GOOD SHOTS
After a good night’s rest and a hearty breakfast, our friends once more
resumed their journey, being anxious to get farther away from town,
where there would be a greater probability of getting something to
shoot at.
About three o’clock in the afternoon they reached another acquaintance
of Steve’s, and were received with an almost effusive welcome.
The family consisted of Oom Ignatious, Tante Letta, Ignatious, junior,
eldest, Daniel, second eldest, and Lettie, junior.
Oom Ignatious (pronounced Ignaas) was a spare, slightly grey old man,
with a slight stoop in the shoulders, partly from hard work and partly
from a weak chest. He was a kindly old man, uneffusive, but always
had a smile and a kindly word for friend or enemy. He never lost his
temper--at least, not visibly, whatever his inward feelings might be;
when annoyed he hardly showed it. He always remained civil and kind,
but was ever firm and strong in upholding what he considered right.
Tante Letta was fat, fair, and forty. Her estimated weight was three
hundred pounds. She had never been weighed; when asked, she objected
on the ground that it was only desired to ‘_drijf de spot met mij_’
(to make a laughing-stock of me). But with all her weight she was a
good old soul. Everybody loved the old lady for her goodness. She could
never do enough for you to show her hospitable inclinations. She was
always bustling about, causing wonder and surprise to all how she
could remain on her feet all day in spite of her great weight. When
you did manage to persuade her to sit down and have a chat, she simply
charmed you with her kindly, smiling, fat, double-chinned face.
The two sons were both big giants of young men, straight as a die,
broad-shouldered, deep-chested, healthy-looking and strong, handsome
in face and figure, with curly light brown hair, clean-shaven cheeks,
but wearing light handsome moustaches. Finally, as to moral character,
they were their father and mother’s children in deed as well as name.
But little Lettie was the angel of the house. I can’t describe her with
sufficient power to place her before the reader as I knew her. I will
attempt, but I know it will be a failure, and will give the reader
only a bare idea of her looks. Tall, slender, with a graceful willowy
carriage, what a poem in her walk, in her every movement and look! What
sweetness in those large star-like eyes, gleaming like dark-coloured
diamonds under the long-lashed eyelids. The lines of the face, the
shape of nose and chin, I cannot describe, I simply give in; I know
not to what style it belonged; I only know they were--_Beautiful_.
The mouth I can and will describe. _It was made to kiss._ The long
hair was worn loose, and flowed in waves down to the waist in a
dark, massive cloud. The dress was a loose, simple gown, fitting the
form sufficiently close to show the perfections of the figure; smart
costumes would only mar such a figure.
Steve will never forget the walk he took alone with Lettie to the
flower garden that afternoon; to him she was the fairest flower that
ever he had seen.
Reader! to prevent any future disappointment, I must here state that
Lettie is not going to be the heroine of this story; that Steve is
not going to marry her, or even to fall madly in love with her. He
admired and liked her, but after this visit she passes out of his life;
we shall hear no more of her. I have tried to place her before the
reader as I still see her in my mind’s eye, as a type of the better
class of Boer girls, whose figure has not been spoiled by bad taste and
knowledge of dressing, and, alas, by hard work too. For many a poor
farmer is obliged to help himself with the labour of his girls for want
of servants; and thus their shoulders become bent through constant
stooping and hard work, and their figures spoiled and ruined.
I have been told of a certain farmer who ploughed, sowed and reaped
his lands with the aid of four girls; while one tended the sheep, one
the oxen, one led, and one drove the span of oxen pulling the waggon.
And thus he had to do all his work with only the assistance of his
daughters. He had been blessed with a troop of girls, and not one boy.
And as to native labour, since the gold mines are offering such high
wages, the poor farmer must consider himself lucky if he can get any
at all; while many cannot afford to pay a price sufficiently high to
keep their boys from going off to the gold mines. Thus it is that we
see so many ill-figured Boer girls. But for all that, I do believe that
amongst the Boer women are to be found some as handsome as any in the
world. The faint attempt at a description of Lettie is not drawn from
the imagination, but is exactly as she was known to the writer.
It was amongst this family that our party of hunters now found
themselves.
As I have said, they were welcomed most heartily, their horses were
soon stabled and themselves led into the house and refreshed with
coffee and cake.
Oom Ignatious, not having had the luck as yet to sell a gold farm,
had to content himself with a moderate-sized farmhouse of the old
Dutch style, mainly built by himself and friends. It consisted of a
dining-room, hall and sitting-room combined (nothing unusual), three
bedrooms--one bedroom for the old people, one for Lettie, and one for
the boys--and a kitchen--five altogether.
Oom Ignatious’s wealth consisted of his oxen and sheep and in what he
managed to raise from his lands, on all of which he contrived to live
comfortably without any waste or want, but without having much surplus
over at the end of the year.
When Oom Ignatious heard that they were out for the purpose of killing
something, he told Ignatious, junior, and Daniel to leave the work they
were at and show them the haunts of certain _oribe_ and steenbuck that
they knew of.
Our party of greenhorns failed to bag anything in spite of repeated
attempts. The young Boers showed them buck after buck quietly grazing
in the long grass, but, standing or running, our young friends missed
every shot. At last Keith said, ‘These young fellows are laughing at
us, the bucks are too far away, you can’t hit them at such a distance.’
The young Boers, who knew a few words of English, understood this,
but said never a word, and kept on making themselves as agreeable as
possible to Keith with their scant knowledge of English.
At last, they were on their homeward way, no game in their bags, when
suddenly Ignatious pulled Keith by the arm, enjoined silence, and
pointed to a distant rise in the level plain and said,--
‘Do you see that _oribe_ lying there against the butt?’
‘Where? I do not see anything but grass.’
‘There, don’t you see where I am pointing?’
‘No, old chappie, you do not come it over me, there is nothing there.’
‘Well, give me your gun.’ He had left his gun at home not to spoil the
sport of their guests.
Keith gave him the gun with the remark that it was only a waste of
ammunition. Ignatious knelt on one knee and rested his arm on the
other, took aim and fired, something bounded in the air at the spot
pointed out and fell down again and nothing more was seen. Ignatious
quietly handed Keith his gun back and led the way towards the spot.
Daniel was holding Steve’s gun in his hand admiring the workmanship
of it, when, as they approached the spot, a buck was seen running
from it. Everyone shouted, ‘There it goes,’ and ran in a slanting
direction as if to intercept it when a shot was heard. Once more the
buck bounding into the air several feet, fell down to rise no more. It
was Daniel who had fired this time and killed the buck on the run. They
went towards it, cut it up, took out the intestines and shouldered it,
when Ignatious said, ‘Now let us go and get the other one.’
‘Which one?’ said Keith.
‘Why, the one I shot.’
‘But this is the one you shot at?’
Ignatious laughed quietly and said,--
‘The one I shot will never run again; I shot him just behind the
shoulder.’
Keith stared at him and thought he was being fooled again, so did not
say anything more, but followed Ignatious, only to be led to a dead
_oribe_, shot dead through the heart--the bullet had penetrated the
buck just behind the shoulder, as Ignatious had said he intended it to
do.
Keith thought to himself, ‘I wish I could fire a shot like that, and be
as sure of it too. Why, it was three hundred yards away if it was one.’