LYN.

"Well, Mr Blachland, what luck have you had?"

The speaker was standing on the stoep, whither she had come out to meet

them. She was rather a tall girl, with a great deal of golden hair,

arranged in some wonderful way of her own which somehow enhanced its

volume without appearing loose or untidy. She had blue eyes which

looked forth straight and frank, and an exquisite skin, which even the

fierce glare of the summer sun, and a great deal of open-air life had

not in the least roughened, and of which a few tiny freckles, rather

adding piquancy to a sweetly pretty face, oval, refined and full of

character, were the only trace. If there was a fault to be found in the

said face, it was that its owner showed her gums slightly when she

laughed--but the laugh was so bright, so whole-hearted, and lighted up

the whole expression so entrancingly that all but the superlatively

hypercritical lost sight of the defect altogether.

"He's bowled over that thundering big bushbuck ram we've been trying for

so often in Siever's Kloof, Lyn," answered her father for his guest.

"Well done!" cried the girl. "You know, Mr Blachland, some of the

people around here were becoming quite superstitious about that buck.

They were beginning to declare he couldn't be killed. I suggested a

silver bullet such as they had to make for those supernatural stags in

the old German legends."

"A charge of treble A was good enough this time--no, I think I used

loepers," laughed Blachland.

"I almost began to believe in it myself," went on the girl. "Some of

our best shots around here seemed invariably to miss that particular

buck, Mr Earle for instance, and Stephanus Bosch, and, I was nearly

saying--father--"

"Oh don't, then," laughed Bayfield. "A prophet has no honour in his own

country. Keep up the tradition, Lyn."

"And, as for the Englishman, the one that came over here with the

Earles, why he missed it both barrels, and they drove it right over him

too."

"By the way, Lyn," said her father, "what was that Britisher's name?

I've clean forgotten."

"That's not strange, for you'll hardly believe it, but so have I."

"Um--ah--no, we won't believe it. A good-looking young fellow like

that!"

"Even then I've forgotten it. Yes, he was a nice-looking boy."

"Boy!" cried her father. "Why, the fellow must be a precious deal

nearer thirty than twenty."

"Well, and what's that but a boy?"

"Thanks awfully, Miss Bayfield," said Blachland. "The implication is

grateful and comforting to a battered fogey of a precious deal nearer

forty than thirty."

For answer the girl only laughed--that bright, whole-hearted laugh of

hers. It was a musical laugh too, full-throated, melodious. She and

her father's guest were great friends. Though now living somewhat of an

out-of-the-world life, she had been well-educated, and her tastes were

artistic. She drew and painted with no mean skill, and her musical

attainments were above the average. So far from feeling bored and

discontented with the comparative isolation of her lot, she had an

affection for the free and healthy conditions of her surroundings, the

beauties of which, moreover, her artistic temperament rendered her

capable of perceiving and appreciating. Then this stranger had come

into their life, and at first she had been inclined to stand somewhat in

awe of him. He was so much older than herself, and must have seen so

much; moreover, his quiet-mannered demeanour, and the life-worn look of

his firm dark countenance, seemed to cover a deal of character. But he

had entered so thoroughly and sympathetically into her tastes and

pursuits that the little feeling of shyness had worn off within the

first day, and now, after a fortnight, she had come to regard his

presence in their midst as a very great acquisition indeed.

"I say, Lyn," struck in her father. "Better take Blachland inside--yes,

and light up some logs in the fireplace. There's a sharp tinge in the

air after sundown, which isn't good for a man with up-country fever in

his bones, as I was telling him just now. I must just go and take a

last look round."

"Did you do any more to my drawing to-day?" asked Hilary, as the two

stood within the sitting-room together, watching the efforts of a

yellow-faced Hottentot girl to make the logs blaze up.

"I've nearly finished it. I've only got to put in a touch or two."

"May I see it now?"

"No--not until it is finished. I may not be satisfied with it then, and

tear it up."

"But you are not to. I'm certain that however it turns out it will be

too good to treat in that way."

"Oh, Mr Blachland, I am surprised at such a speech from you," she said,

her eyes dancing with mischief. "Why, that's the sort of thing that

English boy might have said. But you! Oh!"

"Well, I mean it. You know I never hesitate to criticise and that

freely. Look at our standing fight over detail in foreground, as a

flagrant instance."

The drawing under discussion was a water-colour sketch of the house and

its immediate surroundings. He would treasure it as a reminder after he

had gone, he declared, when asking her to undertake it. To which she

had rejoined mischievously that he seemed in a great hurry to talk about

"after he had gone," considering that he had only just come.

Now the entrance of George Bayfield and his youngest born put an end to

the discussion, and soon they sat down to supper.

"Man, Mr Blachland, but that is a _mooi_ buck," began the boy. "Jafta

says he never saw a _mooi-er_ one."

"Perhaps it'll bring you luck," said Lyn, looking exceedingly reposeful

and sweet, behind the tea-things, in her twenty-year-old dignity at the

head of the table.

"I don't know," was the reply. "I did something once that was supposed

to bring frightful ill-luck, and for a long time it seemed as if it was

going to. But--indirectly it had just the opposite effect."

"Was that up-country, Mr Blachland?" chimed in the boy eagerly. "Do

tell us about it."

"Perhaps some day, Fred. But it's a thing that one had better have left

alone."

"These children'll give you no peace if you go on raising their

curiosity in that way," said Bayfield.

"I'll go up-country when I'm big," said the boy. "Are you going again,

Mr Blachland?"

"I don't know, Fred. You see, I've only just come down."

The boy said no more on the subject. He had an immense admiration for

their guest, who, when they were alone together, would tell him tales of

which he never wearied--about hunting and trading, and Lo Bengula, and

experiences among savages far wilder and more formidable than their own

half-civilised and wholly deteriorated Kaffirs. But he was sharp enough

to notice that at other times the subject of "up-country" was not a

favourite one with Blachland. Perhaps the latter was tired of it as he

had had so much. At any rate, with a gumption rare in small boys of his

age, Fred forbore to worry the topic further.

This was one of those evenings which the said guest was wont to prize

now, and was destined in the time to come to look back upon as among the

very happiest experiences of his life. He regarded his host indeed with

a whole-hearted envy, that such should be his daily portion. There was

just enough sharpness in the atmosphere to render indoors and a bright,

snug fire in a well-lighted room especially reposeful and cosy, as they

adjourned to the sitting-room where Lyn's piano was.

"Fill up, Blachland," said his host, pushing over a large bladder

tobacco-pouch. "Where's my pipe? No--not that one. The deep one with

the wire cover."

"I've got it, father," cried Lyn. "I'm filling it for you."

"Thanks, darling," as she brought it over. "You know, Blachland, my

after-supper pipe never tastes so good unless this little girlie fills

it for me. She's done so ever since she was a wee kiddie so high."

Blachland smiled to himself, rather sadly, as he watched the long

tapering fingers pressing down the tobacco into the bowl, and wondered

how his friend would feel when the time came--and come it must, indeed

any day might bring it--when he would have no one to render this and a

hundred and one other little services of love, such as he had noticed

during his stay--when Bayfield should be left lonely, and the bright and

sweet and sunny presence which irradiated this simple home should be

transferred to another. Somehow the thought was distasteful to him,

vaguely, indefinably so, but still distasteful.

Meanwhile Lyn had opened the piano, and after an appeal to them for any

preference in the way of songs, which was met by an assurance that any

and all were equally acceptable, had begun singing. The two men sat

back in their armchairs at the further end of the room, listening in

supremest content. From the first Blachland had excused himself from

attending her at the piano. He wanted thoroughly to enjoy her

performance, which he could not do standing fussing around, and Lyn had

appreciated the real and practical compliment thus conveyed. And he did

enjoy it. Song after song she sang, now grave and pathetic, now gay and

arch, and it seemed to him he could sit there listening for ever. Hers

was no concert-hall voice, but it was very sweet and true, and was

entirely free from mannerism. She did not think it necessary to roll

her r's in the approved professional style whenever that consonant came

at the end of a word, or to pronounce "love" exactly according to its

phonetic spelling, but every word was enunciated distinctly, and

therefore as intelligible as though she had been talking. In short, her

singing was utterly without self-consciousness or affectation, and

therein lay no small a proportion of its charm.

"There! That's enough for one night!" she cried at last, closing the

instrument.

"Not for us," declared Blachland. "But you mustn't overstrain your

voice. Really to me this has been an immense treat."

"I'm so glad," said the girl brightly. "I suppose, though, you don't

hear much music up-country. Don't you miss it a great deal?"

"Yes, indeed," he answered, and then a picture crossed his mind of

evening after evening, and Hermia yawning, and reiterating how intensely

bored to death she was. What on earth was it that made retrospect so

utterly distasteful to him now? He would have given all he possessed to

be able to blot that episode out of his life altogether. Hermia the

chances were as five hundred to one he would never set eyes on again--

and if he did, she was powerless to injure him; for she had not the

slightest legal hold upon him whatever. But the episode was there, a

black, unsavoury, detestable fact, and it there was no getting round.

"Now, sonny, it's time for you to turn in," said Bayfield. "By George,

I'll have to think seriously about sending that nipper to school," he

added, as the boy, having said good-night, went out of the room. "But

hang it, what'll we do without the chappie? He's the only one left.

But he ought to learn more than Lyn can teach him now."

"Father, you _are_ mean," laughed the girl. "Reflecting on my careful

tuition that way. Isn't he, Mr Blachland?"

"I wonder how it would be," pursued Bayfield, "to make some arrangement

with Earle and send him over there four or five days a week to be

coached by that new English teacher they've got."

"Who is he?" said Blachland. "A Varsity man?"

"'Tisn't `he.' It's a she," returned the other, with a very meaning

laugh. "A regular high-flyer too. Mrs Earle isn't so fond of her as

she might be, but I expect that young Britisher has put Earle's nose out

of joint in that quarter. They say she's a first-rate coach, though."

"Now, father, you're not to start talking scandal," said Lyn. "I don't

believe there's any harm in Mrs Fenham at all. And she isn't even

pretty."

"Ho-ho! Who's talking scandal now?" laughed her father. "Taking away

another woman's personal appearance, eh, Lyn? By the way, there are

several round there you won't get to agree with you on that head."

"Oh, she's married, then?" said Blachland, though as a matter of fact

the subject did not interest him in the least.

"Has been," returned Bayfield. "She's a widow--a young widow, and with

all due deference to Lyn's opinion, rather a fetching one. Now, isn't

that a whole code of danger-signals in itself? Get out some grog,

little girl," he added, "and then I suppose you'll want to be turning

in."

"Yes, it's time I did," replied Lyn, as she dived into a sideboard in

fulfilment of the last request. "Good night, Mr Blachland. Good

night, old father. Now, you're not to sit filling up Mr Blachland with

all sorts of gossip. Do you hear?"

"All right," with a wink over at his guest. "Good night, my little

one."

Blachland had long ceased to wonder--even if he had done so at first--at

the extraordinary tenderness existing between Bayfield and this child of

his. Cudgel his experience as he would, he could find in it no instance

of a girl anything like this one. Sunny beauty, grace, and the most

perfect refinement, a disposition of rare sweetness, yet withal plenty

of character--why, it would require a combination of the best points of

any half-dozen girls within that experience to make up one Lyn Bayfield,

and then the result would be a failure. To his host he said as much

when they were alone together. The latter warmed up at once.

"Ah, you've noticed that, have you, Blachland? Well, I suppose you

could hardly have been in the house the short time you have without

noticing it. Make allowances for an old fool, but there never was such

a girl as my Lyn--no, never. And--I may lose her any day."

"Great Heavens, Bayfield, surely not! What's wrong? Heart?"

"No--no. Not that way, thank God--by the by, I'm sorry I startled you.

I mean she's bound to marry some day."

"Ah, yes, I see," returned Blachland, reassured, yet furtively hoping

that the smile wherewith he accepted the reassurance was not a very

sickly one. But the other did not notice it, and now fairly on the

subject, launched out into a narrative of Lyn's sayings and doings, as

it seemed, from the time of her birth right up till now, and it was late

before he pulled up, with profuse apologies for having bored the very

soul out of his guest, and that on a subject in which the latter could

take but small interest.

But Blachland reassured him by declaring that he had not been bored in

the very least, and so far from feeling small interest in the matter, he

had been very intensely interested.

And the strangest thing of all was that he meant it--every word.