I awoke from a sound sleep, or rather was awakened by a knocking at the
door. Remembering my disclaimer of susceptibility, I hardly like to own
the persistency wherewith my dreams were haunted by visions of my
hostess. But now the sun was already up, and as I shouted "Come in,"
the opening door admitted a broad dazzling flash of his new-born
radiance together with the form of a small Kafir girl bearing a cup of
coffee. Sounds, too, of busy life came from outside.
A shave and a cool refreshing tub, and it did not take me long to get
into my clothes. There was no one about the house, except a Kafir girl
sweeping the stoep, but I heard voices in the direction of the kraals,
and thither wending I came upon a great enclosure filled with cattle,
and the hissing squirt of milk into zinc pails told what was going
forward. As I climbed over the gate, the voices increased in volume,
and expressed anger, not to say menace. Then a sight met my eyes,
causing me to move forward a little quicker.
Brian Matterson was standing at the further end, and, confronting him, a
huge Kafir. The latter was talking volubly in his own tongue, whose
rolling bass seemed to convey a ferocity which even to my inexperienced
ear was unmistakable. Moreover, he seemed to emphasise his arguments,
whatever they, were, with a very suggestive grip upon a pair of hardwood
sticks, which he held one in each hand. But Brian, who was totally
unarmed, stood, one hand in his trousers pocket, talking quietly, and
absolutely and entirely at his ease.
Suddenly the savage, an evil-looking, ochre-smeared ruffian, raised his
voice to a roar of menace, and at the same time one of the sticks
whirled through the air. But Brian merely stepped back a pace, and then
what followed was beautiful to behold. His fists were playing like the
drumsticks of a kettledrum, and down went his towering assailant into
the dust of the cattle kraal--then springing up, down he went again. It
was all done in a moment, before I could even reach the spot.
"That you, Holt?" said Brian, without, however, taking his eyes off his
discomfited adversary, to whom he continued to address some further
remarks in the tongue of the Amaxosa, and who, shuffling along the
ground, rose to his feet some little way off and slunk away out of the
enclosure, snarling out a deep-toned running fire of what sounded not in
the least like benediction.
"What's the row?" I said.
"Oh, nothing much. Rum thing, though, it should have happened the very
first glimpse you get of us. Still, it had to be. That fellow, Sibuko,
was with us here once, but we turned him off. He came back this
morning, and it's my belief he came back on purpose to have a row--and
he's got his wish."
"Rather," I said, in hearty admiration for the masterly way in which my
former schoolfellow had reduced to order a formidable and muscular
barbarian, an encounter with whom I myself would far rather have avoided
than welcomed. "You did that well, Brian. Yet I don't remember you as
a superlative bruiser at old Wankley's."
"Nor am I now. After all, it's nothing. These chaps can't use their
fists, you know."
"How about their sticks?"
"Yes, that comes in. A smart Kafir with a couple of kerries is often a
large contract--quickness is the great thing with either. Still, it's
unpleasant, and I don't care about it. But you'll hardly believe me
when I tell you the necessity may not arise once in a year. Only, you
can't be defied on your own place. I told that chap to clear, and he
answered point-blank that he wouldn't. There was only one way of
settling that difference of opinion, you see."
And he turned to give an order to one of his Kafirs, calm, equable, as
if nothing had happened.
"Have a smoke," he went on, "or is it too early for you? Yes? Oh well,
perhaps a fellow is better in moderation. Though I expect you'll soon
tumble into all our ways." And he filled and lighted his pipe, while we
chatted, but not for a moment did his attention slacken from what he was
engaged upon, the superintending of the milking to wit.
It was a lovely cloudless morning, and there was something in the clear
dry atmosphere that was exhilarating in the extreme. How would I take
to this sort of life? I thought to myself. Already the old life seemed
far away, and all behind. The charm of this new life--its freedom and
glorious climate--were settling upon me; why should I not embark in it?
I had the means, if I started carefully and modestly. I did not imagine
for a moment there was a fortune in it, but neither was there in the
branch of business in which my lines had hitherto been cast. And
somehow, woven in with such meditations was already the image of Beryl
Matterson; which was quite too absurd, remembering that twenty-four
hours ago I had never seen her.
"Don't you ever carry a six-shooter, Matterson?" I said, my mind
reverting to the little difference of opinion I had just seen so
effectually settled.
"Very seldom. You see, we are not outside the law here, and if I shot a
fellow I should almost certainly find myself in a nasty awkward mess."
"What--even in self-defence?"
"Even then. The English law is curiously wooden-headed on some points.
The `sacredness of human life' is one of them, especially with a judge
or two we have here who will always go against a white man in favour of
a Kafir; and if you were known to habitually carry arms it would go
further against you still."
"But what about your sister?"
"That's different. There isn't a jury on the frontier would convict a
woman for shooting a Kafir, because they know perfectly well that such a
thing couldn't happen except in a case of the direst necessity. In
fact, there are far too few women and girls who are able to take care of
themselves, and they all ought to be."
"I should very much think so," I said, and the time was to come when
these remarks were destined to recur to my mind with vivid clearness and
weighty force.
"Hallo!" said Brian, "here's the governor coming back." And following
his glance, I saw the white tent of a trap coming down the road from the
opposite direction to that of our way the evening before. A minute or
so more and it drew up opposite the kraals.
"Don't say anything about what you've just seen, Holt," he went on, as
we made our way to the gate. "He doesn't like that sort of thing, but
for all that it's sometimes inevitable."
Of course I gave him the required assurance, and as we reached the gate
the buggy pulled up, and there got out a strongly-built man of about
fifty-five. He had a quiet-looking but determined face, which reminded
me more of Beryl than of Brian, and a thick, full, brown beard, somewhat
streaked with grey, and as Brian speedily introduced us his welcome of
me was all that could be desired in the way of frank cordiality.
"I hope you will be able to make some stay with us, Mr Holt," he said.
"You have spent the night here, and, I take it, have seen what we have
to offer you; but such as it is, you are very welcome."
So this was Brian's father! I confess he inspired in me more than a
feeling of cordiality--for it was one of admiration. I knew men pretty
well by that time, and was a bit of a cynic on the subject; but now I
saw before me one whom I read as rather a unique specimen--a man who
would say what he meant, and who would act as his judgment dictated, no
matter what the whole world might think--a man whose word would be as
his bond, even though it were to his own detriment; in short, in this
frontier stock-farmer I saw a man who, no matter where he might be put
down, or under what circumstances, would be a very tower of reliability:
cool, intrepid, sound of judgment, come good, come ill. And in all my
subsequent friendship with Septimus Matterson, I never had cause to
swerve one hair's breadth from my first impression--save in one instance
only.
Now as two Kafirs came up to stand at the horses' heads, somebody else
jumped out of the buggy--a boy to wit, whom Mr Matterson promptly
introduced as his youngest son. He was a boy of about fourteen, a
good-looking boy, but with a roving mischievous look in his face; a boy,
in short, to whom I did not take one bit. Equally readily I could see
that he did not take to me.
"Just out from England, hey?" said this hopeful. "Man, but you'll find
it different here."
Now this was hardly the form of address to be looked for from a
youngster of his tender age to a man very considerably his senior;
moreover, there was something patronising about it which prejudiced me
against the speaker; in fact, I set him down at once as an unlicked cub.
But of course I showed no sign of what I was thinking, and the work
Brian had been superintending being at an end, we all went round to
count the flocks--I don't mean I bore any part in that operation, not
then--and adjourned to the house for breakfast.