The Watch.
The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the
wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth, with its coating of stunted
karoo bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain,
the milk-bushes with their long finger-like leaves, all were touched by
a weird and an almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light.
In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the
centre a small solitary kopje rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round
ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant’s grave. Here and
there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among
its stones, and on the very summit a clump of prickly-pears lifted their
thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their
broad fleshy leaves. At the foot of the kopje lay the homestead.
First, the stone-walled sheep kraals and Kaffer huts; beyond them the
dwelling-house--a square, red-brick building with thatched roof. Even on
its bare red walls, and the wooden ladder that led up to the loft, the
moonlight cast a kind of dreamy beauty, and quite etherealized the low
brick wall that ran before the house, and which inclosed a bare patch of
sand and two straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great open
wagon-house, on the roofs of the outbuildings that jutted from its side,
the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar brightness, till it seemed
that every rib in the metal was of burnished silver.
Sleep ruled everywhere, and the homestead was not less quiet than the
solitary plain.
In the farmhouse, on her great wooden bedstead, Tant Sannie, the
Boer-woman, rolled heavily in her sleep.
She had gone to bed, as she always did, in her clothes, and the night
was warm and the room close, and she dreamed bad dreams. Not of the
ghosts and devils that so haunted her waking thoughts; not of her second
husband the consumptive Englishman, whose grave lay away beyond the
ostrich-camps, nor of her first, the young Boer; but only of the sheep’s
trotters she had eaten for supper that night. She dreamed that one stuck
fast in her throat, and she rolled her huge form from side to side, and
snorted horribly.
In the next room, where the maid had forgotten to close the shutter, the
white moonlight fell in in a flood, and made it light as day. There were
two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellow-haired child, with
a low forehead and a face of freckles; but the loving moonlight hid
defects here as elsewhere, and showed only the innocent face of a child
in its first sweet sleep.
The figure in the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight, for
it was of quite elfin-like beauty. The child had dropped her cover
on the floor, and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs.
Presently she opened her eyes and looked at the moonlight that was
bathing her.
“Em!” she called to the sleeper in the other bed; but received no
answer. Then she drew the cover from the floor, turned her pillow, and
pulling the sheet over her head, went to sleep again.
Only in one of the outbuildings that jutted from the wagon-house there
was some one who was not asleep.
The room was dark; door and shutter were closed; not a ray of light
entered anywhere. The German overseer, to whom the room belonged, lay
sleeping soundly on his bed in the corner, his great arms folded, and
his bushy grey and black beard rising and falling on his breast. But one
in the room was not asleep. Two large eyes looked about in the darkness,
and two small hands were smoothing the patchwork quilt. The boy, who
slept on a box under the window, had just awakened from his first sleep.
He drew the quilt up to his chin, so that little peered above it but a
great head of silky black curls and the two black eyes. He stared
about in the darkness. Nothing was visible, not even the outline of one
worm-eaten rafter, nor of the deal table, on which lay the Bible from
which his father had read before they went to bed. No one could tell
where the toolbox was, and where the fireplace. There was something very
impressive to the child in the complete darkness.
At the head of his father’s bed hung a great silver hunting watch. It
ticked loudly. The boy listened to it, and began mechanically to count.
Tick--tick--one, two, three, four! He lost count presently, and only
listened. Tick--tick--tick--tick!
It never waited; it went on inexorably; and every time it ticked a man
died! He raised himself a little on his elbow and listened. He wished it
would leave off.
How many times had it ticked since he came to lie down? A thousand
times, a million times, perhaps.
He tried to count again, and sat up to listen better.
“Dying, dying, dying!” said the watch; “dying, dying, dying!”
He heard it distinctly. Where were they going to, all those people?
He lay down quickly, and pulled the cover up over his head: but
presently the silky curls reappeared.
“Dying, dying, dying!” said the watch; “dying, dying, dying!”
He thought of the words his father had read that evening--“For wide is
the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction and many
there be which go in thereat.”
“Many, many, many!” said the watch.
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto
life, and few there be that find it.”
“Few, few, few!” said the watch.
The boy lay with his eyes wide open. He saw before him a long stream of
people, a great dark multitude, that moved in one direction; then they
came to the dark edge of the world and went over. He saw them passing
on before him, and there was nothing that could stop them. He thought of
how that stream had rolled on through all the long ages of the past--how
the old Greeks and Romans had gone over; the countless millions of China
and India, they were going over now. Since he had come to bed, how many
had gone!
And the watch said, “Eternity, eternity, eternity!”
“Stop them! stop them!” cried the child.
And all the while the watch kept ticking on; just like God’s will, that
never changes or alters, you may do what you please.
Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy’s forehead. He climbed out
of bed and lay with his face turned to the mud floor.
“Oh, God, God! save them!” he cried in agony. “Only some, only a few!
Only for each moment I am praying here one!” He folded his little hands
upon his head. “God! God! save them!”
He grovelled on the floor.
Oh, the long, long ages of the past, in which they had gone over! Oh,
the long, long future, in which they would pass away! Oh, God! the long,
long, long eternity, which has no end!
The child wept, and crept closer to the ground.
*****
The Sacrifice.
The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a
weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely covered by dry karoo bushes,
that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth
everywhere. Here and there a milk-bush lifted its pale-coloured rods,
and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about in the
blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the
outbuildings, the stone walls of the kraals, all reflected the fierce
sunlight, till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to
be seen far or near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door,
out-stared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the sand; and the
little cicada-like insects cried aloud among the stones of the kopje.
The Boer-woman, seen by daylight, was even less lovely than when, in
bed, she rolled and dreamed. She sat on a chair in the great front room,
with her feet on a wooden stove, and wiped her flat face with the corner
of her apron, and drank coffee, and in Cape Dutch swore that the
beloved weather was damned. Less lovely, too, by daylight was the dead
Englishman’s child, her little stepdaughter, upon whose freckles and
low, wrinkled forehead the sunlight had no mercy.
“Lyndall,” the child said to her little orphan cousin, who sat with her
on the floor threading beads, “how is it your beads never fall off your
needle?”
“I try,” said the little one gravely, moistening her tiny finger. “That
is why.”
The overseer, seen by daylight, was a huge German, wearing a shabby
suit, and with a childish habit of rubbing his hands and nodding his
head prodigiously when pleased at anything. He stood out at the kraals
in the blazing sun, explaining to two Kaffer boys the approaching end
of the world. The boys, as they cut the cakes of dung, winked at each
other, and worked as slowly as they possibly could; but the German never
saw it.
Away, beyond the kopje, Waldo his son herded the ewes and lambs--a
small and dusty herd--powdered all over from head to foot with red sand,
wearing a ragged coat and shoes of undressed leather, through whose
holes the toes looked out. His hat was too large, and had sunk down to
his eyes, concealing completely the silky black curls. It was a curious
small figure. His flock gave him little trouble. It was too hot for them
to move far; they gathered round every little milk-bush, as though they
hoped to find shade, and stood there motionless in clumps. He himself
crept under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the kopje, stretched
himself on his stomach, and waved his dilapidated little shoes in the
air.
Soon, from the blue bag where he kept his dinner, he produced a fragment
of slate, an arithmetic, and a pencil. Proceeding to put down a sum with
solemn and earnest demeanour, he began to add it up aloud: “Six and
two is eight--and four is twelve--and two is fourteen--and four
is eighteen.” Here he paused. “And four is eighteen--and--four--is,
eighteen.” The last was very much drawled. Slowly the pencil slipped
from his fingers, and the slate followed it into the sand. For a while
he lay motionless, then began muttering to himself, folded his little
arms, laid his head down upon them, and might have been asleep, but for
the muttering sound that from time to time proceeded from him. A curious
old ewe came to sniff at him; but it was long before he raised his head.
When he did, he looked at the far-off hills with his heavy eyes.
“Ye shall receive--ye shall receive--shall, shall, shall,” he muttered.
He sat up then. Slowly the dulness and heaviness melted from his face;
it became radiant. Midday had come now, and the sun’s rays were poured
down vertically; the earth throbbed before the eye.
The boy stood up quickly, and cleared a small space from the bushes
which covered it. Looking carefully, he found twelve small stones of
somewhat the same size; kneeling down, he arranged them carefully on the
cleared space in a square pile, in shape like an altar. Then he walked
to the bag where his dinner was kept; in it was a mutton chop and a
large slice of brown bread. The boy took them out and turned the bread
over in his hand, deeply considering it. Finally he threw it away and
walked to the altar with the meat, and laid it down on the stones. Close
by in the red sand he knelt down. Sure, never since the beginning of the
world was there so ragged and so small a priest. He took off his great
hat and placed it solemnly on the ground, then closed his eyes and
folded his hands. He prayed aloud:
“Oh, God, my Father, I have made Thee a sacrifice. I have only twopence,
so I cannot buy a lamb. If the lambs were mine, I would give Thee one;
but now I have only this meat; it is my dinner meat. Please, my Father,
send fire down from heaven to burn it. Thou hast said, Whosoever shall
say unto this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea, nothing doubting, it
shall be done. I ask for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
He knelt down with his face upon the ground, and he folded his hands
upon his curls. The fierce sun poured down its heat upon his head and
upon his altar. When he looked up he knew what he should see--the glory
of God! For fear his very heart stood still, his breath came heavily;
he was half suffocated. He dared not look up. Then at last he raised
himself. Above him was the quiet blue sky, about him the red earth;
there were the clumps of silent ewes and his altar--that was all.
He looked up--nothing broke the intense stillness of the blue overhead.
He looked round in astonishment, then he bowed again, and this time
longer than before.
When he raised himself the second time all was unaltered. Only the sun
had melted the fat of the little mutton chop, and it ran down upon the
stones.
Then, the third time he bowed himself. When at last he looked up, some
ants had come to the meat on the altar. He stood up and drove them away.
Then he put his hat on his hot curls, and sat in the shade. He clasped
his hands about his knees. He sat to watch what would come to pass. The
glory of the Lord God Almighty! He knew he should see it.
“My dear God is trying me,” he said; and he sat there through the fierce
heat of the afternoon. Still he watched and waited when the sun began to
slope, and when it neared the horizon and the sheep began to cast long
shadows across the karoo, he still sat there. He hoped when the first
rays touched the hills till the sun dipped behind them and was gone.
Then he called his ewes together, and broke down the altar, and threw
the meat far, far away into the field.
He walked home behind his flock. His heart was heavy. He reasoned so:
“God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire came. I am like Cain--I am not
His. He will not hear my prayer. God hates me.”
The boy’s heart was heavy. When he reached the kraal gate the two girls
met him.
“Come,” said the yellow-haired Em, “let us play coop. There is still
time before it gets quite dark. You, Waldo, go and hide on the kopje;
Lyndall and I will shut eyes here, and we will not look.”
The girls hid their faces in the stone wall of the sheep-kraal, and the
boy clambered half way up the kopje. He crouched down between two stones
and gave the call. Just then the milk-herd came walking out of the
cow-kraal with two pails. He was an ill-looking Kaffer.
“Ah!” thought the boy, “perhaps he will die tonight, and go to hell! I
must pray for him, I must pray!”
Then he thought--“Where am I going to?” and he prayed desperately.
“Ah! this is not right at all,” little Em said, peeping between the
stones, and finding him in a very curious posture. “What are you doing
Waldo? It is not the play, you know. You should run out when we come to
the white stone. Ah, you do not play nicely.”
“I--I will play nicely now,” said the boy, coming out and standing
sheepishly before them; “I--I only forgot; I will play now.”
“He has been to sleep,” said freckled Em.
“No,” said beautiful little Lyndall, looking curiously at him: “he has
been crying.”
She never made a mistake.
*****
The Confession.
One night, two years after, the boy sat alone on the kopje. He had crept
softly from his father’s room and come there. He often did, because,
when he prayed or cried aloud, his father might awake and hear him; and
none knew his great sorrow, and none knew his grief, but he himself, and
he buried them deep in his heart.
He turned up the brim of his great hat and looked at the moon, but
most at the leaves of the prickly pear that grew just before him. They
glinted, and glinted, and glinted, just like his own heart--cold, so
hard, and very wicked. His physical heart had pain also; it seemed full
of little bits of glass, that hurt. He had sat there for half an hour,
and he dared not go back to the close house.
He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in
all the world, and he knew it. He folded his arms and began to cry--not
aloud; he sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched
marks where they fell. He could not pray; he had prayed night and day
for so many months; and tonight he could not pray. When he left off
crying, he held his aching head with his brown hands. If one might have
gone up to him and touched him kindly; poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps
his heart was almost broken.
With his swollen eyes he sat there on a flat stone at the very top of
the kopje; and the tree, with every one of its wicked leaves, blinked,
and blinked, and blinked at him. Presently he began to cry again, and
then stopped his crying to look at it. He was quiet for a long while,
then he knelt up slowly and bent forward. There was a secret he had
carried in his heart for a year. He had not dared to look at it; he had
not whispered it to himself, but for a year he had carried it. “I hate
God!” he said. The wind took the words and ran away with them, among the
stones, and through the leaves of the prickly pear. He thought it died
away half down the kopje. He had told it now!
“I love Jesus Christ, but I hate God.”
The wind carried away that sound as it had done the first. Then he got
up and buttoned his old coat about him. He knew he was certainly lost
now; he did not care. If half the world were to be lost, why not he
too? He would not pray for mercy any more. Better so--better to know
certainly. It was ended now. Better so.
He began scrambling down the sides of the kopje to go home.
Better so! But oh, the loneliness, the agonized pain! for that night,
and for nights on nights to come! The anguish that sleeps all day on the
heart like a heavy worm, and wakes up at night to feed!
There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your
hardest blow, give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we
suffered when we were children.”
The barb in the arrow of childhood’s suffering is this: its intense
loneliness, its intense agony.