We all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, and
Africa in a measure dominated our movements, or at least our
proposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all our
three affections by that journey, she made us more of her slaves
she has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not?
In her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverse
expedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, she
exercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out in
those trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africa
would be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whose
doom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about,
I am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway
(his Via Dolorosa,) making assurance much more sure that he must
leave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who had
taken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africa
made revelations to her at each stage of a journey that was
rousing in itself, for it brought her away from her western
station to a very different countryside. And if these revelations
were not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. I
could make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds of
that journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet before
I have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation.
We were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon wherein
she, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the Civil
Service, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving the
Service for other reasons as well as that particular one. He was
traveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus his
pangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting her
on her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous by
adding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my being
useful.
The donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had not
been used well, and were far on in life. With their driver I
differed as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dear
to him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no means
easy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many days
before the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagon
conductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should have
yielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the main
roads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when I
had lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road I
sought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how the
wagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dug
out, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we had
filled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gain
purchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine when
I heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrously
direct, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my own
decision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, we
stuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck in
the hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we were
long in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and we
slept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, ready
for an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawled
along, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor.
That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew
in on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and
went on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders
to wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had
been delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon the
disused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden over
so little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cutting
now to be done.
Our voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny and
bearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneath
his sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shame
from the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came to
our rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, very
grateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. We
trekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swamp
at the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we
outspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked
under, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady
of the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to
coax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from
relapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded.
We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream;
there we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. So
we camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed.
Now I would tell you about that night and the next morning. We
got the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not well
sleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoes
about then, for March was the time of the year; so we made her
bed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire.
After supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heaped
blaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom or
folly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked and
munched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its best
excuse for a yawning lack of plot.
Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us.
When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. But
meanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and Miss
Moore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle.
Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had been
quartered in many parts of her those last ten years; his
admiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of her
feverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only country
worth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's own
country. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. The
wind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the other
side of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just as
steadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately,
both of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed to
matter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growth
as my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenes
in south-eastern England for my private view frequently now,
scenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes of
weald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over this
last my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses.
When I found words for these scenes they proved so many
battlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially,
as I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit that
night, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He said
that he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I try
to remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two
rivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were
camping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could
not interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so
plainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the other
hand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, so
lacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in that
green old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed or
rather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and found
a dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were both
so clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go his
way, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was a
more than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone,
against her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds were
against her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O,' she
appealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever else
you do. My going east bids you in honor to stay.' I allowed her
plea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that I
propounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been
talking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the
cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and
gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross
picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the
scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks
that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she
said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at
last. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submitting
subjects for inquiry.
'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under stars
What star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyre
surely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not the
Plough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuch
irrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it the
Northern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, it
was the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of
more than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying
peine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of
Africa to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow
her star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?
'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to
know what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying
down?'
I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a
decent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi
is excellent.'
'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least
not till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular
shallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.
'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's
defense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's
emphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the
other day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the
height of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is
but one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some
women and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one
of such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a
distance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs"
to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But
trust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the
same sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left
Oxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you"
you know the sort of thing.'
Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My
lucidities, I feared, were missing fire.
A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not
harnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them.
With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip.
After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it
had taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune
had been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.
'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'
'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her,
and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey
has done about linen or calico, I forget which.'
That started the keening again.
'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by
the dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission.
You will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'
Worn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heaven
being my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that,' I pleaded. 'I've
soared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a gross
sort of pledge.'
'No, you're to go on,' Dick told me.
'What about yourself?'
'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise by
Africa within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on her
veld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows me
out-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do the
work she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has made
a study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leave
the wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. What
with bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she's
landed me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on.
I'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, just
like a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to be
flitting North like one of her swallows this month of all months
in the year.'
In the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock that
lichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as did
the other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. I
gave Dick a motto about Africa:
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
I gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn our
captivity ... as the rivers in the south.' Then I knelt by the
grey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thou
hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.'
Soon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home by
the hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing east
and west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem to
make up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Cross
for me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supply
the same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As for
Miss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly,
doubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and her
sympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her.
Nevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call and
the Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction.
In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or
another the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each
of our three careers.