It was a Sunday evening late in December, about nine months after the
departure of George Rivers and his friend from Umtongo. George, who
wore a suit of clerical black, had just returned from a long ride to
Spielman's Vley, where he had passed the day. He was now a deacon,
having been ordained by the Bishop of Praetoria a month or two
previously. The weather was delicious, but very warm, and George was
glad to sit down by his friend's side in a charming little summer-house
which they had built under the shade of a tall eucalyptus planted by Mr
Rogers when he first came to the Transvaal, forty years before.
"Well, George, what sort of a congregation had you?" inquired Margetts;
"and how did you get on with your sermon?"
"I had a very good congregation," was the reply. "The farmer who bought
Spielman's Vley of my stepfather is an Englishman, an emigrant from a
Berkshire village. He and his wife and grown-up children were all
there, and so were nearly all the farm-servants whom he had brought with
him. He told me very earnestly how it delighted him to hear the Church
service. It was like a voice from Old England, he said, and he couldn't
tell me how glad they all were that a clergyman would come over from
Umvalosa every alternate Sunday now, instead of once a month."
"And I daresay, when he was in Berkshire, he didn't think much of the
Church service," suggested Margetts.
"No, he often didn't go, he told me, and cared very little for it when
he did. And it was the same with his labourers. They seldom miss the
service here. Well, it is to be hoped that they will not come to
neglect it again, now it is once more within their reach."
"But how about the `natives' service'?" asked Redgy. "Could you get on
with that?"
"I am afraid I made a good many blunders," said Rivers, "especially in
the sermon. However, nothing but practice will set that right."
"You think an interpreter doesn't answer?"
"No, I am pretty sure it doesn't. You know what Lambert told us about
his interpreter, when he first went to preach to the Kaffirs in the
Knysna."
"No, I didn't hear the story."
"Lambert said he was puzzled how to address them, when it occurred to
him that `Children of the Forest' was a title that would be sure to take
their fancy, and he accordingly began his discourse to them in that way.
He thought he had done it rather well, until one of his friends, who
had heard him, and who was a good Kaffir scholar, told him that the
interpreter had rendered his `Children of the Forest' as `Little men of
big sticks.' That story determined me never, anyhow, to employ an
interpreter."
Redgy laughed. "I think you are right," he said, "and your Kaffir
certainly improves. By-the-bye, did you see Hardy? His house is only
seven or eight miles off from Spielman's Vley, and I am told he always
goes over when there is service there."
"I believe he does, but he was not there to-day. Mr Bacon told me he
had gone to Durban--went about a week ago."
"Indeed. Do you know what took him there?"
"I fancy he was sent for to make some report of the state of things in
this neighbourhood. You know he now holds an official position of some
importance."
"Yes, which you might have had if you had liked it, George. He has the
credit of having given them warning at Rorke's Drift in time to prepare
themselves for the defence of the place. But it was you who brought
them that information."
"I did not want the post, Redgy; and, if I had, Hardy was the person
really entitled to it. I did not know the way from Isandhlwana to
Rorke's Drift, and could not have found it. And to say the truth, I
should not have thought of the garrison at Rorke's Drift, if he had not
reminded me of it. No, he fully deserved his appointment, and I am
heartily glad he got it. But I believe, when he gets to Durban, he will
warn the Government that the Transvaal is not merely in a condition of
discontent and disloyalty, but on the verge of an armed outbreak."
"Do you think it goes so far as that, George? An armed outbreak means a
war with England, remember. What possible hope can they have in
succeeding in that?"
"No reasonable hope, of course. The hundredth part of England's power
would be enough to crush them. I don't suppose the Boers could bring
5000 men into the field, and England could easily send five times that
number, or twenty times that number, if she chose. The Boers have but
little discipline or material of war, or knowledge of strategy. England
is a first-rate power in all those respects. It would be as absolute
madness for the Transvaal to go to war with England, as it would be for
a terrier dog to provoke a lion to fight with it. But, however great
the madness, it does not follow that they will not do it."
"What can induce them?"
"Their profound ignorance of the relative strength of the two countries.
I was talking with a Boer of some intelligence, who, I found, really
believed that Holland was one of the Great Powers in Europe--the equal,
if not the superior of England. He knew nothing of history, apparently,
since the times of Van Trompe and Admiral Blake. He fancied Isandhlwana
had only been redeemed by a desperate and exhausting effort, which would
make it impossible for us to engage in any other war for a generation to
come. The accidental circumstance that a quantity of newly-coined money
had been sent out here to pay the troops was enough to convince him that
England was bankrupt, and driven to expend its last guinea. People who
know no more than that of the true state of things may perpetrate any
act of folly."
"No doubt, George; and I daresay also they argued that the disasters at
Isandhlwana and Intombe proved that the English were not so formidable
in the field as their own troops had always been. They had repeatedly
fought these Zulus, remember, and always with complete success."
"Exactly; no doubt they did, and do, so argue. They were always on
their guard, and we were taken off ours, and that made all the
difference. But though the Dutch might practise their rude tactics with
success on the natives, they will hardly get the English to approach
them and be shot down after the same fashion. That is reckoning rather
too much on even an Englishman's contempt for his enemy. But they mean
mischief, these Boers. They are flocking down this way from all parts
of the Transvaal. Whom do you think I saw to-day, of all people in the
world?"
"I don't know, indeed--not old Kransberg, I suppose?"
"Not _old_ Kransberg, but I did meet the young one--our friend Rudolf.
What should bring him here, or Gottlob Lisberg, or Hans Stockmar, or
Julius Vanderbilt, or half a dozen other fellows from near Zeerust, whom
I have seen about in the course of the last week, unless what they say
is true, and they are going to rebel against the English Government."
"It looks like it, I'm afraid. But about Rudolf Kransberg--did you come
to speech of him? How did he receive you?"
"I didn't come to speech of him, as he didn't say a single word. He
received me as Dido did Aeneas in the infernal regions."
"What! he bears us some grudge for the trick played on him at Umtongo?"
"I am not at all sure that he realises the fact that any trick was
played on him. From what Lisberg told me,--Lisberg is very intimate
with him, you know,--he fancies the explosion was the work of the Evil
One, and that we are in league with him. You know Thyrza wrote us word
that he had never turned up at Umtongo again. My mother thought it very
odd, but she apparently still believes he is a suitor for Thyrza's
hand."
"I suppose Thyrza herself has a pretty shrewd suspicion of the truth."
"I suppose she has, but if she guessed that Rudolf had taken up that
notion, she would be quite content to let him entertain it. But the
upshot, I fancy, is that Rudolf owes us one, and will pay it if he has
the opportunity. He is as thorough a specimen of the sullen Boer as I
know, and your sullen Boer is not a pleasant article. But, Redgy," he
added, after a few minutes' silence, "there is a matter which I have
once or twice wished to speak to you about, but have always put it off.
I have a fancy that you really do care for Thyrza, notwithstanding your
chaff about her. We are very old friends, and out here, cut off from
all the rest of the world, we are like brothers. I wish you would tell
me the plain truth about this matter."
"Well, old fellow, where is the use of telling it? I don't see how any
one could live as long as I did in your sister's society, and not care
for her. She is simply the sweetest and most beautiful creature I have
ever seen. But where is the good of my saying this, George? I can't
ask her to marry me; I have nothing but a precarious allowance of a
hundred pounds a year, and I am not likely to have anything more, unless
I can make it myself out here."
"But if Thyrza likes you--"
"I don't know that she does," broke in Margetts. "I have fancied once
or twice that she does. But most likely it was all fancy."
"I am only saying, if she _does_ like you, she will have something.
Umtongo belongs to my mother, not to Mr Mansen."
"But Umtongo will come to you, George," said Margetts, surprised.
"I shall not want it. I shall never marry; and this life here suits me
much better than such a farm as Umtongo, though, no doubt, that is a
very good farm."
"No doubt," assented his friend. "I see what you mean, and I believe I
understand you, when you say you won't marry. But, in the first place,
I hope you are mistaken there; and, in the next, supposing everything
else arranged as you wish, Thyrza and I could never deprive you of your
inheritance. No, George; I mean to stay here and work as I am doing
now. I shall never make a parson; I'm not cut out for that. But I
think I shall do well enough at farming and teaching; and, by and by, if
your sister doesn't marry a Boer, I may be in a position to ask her."
"Be it so, Redgy. I believe you are right, and this had better not be
mentioned again. And here, in good time, comes Mr Rogers. He is back
from Newcastle earlier than I had expected."
Mr Rogers, whose acquaintance the reader made in the first chapter of
this story, was an extremely worthy man. It would have been well for
both England and South Africa if there had been more like him. Left an
orphan when quite young, and possessed of a considerable fortune, he had
always disliked the ordinary round of English social life, and desired
the freer air and habits of a new country. As soon as he could overcome
the reluctance of his guardian to the step, he had visited the colonies,
and chosen out from among them the border country of Natal and the
Transvaal. There he had bought a large farm,--large even for farms in
that country,--and built two or three different stations on various
parts of it. Spielman's Vley and Rylands were two of these, and here he
placed men whose views accorded with his own. Ludwig Mansen, though a
Dutchman, had been one of these; and it was with considerable regret
that he heard, soon after his arrival in England, of Mrs Mansen's
succession to her uncle's property near Zeerust and their removal
thither. Notwithstanding his affection for colonial life, he was an
Englishman to the backbone, and the blunders made by Colonial
Secretaries, one after another, sorely disturbed him. In particular,
the gigantic mistake of the annexation of the Transvaal so troubled him,
that he made an expedition to England in the hope of persuading the
Government to reconsider that disastrous measure. There was no doubt it
was, for the moment, advantageous to the Boers, as a sentence of penal
servitude would be less unwelcome to a convicted prisoner than a
sentence of death. But when the danger of being hanged had passed away,
it was not likely that penal servitude would be cheerfully accepted.
Foreseeing the inevitable mischief that would ensue, Mr Rogers had
urged the repeal, or, at all events, some modification of the decree.
But the new Government could not be induced to pay any heed to South
African matters, being completely absorbed by domestic and Continental
questions; and Mr Rogers went back to Umvalosa, to do the best he could
under the circumstances of the case.
On the present occasion he had not returned from Newcastle (whither he
had gone, as was his practice, to help in the church services on a
Sunday) in the happiest frame of mind. Everywhere he saw the plainest
indications of the mischief he had anticipated. Newcastle was full of
Boers, who had come in from the more distant parts of the Transvaal, and
their feelings and intentions could not be mistaken: not only was revolt
designed, but it was close at hand. He greeted George and Redgy with
his usual kindness, but his depression and vexation were evident.
"Did you know that your stepfather and mother, as well as your sister,
were on the way here?" he asked, addressing Rivers.
"No, sir, I had no idea of it. I haven't had a letter for the last
fortnight; and Thyrza, from whom I heard three weeks ago, said nothing
of any such intention."
"No; I imagine it must have been a hasty thought. But they are
certainly on their way to Newcastle, and will arrive in a day or two at
furthest."
"Who told you of it, sir?" asked George. "Perhaps it is some mistake."
"No, that can hardly be. It was Henryk Vander Heyden who informed me.
I met him in the street at Newcastle, where he arrived two days ago.
Mansen, with his wife and daughter, were to follow him very shortly.
Miss Vander Heyden is to travel in their company. Her brother thought
it better."
"What are all the ladies coming for?" inquired Redgy. "They are not
going to fight the English, anyhow."
"No," said Mr Rogers; "but it may not be safe for them to stay behind.
Nearly all the able-bodied men among the Boers will take part in the
rising. The Kaffirs and Hottentots would have it their own way, and
they might insult or injure the white women. I think Vander Heyden, and
your stepfather too, George, are quite right to bring their ladies with
them."
"I suppose Vander Heyden is very hot about this," suggested Rivers.
"Yes, he is determined enough, and he is a dangerous opponent to the
English. He is a good officer; especially, he understands his
countrymen's mode of fighting, and knows from experience what are the
faults into which our officers are likely to fall. And he is a
desperate man into the bargain."
"How so, sir? I do not understand you."
"Don't you know the story of the girl who was killed by the Zulus not
long before the battle of Isandhlwana?"
"Yes; I heard something about it, I believe, from Mr Baylen or Hardy, I
don't remember which. Some female relative of his was killed in a very
brutal manner. But they are always brutal, these Zulus."
"It was too sad a matter to be much spoken about. The lady, Lisa van
Courtlandt, had been engaged to him for some years, and he is said to
have been greatly attached to her. She had been murdered just before he
came up, and the sight of her mangled corpse drove him, they said,
almost mad. It wasn't merely for the purpose of avenging her death that
he enlisted in our army--at least, so it is thought. He wanted, poor
fellow, to get knocked on the head himself."
"Well, that explains what I couldn't understand before," said
Margetts,--"why he was so terribly vexed when it was settled that he was
to remain at Rorke's Drift. He was for a time almost beside himself."
"And that, too, may account for his desperate exposure of himself during
that night of the encounter with the Zulus," added Rivers. "I never saw
a man so utterly insensible to danger; and he hardly seemed rejoiced the
next morning at his escape. Poor fellow, he has had a hard lot in life!
Well, I agree with you, Mr Rogers; I have no doubt he will fight
desperately enough in this outbreak, if it really is going to take
place."
"That, I am afraid, there is no doubt of. Vander Heyden told me as
much. He wanted to know whether you and Margetts meant to volunteer
again to serve in the English army. If you did, he said, you should
leave the Transvaal immediately, or you might be arrested. He offered
to give you a pass which would carry you across the frontier. That was
very kind and generous."
"What did you tell him, sir?" asked Rivers.
"Oh, I said that you were now in orders, and, of course, would not think
of fighting; as for you, Mr Margetts, I said I did not know what you
might do, but I would ask you, and let him know if you required his
help."
"I am obliged to him," said Margetts; "but I have no idea of
volunteering again. I consider this to be quite a different matter from
the Zulu war, where it was a question whether barbarous or lawless
cruelty should be put down. Unless I am myself interfered with, I shall
not interfere in this business."
"I am glad to hear you say so," said Mr Rogers. "Then we shall all
remain quietly here. I shall invite the Mansens to come and stay at
Dykeman's Hollow, and I think they will come. It will be quieter and
more comfortable for them than Utrecht or Newcastle, which are
overcrowded. I have no doubt Vander Heyden, who has a high command,
will be able to secure us from molestation."
Mr Rogers was not disappointed in either expectation. In a few days
Mrs Mansen and Thyrza arrived; while Ludwig joined the assembled
council of Boers which was now sitting at Heidelberg, exerting himself
to prevent the rising which was evidently on the point of taking place.
Simultaneously with the appearance of the ladies came a note from Vander
Heyden, endorsing a protection from Praetorius for all the inmates of
Mr Rogers' household. Not long afterwards the standard of rebellion
was openly displayed, and Ludwig joined his family at the Hollow. The
Boers in all parts of the Transvaal now took the field with their
Westley Richard rifles, and all through the Transvaal the English were
obliged to fly for refuge to towns or villages, where they were besieged
by the Boers.
Resolved not to provoke the animosity, or even the distrust of his
neighbours, Mr Rogers kept himself and all his employes within the
bounds of his own domains, not even sending a letter or a message to
Newcastle, lest it might be supposed to have some political purpose. He
advised his guests also to observe the same prudent demeanour. No doubt
Mynheer Mansen was a Dutchman, and one very generally respected; but his
wife and stepdaughter were English, and they were the guests of an
Englishman; and at this time national feeling, as it might be termed,
ran so high that the merest trifle might be enough to cause a general
outbreak. The Mansens would have had no inclination to act otherwise
than as he advised, even if their sense of what was due to him as their
host had not forbade them to do so. They regarded the strife that was
in progress as a vexation and a calamity; and whatever might be the
issue of it, they were anxious to see an end put to it.
But the ladies felt the time hang heavily on their hands; and when one
day had been expended on a visit to George and Redgy's cottage and
garden and an inspection of their farmyard and stock, and another to the
church and school where he ministered and taught, they were at a loss
how to employ themselves, until their host, by a happy inspiration, one
day late in January suggested a visit to Kolman's Kop, a most
picturesque spot on the very edge of Mr Rogers' estate, from which a
wide prospect might be obtained of that part of the Orange Free State
known as Harrismith. The road from Bloemfontein to Newcastle ran close
beside it, and was visible for a long distance from the summit of the
Kop, though the latter was so thickly wooded as to screen any visitors
to it from being themselves seen by passing travellers.
To this spot it was agreed that an expedition should be made on the
following day; and the whole party, inclusive of Mr Rogers, who acted
as guide, set out after breakfast, on horses and mules, having sent some
Kaffirs on before them to make the needful preparations.
Kolman's Kop was situated on one of the spurs of the Drakensbergs, not
ascending so high as to be bleak or chill, yet high enough to command a
magnificent view of the landscape beneath, and there are few countries
in the world in which so vast a panorama is visible from the higher
lands as in the Orange Free State. It is not, indeed, an unbroken
level, like the low country of the Netherlands, being continually varied
by hill and ridge. But these hardly anywhere rise to any considerable
height, so that from the slopes of the Drakenberg the eye may range in
every direction, until the horizon line melts into the distance. It is
a fertile and picturesque territory, watered by noble rivers, whose
banks, for the most part, are fringed with foliage, rich with corn lands
and fruit orchards, and pastures where sheep and oxen and horses are
bred abundantly. The land on that side of the Drakensbergs being
considerably more elevated than on that of Natal, the climate is cooler
and more agreeable to European residents. A general cry of admiration
broke from the visitors as they caught sight of it, and sitting down on
the trunk of a fallen tree, they proceeded more leisurely to examine its
beauties.
"Well, sir, the Dutch have not much to complain of here, at all events,"
observed Redgy after a lengthened survey of the scene. "No wonder they
halted here when driven from their homes by the English. I should have
thought, for my part, that they might have been very thankful to the
English for driving them here!"
"Well, so they might, Margetts," remarked Mr Rogers, "if they had
thought that the English had been anxious to find out pleasant quarters
for them. But I am afraid the English thought of one thing only, and
that was clearing them out of their old abodes.
"Yes," he resumed; "the Dutchman has made himself comfortable enough
here, if John Bull will only leave him alone. But that John Bull is too
philanthropic to do--ha, Mansen?"
"There is no talk of annexing the Free State, is there?" asked old
Ludwig with a smile.
"Why, no, Ludwig. The annexation of the other hasn't proved an
encouraging experiment, or I think it likely that it would have been
proposed."
"Well, sir," observed George, "that annexation took place with the free
consent of the Boers, and it was designed in kindness to them."
"Was it?" returned Mr Rogers; "I have my doubts about that latter. No
doubt the Boers agreed to it, or rather didn't object to it, at the
time. But it was very much like pulling a drowning man out of the
water, on condition of his being your bond-servant for evermore. He
would agree rather than be drowned, but I doubt whether you could call
that his free consent. It was rather his forced consent, to my mind."
"What would you have had England do, sir?" asked Redgy.
"Help the Transvaal out of its difficulties, without insisting on
annexation," answered Mr Rogers. "The policy would have been as wise
as it would have been kind."
"And you would have given them their independence back when they asked
for it after the Zulu war, I suppose?" said Margetts. "Would you give
it them now?"
"I should certainly have given it on the occasion you name, when they
asked for it. It had then become clear that they did not really desire
the annexation; and the only reasonable ground there could have been for
it was shown by that request not to exist. I think compliance would
have been as wise as it would have been just, and would have gone far to
smooth away all difficulties. It is, of course, a very different thing
now. England cannot give to armed menace what she has refused to
peaceful entreaty. Compliance would be even worse than the previous
refusal."
"Well, sir," urged Margetts, "no one, to be sure, could think that the
Boers would ever really get the upper hand in a regular war with
England. I speak with all possible respect to Mr Mansen, but that is
surely impossible."
"No one who understands the strength and resources of the two countries
could think it possible," returned Mr Rogers. "But the Boers possess
very little information on the subject, and the coloured races still
less. They would all think that England yielded now, because her
weakness, not her magnanimity, obliged her. But I still trust there
will be no war. Enough of this. What is it you have been looking at so
intently, Thyrza, for the last ten minutes?"
"I think it is a man on horseback," said Miss Rivers; "but the object is
so far off that I cannot distinguish what it is."
She pointed as she spoke to a black speck, on the road that led from
Winberg to Newcastle, which was moving towards them.
They all watched it for several minutes, and then Mr Mansen said, "You
have a long sight, Thyrza. It _is_ a horseman, and he is riding fast.
He will pass almost close to us."
"It is an English soldier, or a man who has been one," exclaimed Rivers
presently; "there is no mistaking his seat on horseback."
The rider continued to approach until he had arrived almost immediately
under the spot where they were sitting. Then George and Redgy started
up, simultaneously exclaiming, "It is Hardy, I declare! let us go down
and speak to him."