"A niece of mine's coming up to-morrow to stay a bit," announced old
Hesketh, a few days later.
"Oh, but--I say, won't we rather be making a crowd?" protested Dick.
"Had no end of a jolly time, you know, Mr Hesketh; but--er--wouldn't
put you out for the world."
"Don't you bother your head about that, young buffalo hunter," answered
the old man. "You're not crowding me any. I'll tell you when you are.
So you've had a good time, eh?"
"Splendid," said Dick, heartily. "The shoot just is good, and as for
this air, why, I never felt so fit in my life."
Old Hesketh nodded, and surveyed the speaker approvingly. The latter
certainly looked as he had declared he felt--fit. His face, tanned a
fine brown, was the picture of health. Out all day and every day, often
having to work hard for his sport, whether for hours among the cliffs
and crags stalking klip-springers or reebok, or toiling up to some high
ridge on the chance of getting a shot or two into the herd of baboons
which usually frequented the other side, or one or other of the varied
forms of sport the place afforded, Dick Selmes had attained the pink of
hard condition.
"Well, then, don't be in a hurry to run away," rejoined old Hesketh.
"Though I dare say it's slow enough of evenings with a couple of old
fellows like me and Greenoak."
"Thanks," remarked the latter drily, and Dick spluttered.
"Some one young about the place'll make things more lively, anyhow,"
went on the old man. "And there's room and to spare, and a welcome for
all."
Needless to say, Dick Selmes devoted a good deal of the intervening time
to speculation on the subject of the expected arrival. Even as his host
had said, "some one young" would be an acquisition, and then he wondered
how old Hesketh, who seemed about a hundred, could own a niece to whom
that definition applied. A grand-niece perhaps he had meant. Then,
too, would she prove an acquisition? And a vision rose up within his
mind of some awkward, half-educated girl brought up on just such a place
as this, unused to the refinements of life, proportionately without
ideas, and possibly given to affectation. Nor was Greenoak in a
position to enlighten him upon the point, knowing nothing of old
Hesketh's relations.
The next morning Dick Selmes was up before sunrise, and, taking his gun,
went off on foot to a _hoek_ where he knew he should find a troop of
wild guinea-fowl. He was successful, too, and as the splendid game
birds dropped, one after another--for he had managed to break up the
troop, and they were thus lying well--the keen and unmitigated enjoyment
of the sport for the next half-hour was such as to leave no room for any
outside thought or speculation. Picking up the seven of them he could
find--two were runners, and of course without a dog were hopelessly
lost--he started back homeward.
Now, seven full-grown guinea-fowl slung round one constitute no light
load over three miles of rough and stony ground, and by the time Dick
Selmes reached the house he had had more than enough of such exercise.
When he did so reach it he became alive to the fact that a Cape cart,
outspanned, with its harness hung over the splashboard, stood before the
door. Now his curiosity would be satisfied.
Flinging down the birds, he entered the living-room. It was occupied by
one person, a female, and she vigorously dusting.
She turned as he entered. Heavens! What was this? Red hair, a broad
face thickly sown with large freckles, a wide mouth, and forty if a day!
So this was old Hesketh's niece. "Some one young" had been his
definition of her, and it was she who was to make things lively by
reason of the said juvenility!
"As ugly as sin," was his mental verdict. But aloud, politely, "Good
morning. I must introduce myself. My name is Selmes; but--I don't
think your uncle was expecting you quite so early."
The other stared.
"Ma what? Eh, but the laddie's clean daft--or is it only haverin' he
is? Not but it's a braw bit laddie too"--with an approving glance at
Dick's handsome face and tall proportions.
"Oh, Lord!" thought the latter, with a mental shudder. So this was the
housemate who was to make them all young again with her youth and
liveliness. Decidedly he must get Greenoak to invent some pretext for
changing their quarters. Then the comic side struck him. Compared with
himself, no doubt old Hesketh regarded this weird person, who talked
broad Scotch, as "young."
"You are very energetic," he said pleasantly, for she had resumed her
dusting. "Not at all tired after your trek, eh?"
"A'm never that," was the decisive reply.
"Well, your uncle will appreciate your energy at any rate. We men, left
to ourselves, are sure to let things of that sort slide,"--referring to
her undertaking.
"Ma--what?"
"Your uncle, Mr Hesketh."
"The laddie _is_ daft," she answered with decision. "Mon--but A have
nae ony uncle."
Dick stared, and was destined to stare more in about a second. A faint
rustle behind him, combined with what sounded suspiciously like a
suppressed gurgle, caused him to wheel sharply round.
Framed in the doorway stood a girl--an exceedingly pretty girl. She had
a sweet oval face, dark hair, and well-marked brows, and lustrous eyes
to match. These now seemed sparkling and dancing with merriment.
"I am Mr Hesketh's niece," began this wholly unexpected vision of
beauty. "I suppose we are here earlier than we were expected," and
there was a suspicious unsteadiness in the tones, as if the speaker were
gulping down an irresistible peal of laughter.
"Eh, but A do believe he's been takkin' me for yeerself, Miss Hazel,"
spoke the red-haired woman; and poor Dick, now dead certain that the
new-comer had overheard the foregoing dialogue, looked and felt about as
big an ass as he had ever looked and felt in his life.
"It's my old nurse, Elsie McGunn," explained the girl. "We've been
travelling ever so many hours, and now she'll be taking the cart home
again after breakfast, and even then can't sit still and rest."
"Indeed, I was just admiring such a display of energy," said Dick,
pleasantly.
"Deed, laddie, and ye were just admiring nothing at a' aboot me,"
retorted the plain-spoken Scotswoman, but quite good-naturedly.
The answer made opportunity for the girl to express her stifled
feelings, and under cover of it she went off into the hearty merry peal
of laughter whose main cause was the dialogue she had overheard between
Dick Selmes and her unattractive retainer.
"You have been here before, I suppose, Miss Hesketh?" began Dick.
The other stared.
"Oh, I see," she said. "But my name isn't Hesketh--it's Brandon. Mr
Hesketh is my uncle on my mother's side."
"Of course. But, as you most likely know, your uncle is a man of few
words, and, beyond mentioning the fact that you were coming, gave us no
further information. He didn't even tell us your name. Naturally I
didn't like to appear inquisitive."
"Naturally," assented the other; and again the laugh struggled in her
eyes, evoked by the recollection of the comical situation for which that
lack of inquisitiveness was responsible. "But now--as you have the
advantage of me--I have told you who I am, suppose you tell me who you
are."
There was a sweet, sunny frankness about this girl, an utter absence of
self-consciousness that made Dick stare. Did they grow many like her in
this strange, fascinating country, he wondered? As he told her his
identity a new interest came into her eyes, but wholly unsuspected by
himself.
"Ay, and is yon Dick Selmes?"
The interruption proceeded from the wielder of the duster, in the
further corner of the room.
"Elsie!" cried the girl, half horrified, half mirthful. "You are
forgetting yourself. You needn't be quite so familiar, at any rate."
"Eh! An' would we be makkin' a stranger of the laddie?" tranquilly
replied the irrepressible Scotswoman.
Dick burst into a hearty roar.
"Quite right, Elsie," he cried. "I believe we're going to be jolly good
friends, you and I."
This was a character, he decided--a howling joke. He was almost sorry
she was going back again directly, whereas when he had first heard the
announcement he had been anything but sorry. Then the sound of voices
outside told that the master of the place and the other guest had
returned.
Old Hesketh greeted his niece affectionately, but undemonstratively, as
was his way.
"This is Harley Greenoak," he said. "You may have heard of him."
The girl's face lit up with interest.
"I should think so," she said, as she put forth her hand. "Who hasn't?"
"Oh, about nine hundred million people, I suppose," tranquilly answered
the subject of this implied exordium. "I don't expect that leaves many
more in the world."
"Well, there's no one in South Africa who hasn't, at any rate," rejoined
the girl. And Dick Selmes, confound it, was half ashamed of a sneaking
satisfaction that Harley Greenoak's beard was rapidly turning grey.
"That you, Elsie?" said old Hesketh, shaking hands with the privileged
retainer. "Well, and you haven't managed to pick up a husband yet? Ho,
ho!"
"Yan's the wurrd, Mr Hesketh. They're to be had for the pickin' up.
But it'll end in ma havin' to come and tak' care o' yeerself, A'm
thinkin'. Yan dust," designating her recent work, "must have been lyin'
aroound for a yeer at least."
This retort, naively ambiguous, given with perfect equability, raised a
laugh among its hearers, who chose to read but one of its two potential
meanings.
"Now, Uncle Eph," said the girl, decisively. "We are going to get the
breakfast ready, and it's nearly ready now--and we've got a little
surprise for you. I should prefer you all to go outside and amuse
yourselves for the next quarter of an hour; in fact, till I call you
in."
This was a command there was no gainsaying. Old Ephraim gave a dry
chuckle, reached for his pipe, and obeyed without a word. Harley
Greenoak likewise. But Dick Selmes said--
"Do let me stay and help you, Miss Brandon. Why, it'll be like a jolly
picnic."
She hesitated a moment.
"No," she said. "We don't want any men." Then he followed the others.
When they returned they found she had been as good as her word. This
was a surprise indeed. Dick Selmes, the only one given to expressing
that emotion outwardly, was metaphorically rubbing his eyes. Where, for
instance, was the soiled, coarse-textured old cloth, covering one end of
the bare table--where the camp-kettle, handed from one to the other from
its usual resting-place on the floor, as more coffee was needed? Where
the weather-beaten enamel ware, the tin pannikins holding the milk and
sugar, the cloudy spoons? Where, too, the dark-brown bread, and the
mess badly and indifferently cooked in a frying-pan? Gone--wholly gone.
Instead, a snowy cloth, bright, hissing urn, patterned china,
_roester-koekjes_ steaming white within. Chops, too, hot from the
gridiron, juicy and crisp, and a great honeycomb reposing in a sparkling
cut-glass dish. The metamorphosis was complete indeed.
"We'll come to believe in fairy tales again soon," said old Hesketh as
he gazed upon this. "You haven't let the grass grow under your feet--
eh, Hazel?"
"No, Uncle Eph. I'm going to civilise you a bit, now that I'm here.
You men get into shockingly careless ways. What's the good of having
all these nice tablecloths and tea sets if you don't use them? So the
first thing we did was to dig them out of the boxes where they were
stowed away. Then we disestablished the old Hottentot cook--`cook'
indeed!--and behold the result!"
"It's great--great!" cried Dick Selmes with enthusiasm. Then, becoming
guiltily aware that he might be seeming to disparage his host's normal
arrangements, he added lamely, "Er--of course, we do get--er--as you
say, Miss Brandon, with nobody to take care of us. And--you've done it,
and no mistake."
Then old Hesketh put a few of his terse, laconic questions as to the
welfare of those she had left at home, and characteristically dismissed
the subject from his mind. Harley Greenoak, normally taciturn, said
little; but Dick Selmes was a host in himself, and soon the conversation
became a dialogue between these two young people. They were chattering
away as if they had known each other all their lives.
Soon after breakfast the Cape cart was inspanned.
"I'm hopin', sir," said Elsie McGunn, just before she climbed to her
seat, "that ye'll nae be takkin' it ill onything A may have said."
"Not a bit of it, Elsie," cried Dick, shaking her heartily by the hand.
"Not a bit of it. Why, you've given us a thundering big laugh or two.
What better could one say? Good-bye."
"Ay, but yander's a braw laddie," whispered the Scotswoman to her
charge, as they bade each other good-bye. "A braw laddie, and a guid
one. Mind your hairt, lassie; mind your hairt." And flicking her whip,
she sent the cart jolting off down the winding stony road.