pleasanter
lunch without that brother, Julian thought at the time. The
brother said nothing offensive, indeed he hardly opened his
mouth, but his eyes embarrassed Julian strangely. He had curious
blue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he would
fix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deep
in shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it was
that Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyes
seemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more than
they ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made some
highly technical statement. It was extraordinary that a
conventional man about town like Sir Charles should have such a
brother.
After lunch Julian relaxed.
He gave himself the indulgence of a call on Mrs. Puce.
He had put her husband on to a good thing or two a year ago now.
They had been great friends, he and the wife.
To-day he was a little anxious as to how she would receive him.
Things had altered since they last met. 'He had got engaged a
business-like engagement.
But she was very gracious in her welcome. Moreover she was more
decorous this afternoon than he remembered her a few months back.
He told her about his contemplated coup.
'I'll consult planchette for you,' said she. 'Yes, and I'll let
you know to-night.'
She was a pretty woman with rather too high a color. But she grew
pale enough now.
'I forgot, though, it's against my principles,' she said. 'I've
given up lots of things. I'm much more particular.' Something
roused Julian. He spoke masterfully.
'Just this once,' he said, 'Let me know to-night. I may know of
something gilt-edged that I won't keep to myself if I hear to-night
without fail. No, I won't be refused. I want proof of good-will.'
It was a sunny afternoon, with none of that southeast wind which
is the bane of our winter. Julian told his coachman to drive him
up to his new farm. The homestead was about five miles out of
town in the Mount Pleasant direction.
Julian drew out the draft of the prospectus, and began to work
hard at its revision. They had stopped at the house ere he thrust
pencil and paper into his pocket. He stepped out of El Dorado let
himself down, not without a jar, on to more humdrum earth.
The farm-house was an iron shanty newly hammered together. The
bailiff a full-bearded Colonial stood in the front doorway.
Julian gave him a perfunctory handshake. He talked farming
business to him quickly. He was tired, and eager to be through
with it.
They were almost through with it in half an hour. They smoked
their pipes and had coffee on the stoep together.
'About that Mission Church,' said the Bailiff, 'You know the
notice is just up that you gave them last year. The boy that used
to teach there is gone, and the kraal's moving. The building
still stands empty. They don't use it now.'
Julian frowned.
'Let's have a look at it,' he said. 'We can drive round that way
when Bob's inspanned. Meanwhile let's have a drink.'
The Church was very small wattle and daub. It had done three
years' service.
'No value,' pronounced Julian. He was rather angry with such a
mere shed for wasting his valuable time.
'That grass wants burning,' he muttered. 'If you set a light to
it and the Church catches, I shouldn't think there'll be any harm
done.'
'Right,' said the bailiff. Julian stepped inside the building.
'Nothing left,' he said. 'Nothing but this box. You'd better keep
it. They can have it if they send for it.'
'What's inside?'
There were some red and black candlesticks and vases packed away
in the box works of art in their way, but that way was not
Julian's.
'Cheap and nasty,' was his comment. 'Ah! What's that?'
'It was on the Communion Table,' said the bailiff.
Julian took up a clay cross and regarded it curiously.
'A cross with a snake on it!' he exclaimed.
'One of the boys said it meant the Brazen Serpent,' said the
bailiff.
'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it's
quite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if he
asks what we've done with it.'
'Right,' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart.
Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination.
'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured
to himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well
I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a
flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that
day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ
all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread
on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it
would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for
my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine
days. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a
nuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'