"DEAR SANDFORD,—Come back. The mystery is explained. Letters from
Nottingham and remittances will await you at Pretoria. Return to us,
and the past will be made up to you. I dare not write more plainly, not
knowing whether this will ever reach you. But I snatch at the chance,
for the man who bought my old coat of you may be able to find you
out.—Your miserable friend, HORACE BOURKE."
"Farewell to Africa, and hurrah for merry England!" shouted Algarkirke,
tossing the letter to the ceiling and catching it again, whilst the
stolid Dutch faces around him stared in blank amazement. "Jack, Jack!
You've been my good genius in very truth. Come along with me and I'll
take you to England and make a man of you, my boy," he ran on.
"I rather think he bids fair to develop into that already, without
wanting help of yours," observed Mr. Treby. "But how about this coat
I bought of you? It's yours, and it's not yours, and I am earnestly
requested in my letter of this morning to send it back to England."
"Horace Bourke and I were school-fellows," began Algarkirke. "We met
one day at a village cricket match near Hawkswood Hall. One of the boys
got hurt. Horace took his bat. As he pulled off his coat, he threw it
to me, saying, 'Take care of it for me, Sandford, for there is a note
in the pocket for father.'
"While they were playing, a bull broke loose from a neighbouring farm,
and rushed into the field, scattering the cricketers, who ran for their
lives, I among the rest. Horace snatched up one of the stumps and tried
to drive the beast away. He shouted to me to fetch his gun. 'And give
the note for father to one of our people, so that he gets it in time,'
he added.
"Off I ran towards the parsonage. Before I reached it a thunder-storm
came on. I threw his coat over my shoulders to keep myself dry. I got
the gun, but forgot all about the note. Alarmed for his young master's
safety, the gardener went back with me.
"When we gained the field we found the bull had been shot by its owner.
I could not see anything of Horace, so I gave the man the gun and told
him I must borrow the coat to go home in, as it still continued to
pour. Before I had a chance to return the coat, Horace wrote to ask
which of his father's people had taken the note from me, as it had
never reached him.
"I started up in a fright and felt in the pockets of the coat, but as
there was nothing in them I thought I must have left the note with the
woman who gave me the gun, but the scare with the bull had put it all
out of my head. That was how I answered him. Then I went on a tour
with an old chum to get rid of the bother. When it came out there was
money in the note, and I was charged with stealing it, my mother was
frightened out of her senses. She packed up my belongings, and Horace's
coat with them; for he privately entreated her not to send it back, not
to let any one know I had taken it home, as it would go against me.
She charged me to prolong my tour, but not to send her any address. We
only communicated under cover to my Dutch friends at Amsterdam, and
that but rarely, so that I had begun to think I was expatriated for
life. No one but my mother believed in my innocence, and she reproached
me with having brought all this trouble on myself by my confounded
carelessness."
The "oom" blew a great whiff of smoke from his long clay pipe, and gave
a nod to his sons that said plainly, "Are you listening to that, boys?
Take the lesson home."
Zyl flung a snort of contempt at his schoolmaster, and kicked his heels
remorselessly against the legs of Mr. Treby's new chairs.
Algarkirke went on, impetuously. "But you, Jack, you are the best
friend I ever had in all my life, for you have cleared me. When my
mother knows what you have done, there will be nothing that is in her
power that she would not do for you in return."
"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Algarkirke," interrupted Jack, mindful of his
grandfather's words. "It was Vic found it, not I. I am only so glad to
have been some good in the world already."
Genderen, who had been whispering with her mother, touched Algarkirke's
arm. "Talk with us about that." She smiled significantly.
Mr. Treby glanced approvingly at his boy. "And even now," he thought,
"Algarkirke does not realize what this has cost you. But he is a more
wretched cad than I take him to be if I can't make him feel before we
part the moral difference between a boy who asks himself, What ought I
to do? What would be right? And then does the best he can, without a
thought of the consequences, and a selfish fellow, who only wants to
shirk all responsibility and back out of everything disagreeable. It
may open his eyes and make a change in his own character, for after all
it is character shapes our destiny, both here and hereafter."
Aloud he said: "Keep on with your story, Jack, while you have so good
an interpreter as Mr. Algarkirke. The Van is growing impatient."
As Mr. Treby spoke, the worthy Boer was thundering on the table with
his clenched fist to recall Jack's attention.
Jack did not want to say any more about himself. It seemed to him so
like being his own trumpeter. He grew hot at the thought, but his
father urged him on with—"Remember the poor Black Antelope. We may
never have such another chance to reinstate her in her old master's
good graces. You must plead for her, my boy. No one but you can do it
half so well."
"Yes, father, I must, I ought, and I will," answered Jack, as Walt
hoisted him on a chair, exclaiming, "Jah, Jah!" for he had guessed the
purport of Mr. Treby's last aside.
Zyl muttered an emphatic "Go it," a new English phrase he had picked up
in the last three days, when Sannie appeared in the doorway, tugging
with all her might at the scanty skirt of the unlucky Kafir.
It must be admitted that Jack's first essay at "tailoring" had not
produced a West End fit. The grotesqueness of her appearance threw
Tante Milligen into a fit of laughter. It was a happy moment. The
pardon was granted before the pleading was well begun. Mr. Treby's
Kafir guide, who, under pretence of driving Vickel away from Sannie,
continued to linger round the door, began to gesticulate violently.
"Inkoos, casa," he began, in the picturesque language of his tribe,
"lift up the bruised rosebud these men have trampled in the dust, and
give her to me. I've room in my kraal for just such a wife, and I've
sheep and oxen to buy her with; and no man shall wrong her any more,
for the spear that stands in the corner of my hut would be swift as the
lightning to strike him, and the heart which beats in my bosom beats
only for her."
There was a softer glow in the downcast eyes of the Kafir girl than
Jack had ever seen there before as his father answered,—
"She is free to go or stay as she chooses; but if she goes with you,
Madzook, it shall not be empty-handed. The brindled heifer, and the
pail and the English churn which she so admires, are all her own. She
will tell you how she watched over my boy, and she takes a father's
blessing with her wherever she goes."
"She deserves all her happiness," said Algarkirke humbly; "but it is
not so with me. I see by Jack's face, he is thinking of the night when
he wanted me to speak up for her, and I would not, because I despised
the low, black cattle, and hated myself to think a similar misfortune
could overwhelm us both. I had no feeling for anybody but myself. I
thought if I had tried to help her, I should only let loose my own
shame. It was better to stand aloof. And now I could wish my whole life
undone."
"Cheer up," said Mr. Treby kindly. "Remember what I said to you when
first we met. If the old self is dead, you may climb to a higher and a
happier life. You've had hard lines, my poor boy, and you never heard
the still small voice that was whispering through it all, 'Come unto
Me, and I will give you rest.' But we must not speak of a day until
we see its close; for Christ is ever with us, sowing light in the
darkness, drawing good from evil, changing the curse into a blessing in
his own good time."
And so they parted.
Three days afterwards the Hottentot cart from Jaarsveldt appeared once
more at Mr. Treby's gate. Mr. Treby recognized the mining yellow face
of the Jaarsveldt cow-keeper.
"What's up?" he asked as Zyl and Genderen tumbled out of the lumbering
vehicle with more than their usual awkwardness.
They did not perceive Mr. Treby, as they were intently looking after
something behind the cart. Zyl held a rope in his hand, and as Mr.
Treby drew nearer, he saw that he was leading a splendid male ostrich,
with brilliant eyes and plumage of the purest white.
"Where is Jack?" they asked, as Seco hurried up to greet his countryman.
"They shall have it their own way," thought Mr. Treby. "I won't spoil
the children's pleasure by interfering before I know what they are
after." He stepped into the garden and sent Jack to meet his friends.
Seco stood by his countryman with his hands to his sides, laughing with
all his might, whilst Genderen called up Vickel. She came slowly, with
her head on one side, eying the new arrival, which Zyl still contrived
to keep well in leash.
Mr. Treby paused with his hand on the garden gate, for Genderen's slow
Dutch, filtered through Hottentot into Jack's English, was amusing in
the extreme. "Enough to make a cat laugh," he said.
"What have you brought your Speriwig here for?" shouted Jack in great
glee.
"Never you mind," retorted Zyl. "Algarkirke's gone for good, and we
shall all be dunces, I suppose."
"He thought a great deal about Vickel," put in Genderen, with her
fingers in her mouth, of course. "You know you told him all his good
luck was owing to her. He said he should send her a silver collar from
England. Nonsense, we told him, what would a bird care about that? Get
her a nice mate, and she will be as happy as the day is long. So he
made a deal with father when they squared all up. He said if he had
money enough to take him to Pretoria that was all he wanted. He was
in such a hurry to be gone, he left father to get in the money that
was owing him for schooling at the off farms. And Vickel's to have
Speriwig."
"Speriwig, will get his own living browsing on the veldt, as Vickel
does," added Zyl; "and if you have a brood of chicks, Jack, you need
not mind."
There was a sly twinkle in the Dutch boy's eyes as he rubbed his hands
together, and even Mr. Treby had to own it was cleverly done.
Sandford Algarkirke was beyond the reach of either thanks or refusals,
as Zyl averred. Jack must pocket his English pride and let his Vickel
keep her mate.
"It was all my plan," observed Genderen, her round face radiating with
pleasure. "I was sure it would please Jack better than anything else;
and now, if he takes care of his chicks, by the time he is a man, he
will have as fine a flock of ostriches as any farmer in Africa."
"Do you hear that, Jack?" said Mr. Treby, coming forward. "Like
Whittington's cat, your snow-feathered queen will make you a wealthy
man."
Jack drew a deep breath of gratitude and delight as he looked up in
his father's face, exclaiming, "Oh, isn't it kind of Mr. Algarkirke? I
always did like him very much, except when he called Sannie 'a fatted
calf,' Why didn't she come with you?"
"Oh, Sannie!" grumbled Zyl. "You are never easy without Sannie."
As usual Zyl was right. Jack never was quite happy without her any
more, and when the wealthy manhood his father had predicted drew near,
he went one day to Jaarsveldt and brought her home a bride.