Percy Benson opened his eyes and looked around him. He was lying
in a tiny grass-hut. How did he get there? He thought for a while
slowly; his head was very hot and heavy.
Of course! This must be one of the hoppers' houses, and he had
got back into Kent or East Sussex somehow. Where had he been
lately? Not in Kent, or even in England. He could remember only
a confused medley of traveling by land and water, and a huge
home-sickness. Never mind, all's well that ends well. Here he was
back in Kent surely, and in a hoppers' house. What time of year
was it? That rather puzzled him. For was not that a mass of
cherry-blossom not twenty yards from the tiny doorway? Why should
they put up a hoppers' house before September? Why in the world
should they put it up when cherries were in flower?
Never mind, he was in Kent; he would sleep ever so much better
now for knowing that. He put the cup of water that he found
beside him to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and slept anew.
When he woke again, hours after, a big man in flannel shirt and
wide-brimmed grey hat was standing by a wood fire outside the
doorway. It seemed to be just growing dark. The man was cooking
something in a pan over the fire. As he turned, Benson knew his
face. This was his old school and City friend John Haslar. He had
not seen him for years he could not remember how many.
'Hullo, Jack!' he said.
'Hullo!' said John with a start. 'That's much better. You've
slept well this last time! How do you feel now?'
'Oh, better, much better,' said Benson. 'But I've had it badly.
Influenza, isn't it?'
John looked at him with a question in his eyes, but did not
answer. 'I think you'll do now,' he said. 'You must take some
nourishment and your medicine, and then try to sleep again. I'm
your man for a talk in the morning, if only you get a good night.
I didn't come eighty miles to see you for nothing, I can tell
you.'
Benson felt weak and weary, and did as he was told. Just as he
closed his eyes he said, 'I'm glad to be back in Kent ever so
glad.' He sighed a little sigh of relief. 'I can't think where
I've been all this time. I am really back again, am I not?' He
did not wait for an answer, but fell asleep.
He woke up once in the night, and saw John sitting by the fire
and smoking his pipe.
"This is a hoppers' house, isn't it?" he began.
John turned round and looked at him with interest and pity. 'It
looks very much like it,' he said.
Benson gave a contented sigh, and turned over on his side again.
When he awoke in the morning his strength was really beginning to
come again. He was hungry for breakfast. He caught sight of a
dark, tall form by the fire on waking. But a minute or two after
it was gone, and John was back again.
'Ready for breakfast?' he asked.
Benson was soon at his porridge, and debating as to whether he
should finish with eggs or chops.
'You'd better have what you really care for,' said John, and
stepped outside and gave a call.
'Who's that gypsy-looking fellow?' asked Benson.
'Oh, he helps me,' said John. 'He's all right.' He went out of
the hut and received a dish from somebody as he spoke.
It was after breakfast that Benson made a request. 'I believe I
know where I am,' he said. 'Though I'm not quite sure, because my
head's still dizzy. I believe I'm back again in High Wood, just
near Hawkenbury, not two miles from my old home. What do you
think?'
'I don't think I know that country,' said John, looking
uncomfortable. 'And I'm sure I've never been here before.'
'I remember,' Percy Benson said, 'there used to be a little
grocer's shop down in Hawkenbury Street, where they sold mixed
biscuits, with lots of pink and white and yellow sugar, and
glass-stoppered ginger-beer. I haven't forgotten the taste,
though it's years ago. Do you think you could go down there, or
send somebody, and get me a bottle of ginger-beer and a pound of
biscuits. They're just what I'd fancy.'
John looked doubtful. 'I know a place that isn't so very far off,
where they keep groceries,' he said. 'But I don't know whether
they keep ginger-beer in glass-stoppered bottles, or if they keep
that particular sort of biscuits. However, we'll try.'
Benson slept a good deal that day. He talked between whiles
rather feverishly about the place, and how glad he was to be back
there again. John said very little, but that seemed not to
matter. Benson was glad enough to ramble on and on. He did not
appear to take much notice whether you answered his questions or
not. He was ecstatic rather than curious.
The biscuits came and were a fair success.
'Not quite so good as they used to be, but very good,' said
Benson. 'I like these sugar ones immensely; the ones with the
pink sugar are the pick.' But the ginger-beer was not of the
time-honored brand. It was drinkable enough, but it had a cork
tied, instead of a long cool mouth with a glass stopper.
'I must walk down and do some shopping for myself to-morrow,'
Benson said. 'What a summer we're having. Did you ever see such
blue sky as we've had yesterday and to-day?'
Next morning he was much better, and could get up and walk about
a little. John looked uncomfortable at times, as they sat over
their breakfast by the fire under the great trees. He was trying
to make up his mind to tell his friend where he was, and to
recall what had happened to him. He could see that, now the
fever-mists were melting, he was likely to be remembering for
himself before long. But how could he break things to him easily
without giving him a dire shock in his worn-out state?
Then to him pondering, the crisis came of itself.
Suddenly out of the woodland stepped a party of natives with
monkey-nuts, sweet potatoes, and other wares, very cheery and
smiling.
Benson started and his eyes grew troubled. 'Is this Africa?' he
said. 'Then I'm not home after all not home after all.'
'You're in Africa,' said John. 'You came up here about three
months ago, so they told me.'
'I remember,' said Benson. 'There was some money trouble in the
City some bad trouble. Then I had to leave my little place in
Kent near Seven-oaks, just as I was getting it to rights.' He
looked miserable as he thought over things, this sallow little
City man.
Meanwhile John traded some monkey-nuts and sweet potatoes for
salt, and sent the traffickers away.
Afterwards Benson began to talk out of the bitterness of his
soul, and John lit his pipe and listened gravely. He talked about
his little estate near Sevenoaks, the cottages and the farm, the
Elizabethan manor-house, the school and church, the timber and
the planting of the new trees. 'I was just getting the place into
shape,' he said. And then he nearly broke down and cried as he
told about the trouble in the City, and how a family council had
been called, and he had agreed to go to this country for his
country's good, and to keep away. 'Oh this farm, as they call
it,' he said 'these thousands of acres of grass and rocks with a
tin shanty to die of fever in! How wretched I've been here! But
we aren't on the farm still, are we? This seems a bit better. It
regularly took me in, this place. I did really think I was in
Kent again.'
John knocked out his pipe solemnly, and was just going to try and
say something comforting.
But Benson began again. 'And how did you get here you, the only
friend I've got in this wretched country?'
John told him that he had come down to see him, when he did,
without knowing how ill he was. He had had a letter from him, at
his store up in Rosebery last month, and for old sakes' sake he
had driven down when he had a chance to come away. When he
reached the farm he had found Benson lying at his homestead
unconscious from fever. The natives who were waiting on him
seemed to think him in danger. They said he had been sick for
days. John had gone to bed early that night of his coming to the
farm a glorious moonlit night. But long before dawn he had been
roused by a Kaffir boy with the news that Benson had risen and
rushed out. They tracked his wanderings to that beautiful stretch
of woodland, and managed to house him in a garden-hut of grass,
close by a clearing among the trees. Either John or his native
boy kept watch over him day and night then. But when he awoke
with that happy fancy of being at home, John kept away the native
boy, and put away, as far as he could, all the distinctive signs
of Africa. That dream of being at home might be a real help in
tiding his friend over a very wretched time. There he camped
under the two great trees with the wild white-flowered bush so
like an English cherry-tree in full September bloom about him,
and wondered what the issue of that comfortable delusion of
Benson's would be. It could not be expected to last anyhow, now
that he was coming back to sense and strength.
Benson writhed as John finished his story. He went on with the
tale of his own black loneliness and grey home-sickness. The
glory of Kent and the charm of High Wood seemed to be gone like
the shadows of a dream already. What good had they done him after
all?
John felt miserable as he heard him out. 'Look here!' he said,
'I've been doing well at the store, and I've got a good many
cattle that I'd like to run on this farm, if we can come to
terms; and I'll try and drive down every month or other month,
and stay with you for a bit and see how they're getting on.'
Percy Benson's face grew bright again at that saying. He was very
weak, and prone to sudden ups and downs.
'Oh, do promise you'll come every month,' he said. 'Weeks are so
long, and the one mail-day a week comes always terribly slowly.
Do promise.'
John promised faithfully.
Next day they went back to the homestead, a dull little iron
building on a rather feverish site. 'If I were you,' said John,
'I'd build where you have been lying sick. I don't like the look
of this other place at all.'
'Yes, I shall build in High Wood; I want to call it so now.
It's a magical place, I think: I shall always feel something is
home-like when I'm there.'
Life was growing brighter to him. His fever-fancy had opened his
eyes a little to the charm of the new country it was, at least,
here and there, not unlike the old country.
'I think I shall fancy this place more now,' he said to John on
the morning they parted. 'But, oh, if you could only have seen
that little place of mine five miles from Sevenoaks!'
'Look here!' said John. 'You've got a bigger estate here than
ever you had there, and you can find the same sort of interests
in it. Study your Kaffir tenants, and help them with ideas about
stock and ploughing and church and school. Your neighbors don't.
Well, more simpletons and arrant wasters, they! Believe me,
you'll find the new life much more like the old life in Kent, if
you do. Then study tree-planting, and look after this grand old
native timber. Expect me next month, on the 23rd.'
He went away and left Benson lonely. But the real blackness of
his loneliness was gone. The planning of the new homestead would
keep him busy for a long while now. Was not healing virtue
exuding from that soil, which the happy dreams of his recovery
had consecrated? His fever had given him a new point of view, or
rather given him back his old Kentish point of view delight in
God's own country sights and scenes, care for his tenants, and
hope.