"HAND TO THE LABOUR--HEART AND HAND."
"Bring back Meerkat," had been Beryl's parting injunction, and I had
fulfilled it to the letter. And as I restored her favourite horse,
literally with my own hands--and none the worse for his enforced
travels, though the other two returned with sore backs--I was conceited
enough to think that the pleased light of welcome that came over Beryl's
sweet face was not entirely due to satisfaction at his recovery, and
that approbation of his rescuer bore some small share therein.
"Well done, Kenrick," sang out Iris, clapping her hands. "Man, but
you're no sort of a raw Britisher anyhow." And I own that the dear
child's frank and homely form of approval fell gratefully upon my ears
just then.
"You should have seen Revell sabreing them all right and left with a
sjambok when they cheeked him at that kraal," guffawed Trask. "Oh--h--"
The last in a subdued howl, evolved by the contact of Brian's boot with
the speaker's shin, under the table. For in another moment Trask would
have blundered out the whole story as a joke of the first water, in
anticipation whereof Revell was beginning to redden furiously.
"He got us out of that in the nick of time," struck in Brian with his
wonted tact. "Pass on the grog, Trask. Help yourself first--thanks.
Well, we've brought back the whole plunder, except one of the oxen, and
Kenrick's gun. The first they've scoffed, and the second we shan't see
again, I'm afraid. Eh, dad?"
"I'm afraid not. You've done well--very well. I never expected you'd
recover so much. I'm very much obliged to you fellows for your help."
Of course we all disclaimed any expression of thanks; but later on what
does this prince of good fellows do but send for a first-rate gun to
replace my missing piece. No, he would not listen to any protest. I
had lost my own in recovering his property, therefore it was only fair
he should make it good.
Later on, too, when Beryl heard the story of my own perilous and
nerve-trying experience--(much of the detail of our expedition had, for
obvious reasons, been kept from the children)--she said--
"Why did you do it? Why did you run such a terrible risk? I would
sooner have lost all the horses in the world. Heavens! and you were so
near being murdered! No, you ought not to have taken such a risk. Why,
I should never have forgiven myself--never. It is too horrible."
She was intensely moved. Her eyes softened strangely, and there was
something of a quaver in her voice. And yet my first impressions had
credited Beryl Matterson with a cold disposition! Had we been alone
together now I don't know what I might have said or done--or rather I
believe I do know. As it was, I answered lightly--
"Oh, I don't suppose it would have come to that. Probably they were
only trying to scare me, and, by Jove! they succeeded, I'll own to that.
When it came to the point they'd likely have turned me adrift. Don't
you think so, Mr Matterson?"
"No, I don't. They'd have killed you as sure as eggs," was the decisive
reply. "They're a mighty _schelm_ lot up Kameel Kloof way, and there
has been more than one disappearance of white men during the last few
years. But you can't bring them to book. They swarm like red ants in
that location, and no Kafir will ever give another away."
In point of fact I was not ill-pleased with this decision, simply and
solely because the peril I had come through would enhance my interest in
the eyes of Beryl, especially as it had been incurred in her particular
service.
Our return had been effected without incident or opposition, and to me
there was a strong smack of the old border raiding kind of business as
we brought back the recovered spoil, recovered by our own promptitude
and dash. As for myself, I had undergone some experience of the noble
savage in his own haunts, and began to feel quite a seasoned
frontiersman. And yet barely three months ago I had been worrying along
in the most approved mill-horse round in a City office. Heavens! what a
change had come into my life.
Immediately on our return, all concerned in it had held a council of
war, confined rigidly to the four of us. The fewer in the know the
better, Brian had declared, wherefore he had not disclosed the whole
facts of the case even to his father. One of the thieves had been shot,
whether killed or disabled of course we had no idea. On that we must
keep our own counsel, absolutely and strictly, and to make assurance
doubly sure we must never so much as mention the matter again even among
ourselves.
Incidentally the rest of us thought it just as well that Trask had
accounted for him, because Trask was the weak link in the chain, whereas
now that he was the one most concerned, self-preservation alone would
keep him from giving away the affair under an impulse of senseless brag.
"You see," pronounced Brian, "as long as we keep dark the Kafirs'll keep
dark, too. They'll think nothing of one fellow getting hurt, because
it's quite in accordance with their laws and customs that some one
should get hurt in a little affair of the kind. But if we start
stirring up things--setting the police on to the track, and so forth--
why then it's likely the other business will crop up, and that'll be
more than awkward, for the _schelm_ wasn't even going for us, but
running away. Running away, mind. There's no doubt about it but that
we--or rather, Holt--struck upon a regular nest of cattle-thieves; but
we can do nothing further under the circumstances, nothing whatever. So
mum's the word, absolutely. Is that understood?"
All hands agreed to this, but none more emphatically than Trask, who, by
the way, was a little less proud of his feat now that it was put in this
new and exceedingly awkward light.
"Very well, then, that's settled," declared Brian, characteristically
dismissing the affair from his mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
After this things settled down at Gonya's Kloof, ordinarily and without
incident. And yet, to me, so radical was the change compared with all
my former life, that every day seemed replete with incident, even what
to the others was mere ordinary routine. I threw myself with zest into
everything, and both Brian and his father declared after a month or two
that if I went on at this rate I should know as much as they could teach
me before I had been with them a year, and already knew a great deal
more than Trask did after four: a pronouncement which was exceedingly
gratifying to me.
I look back upon those days as among the very happiest of my life. Not
that it was all picnicking by any means. There was plenty of work--
hard, at times distasteful, even unpleasant. There were times when such
meant rising in the dark, saddling up in the grey dawn, and spending the
whole long day ranging the veldt in quest of strayed stock, and that
beneath a steady, cold, incessant downpour, which soon defied mere
waterproof, and would have extinguished the comforting pipe but for the
over-sheltering hat brim. Or, substitute for the downpour a fierce sun,
burning down upon hill and kloof, until one felt almost light-headed
with the heat. Or the shearing, which meant a daily round from dawn
till dark in a hot stuffy shed, redolent of grease and wool, and sheep,
and musky, perspiring natives--and this running into weeks. But there
was always something, and seldom indeed could one call any time actually
and indisputably one's own.
Does this sound hardly compatible with the statement I have made above?
It need not; for however hard or arduous the work, I was happy in it. I
felt that I was mastering the secret of a new walk in life, and to me a
highly attractive and independent one. I was simply glowing with
health, and in condition as hard as nails, for although the weather
would now and again run into a trying extreme, on the whole the climate
was gloriously healthy and exhilarating. Then, too, I was sharing in
the only real home I had ever known--certainly the very happiest one I
had ever seen. It mattered not how hard the day had been, there was
always the evening, and we would sit restfully out on the stoep, smoking
our pipes and chatting beneath the dark firmament aflame with stars,
while the shrill bay of jackals ran weirdly along the distant hillside,
and the ghostly whistle of plover circled dimly overhead and around, and
the breaths of the night air were sweet with the distillation from
flowering plant or shrub. Or, within the house Beryl would play for us,
or sing a song or two in her sweet, natural, unaffected way. Or even
the harmless squabbling of the two children would afford many a laugh.
"Tired, Kenrick?" said Septimus Matterson one such evening, after an
unusually hard day of it. "Ha-ha! Stock-farming isn't all picnicking
and sport, is it?"
"Not much; but then I never expected it would be," I answered. "I am
only just healthily tired--just enough to thoroughly appreciate this
prize comfortable chair."
"Anyway, you're looking just twice the man you were when you came.
Isn't he, Beryl?"
"Hardly that, father, or we should have to widen the front door," she
answered demurely. We all laughed.
"Man, Beryl. That reminds me of Trask, when he tries to be funny,"
grunted that impudent pup, George.
"That reminds _me_ that it's high time you were in bed, George,"
returned Beryl, equable and smiling. "So off you go there now, and
sharp."
Her word was law in matters of this kind, admitting of no appeal, so
Master George slouched off accordingly, making a virtue of necessity by
declaring he was beastly tired, and further had only stopped up to help
amuse us; which final speech certainly carried that effect.
Beryl remained talking with us a little while longer, then she, too,
went inside.
"What on earth I should do without my girl, Kenrick, I don't know,"
thereafter said her father. "Yet I suppose I shall have to some day."
"Will you?" I said vacuously, for the words raised an uncomfortable
twinge.
"Why, yes, I suppose so, in the ordinary way of things."
"Oh! um--yes, ah! I suppose so," I echoed idiotically, feeling devoutly
thankful that the gloom of night concealed a stupid reddening which I
could feel spreading over my asinine countenance, and wondering if the
other detected the inconsequent inanity of the rejoinder begotten of an
_arriere-pensee_. But I realised keenly the only side of the situation
that would reconcile me to Beryl's father having to do without her.
I had now had time to straighten out my affairs in England; and arrange
for having my capital transferred to this country, though this could not
be done yet, by reason of its investment requiring notice of withdrawal.
I had caused such of my personal belongings as I needed--and such were
not extensive--to be shipped out to me, also some money which I could
touch, and this I promptly invested in live stock, under the advice of
my most competent of instructors. So by now I reckoned myself fairly
and squarely launched. By the way, the man whose boat had constituted
the first step in my change of fortunes, having found out my identity,
had put in a claim for compensation, but had been directed to wait. Now
he too was paid in full, and so everybody was satisfied.
We were nearing midsummer, i.e. Christmas and the New Year, but the
intensifying heat notwithstanding, the face of the veldt was smiling and
green, for we had had a series of splendid rains. Such a season, it was
pronounced, had not been known for years. Stock was fat and thriving,
and there was little or no disease. Even our turbulent neighbours had
quieted down, and were busy ploughing and sowing, with the result that
there was an abnormal but welcome lull in cattle lifting and other
maraudings along the border, whose white inhabitants were, for the
nonce, content.
"It's Kenrick who has brought us luck," declared Iris, with a decisive
nod of her pretty head, as we were metaphorically rubbing our hands over
the existing state of things. "I've read somewhere that it's always
lucky to pick up a waif and stray."