Bonaparte stood on the ash-heap. He espied across the plain a moving
speck and he chucked his coat-tails up and down in expectancy of a
scene.
The wagon came on slowly. Waldo laid curled among the sacks at the
back of the wagon, the hand in his breast resting on the sheep-shearing
machine. It was finished now. The right thought had struck him the
day before as he sat, half asleep, watching the water go over the
mill-wheel. He muttered to himself with half-closed eyes:
“Tomorrow smooth the cogs--tighten the screws a little--show it to
them.” Then after a pause--“Over the whole world--the whole world--mine,
that I have made!” He pressed the little wheels and pulleys in his
pocket till they cracked. Presently his muttering became louder--“And
fifty pounds--a black hat for my dadda--for Lyndall a blue silk,
very light; and one purple like the earth-bells, and white shoes.” He
muttered on--“A box full, full of books. They shall tell me all, all,
all,” he added, moving his fingers desiringly: “why the crystals grow in
such beautiful shapes; why lightning runs to the iron; why black people
are black; why the sunlight makes things warm. I shall read, read,
read,” he muttered slowly. Then came over him suddenly what he called
“The presence of God”; a sense of a good, strong something folding him
round. He smiled through his half-shut eyes. “Ah, Father, my own Father,
it is so sweet to feel you, like the warm sunshine. The Bibles and books
cannot tell of you and all I feel you. They are mixed with men’s words;
but you--”
His muttering sank into inaudible confusion, till, opening his eyes
wide, it struck him that the brown plain he looked at was the old home
farm. For half an hour they had been riding in it, and he had not known
it. He roused the leader, who sat nodding on the front of the wagon
in the early morning sunlight. They were within half a mile of the
homestead. It seemed to him that he had been gone from them all a year.
He fancied he could see Lyndall standing on the brick wall to watch for
him; his father, passing from one house to the other, stopping to look.
He called aloud to the oxen. For each one at home he had brought
something. For his father a piece of tobacco, bought at the shop by the
mill; for Em a thimble; for Lyndall a beautiful flower dug out by
the roots, at a place where they had outspanned; for Tant Sannie a
handkerchief. When they drew near the house he threw the whip to
the Kaffer leader, and sprung from the side of the wagon to run on.
Bonaparte stopped him as he ran past the ash-heap.
“Good morning, my dear boy. Where are you running to so fast with your
rosy cheeks?”
The boy looked up at him, glad even to see Bonaparte.
“I am going to the cabin,” he said, out of breath.
“You won’t find them in just now--not your good old father,” said
Bonaparte.
“Where is he?” asked the lad.
“There, beyond the camps,” said Bonaparte, waving his hand oratorically
toward the stone-walled ostrich-camps.
“What is he doing there?” asked the boy.
Bonaparte patted him on the cheek kindly.
“We could not keep him any more, it was too hot. We’ve buried him,
my boy,” said Bonaparte, touching with his finger the boy’s cheek. “We
couldn’t keep him any more. He, he, he!” laughed Bonaparte, as the boy
fled away along the low stone wall, almost furtively, as one in fear.
*****
At five o’clock Bonaparte knelt before a box in the German’s room. He
was busily unpacking it.
It had been agreed upon between Tant Sannie and himself, that now the
German was gone he, Bonaparte, was to be no longer schoolmaster, but
overseer of the farm. In return for his past scholastic labours he had
expressed himself willing to take possession of the dead man’s goods
and room. Tant Sannie hardly liked the arrangement. She had a great
deal more respect for the German dead than the German living, and would
rather his goods had been allowed to descend peacefully to his son. For
she was a firm believer in the chinks in the world above, where not only
ears, but eyes might be applied to see how things went on in this world
below. She never felt sure how far the spirit-world might overlap this
world of sense, and, as a rule, prudently abstained from doing anything
which might offend unseen auditors. For this reason she abstained from
ill-using the dead Englishman’s daughter and niece, and for this reason
she would rather the boy had had his father’s goods. But it was hard to
refuse Bonaparte anything when she and he sat so happily together in the
evening drinking coffee, Bonaparte telling her in the broken Dutch he
was fast learning how he adored fat women, and what a splendid farmer he
was.
So at five o’clock on this afternoon Bonaparte knelt in the German’s
room.
“Somewhere, here it is,” he said, as he packed the old clothes carefully
out of the box, and, finding nothing, packed them in again. “Somewhere
in this room it is; and if it’s here Bonaparte finds it,” he repeated.
“You didn’t stay here all these years without making a little pile
somewhere, my lamb. You weren’t such a fool as you looked. Oh, no!” said
Bonaparte.
He now walked about the room, diving his fingers in everywhere: sticking
them into the great crevices in the wall and frightening out the
spiders; rapping them against the old plaster till it cracked and fell
in pieces; peering up the chimney, till the soot dropped on his bald
head and blackened it. He felt in little blue bags; he tried to raise
the hearth-stone; he shook each book, till the old leaves fell down in
showers on the floor.
It was getting dark, and Bonaparte stood with his finger on his nose
reflecting. Finally he walked to the door, behind which hung the
trousers and waistcoat the dead man had last worn. He had felt in them,
but hurriedly, just after the funeral the day before; he would examine
them again. Sticking his fingers into the waistcoat pockets, he found in
one corner a hole. Pressing his hand through it, between the lining and
the cloth, he presently came into contact with something. Bonaparte drew
it forth--a small, square parcel, sewed up in sail-cloth. He gazed at
it, squeezed it; it cracked, as though full of bank-notes. He put it
quickly into his own waistcoat pocket, and peeped over the half-door to
see if there was any one coming. There was nothing to be seen but the
last rays of yellow sunset light, painting the karoo bushes in the
plain, and shining on the ash-heap, where the fowls were pecking. He
turned and sat down on the nearest chair, and, taking out his pen-knife,
ripped the parcel open. The first thing that fell was a shower of yellow
faded papers. Bonaparte opened them carefully one by one, and smoothed
them out on his knee. There was something very valuable to be hidden so
carefully, though the German characters he could not decipher. When he
came to the last one, he felt there was something hard in it.
“You’ve got it, Bon, my boy! you’ve got it!” he cried, slapping his leg
hard. Edging nearer to the door, for the light was fading, he opened the
paper carefully. There was nothing inside but a plain gold wedding-ring.
“Better than nothing!” said Bonaparte, trying to put it on his little
finger, which, however, proved too fat.
He took it off and set it down on the table before him, and looked at it
with his crosswise eyes.
“When that auspicious hour, Sannie,” he said, “shall have arrived, when,
panting, I shall lead thee, lighted by Hymen’s torch, to the connubial
altar, then upon thy fair amaranthine finger, my joyous bride, shall
this ring repose.
“Thy fair body, oh, my girl,
Shall Bonaparte possess;
His fingers in thy money-bags,
He therein, too, shall mess.”
Having given utterance to this flood of poesy, he sat lost in joyous
reflection.
“He therein, too, shall mess,” he repeated meditatively.
At this instant, as Bonaparte swore, and swore truly to the end of his
life, a slow and distinct rap was given on the crown of his bald head.
Bonaparte started and looked up. No riem or strap, hung down from
the rafters above, and not a human creature was near the door. It
was growing dark; he did not like it. He began to fold up the papers
expeditiously. He stretched out his hand for the ring. The ring was
gone! Gone, although no human creature had entered the room; gone,
although no form had crossed the doorway. Gone!
He would not sleep there, that was certain.
He stuffed the papers into his pocket. As he did so, three slow and
distinct taps were given on the crown of his head. Bonaparte’s jaw fell:
each separate joint lost its power: he could not move; he dared not
rise; his tongue lay loose in his mouth.
“Take all, take all!” he gurgled in his throat. “I--I do not want them.
Take”--
Here a resolute tug at the grey curls at the back of his head caused him
to leap up, yelling wildly. Was he to sit still paralyzed, to be dragged
away bodily to the devil? With terrific shrieks he fled, casting no
glance behind.
*****
When the dew was falling, and the evening was dark, a small figure moved
toward the gate of the furthest ostrich-camp, driving a bird before it.
When the gate was opened and the bird driven in and the gate fastened,
it turned away, but then suddenly paused near the stone wall.
“Is that you, Waldo?” said Lyndall, hearing a sound.
The boy was sitting on the damp ground with his back to the wall. He
gave her no answer.
“Come,” she said, bending over him, “I have been looking for you all
day.”
He mumbled something.
“You have had nothing to eat. I have put some supper in your room. You
must come home with me, Waldo.”
She took his hand, and the boy rose slowly.
She made him take her arm, and twisted her small fingers among his.
“You must forget,” she whispered. “Since it happened I walk, I talk,
I never sit still. If we remember, we cannot bring back the dead.” She
knit her little fingers closer among his. “Forgetting is the best thing.
He did watch it coming,” she whispered presently. “That is the dreadful
thing, to see it coming!” She shuddered. “I want it to come so to me
too. Why do you think I was driving that bird?” she added quickly. “That
was Hans, the bird that hates Bonaparte. I let him out this afternoon; I
thought he would chase him and perhaps kill him.”
The boy showed no sign of interest.
“He did not catch him; but he put his head over the half-door of your
cabin and frightened him horribly. He was there, busy stealing your
things. Perhaps he will leave them alone now; but I wish the bird had
trodden on him.”
They said no more till they reached the door of the cabin.
“There is a candle and supper on the table. You must eat,” she said
authoritatively. “I cannot stay with you now, lest they find out about
the bird.”
He grasped her arm and brought his mouth close to her ear.
“There is no God!” he almost hissed; “no God; not anywhere!”
She started.
“Not anywhere!”
He ground it out between his teeth, and she felt his hot breath on her
cheek.
“Waldo, you are mad,” she said, drawing herself from him, instinctively.
He loosened his grasp and turned away from her also.
In truth, is it not life’s way? We fight our little battles alone; you
yours, I mine. We must not help or find help.
When your life is most real, to me you are mad; when your agony is
blackest, I look at you and wonder. Friendship is good, a strong stick;
but when the hour comes to lean hard, it gives. In the day of their
bitterest need all souls are alone.
Lyndall stood by him in the dark, pityingly, wonderingly. As he walked
to the door, she came after him.
“Eat your supper; it will do you good,” she said.
She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and then ran away.
In the front room the little woolly Kaffer girl was washing Tant
Sannie’s feet in a small tub, and Bonaparte, who sat on the wooden
sofa, was pulling off his shoes and stockings that his own feet might
be washed also. There were three candles burning in the room, and he and
Tant Sannie sat close together, with the lean Hottentot not far off; for
when ghosts are about much light is needed, there is great strength
in numbers. Bonaparte had completely recovered from the effects of his
fright in the afternoon, and the numerous doses of brandy that it had
been necessary to administer to him to effect his restoration had put
him into a singularly pleasant and amiable mood.
“That boy Waldo,” said Bonaparte, rubbing his toes, “took himself off
coolly this morning as soon as the wagon came, and has not done a stiver
of work all day. I’ll not have that kind of thing now I’m master of this
farm.”
The Hottentot maid translated.
“Ah, I expect he’s sorry that his father’s dead,” said Tant Sannie.
“It’s nature, you know. I cried the whole morning when my father died.
One can always get another husband, but one can’t get another father,”
said Tant Sannie, casting a sidelong glance at Bonaparte.
Bonaparte expressed a wish to give Waldo his orders for the next day’s
work, and accordingly the little woolly-headed Kaffer was sent to
call him. After a considerable time the boy appeared, and stood in the
doorway.
If they had dressed him in one of the swallow-tailed coats, and oiled
his hair till the drops fell from it, and it lay as smooth as an elder’s
on sacrament Sunday, there would still have been something unanointed in
the aspect of the fellow. As it was, standing there in his strange old
costume, his head presenting much the appearance of having been deeply
rolled in sand, his eyelids swollen, the hair hanging over his
forehead, and a dogged sullenness on his features, he presented most the
appearance of an ill-conditioned young buffalo.
“Beloved Lord,” cried Tant Sannie, “how he looks! Come in, boy. Couldn’t
you come and say good-day to me? Don’t you want some supper?”
He said he wanted nothing, and turned his heavy eyes away from her.
“There’s a ghost been seen in your father’s room,” said Tant Sannie. “If
you’re afraid you can sleep in the kitchen.”
“I will sleep in our room,” said the boy slowly.
“Well, you can go now,” she said; “but be up early to take the sheep.
The herd--”
“Yes, be up early, my boy,” interrupted Bonaparte, smiling. “I am to
be master of this farm now; and we shall be good friends, I trust, very
good friends, if you try to do your duty, my dear boy.”
Waldo turned to go, and Bonaparte, looking benignly at the candle,
stretched out one unstockinged foot, over which Waldo, looking at
nothing in particular, fell with a heavy thud upon the floor.
“Dear me! I hope you are not hurt, my boy,” said Bonaparte. “You’ll have
many a harder thing than that though, before you’ve gone through life,”
he added consolingly, as Waldo picked himself up.
The lean Hottentot laughed till the room rang again; and Tant Sannie
tittered till her sides ached.
When he had gone the little maid began to wash Bonaparte’s feet.
“Oh, Lord, beloved Lord, how he did fall! I can’t think of it,” cried
Tant Sannie, and she laughed again. “I always did know he was not right;
but this evening any one could see it,” she added, wiping the tears of
mirth from her face. “His eyes are as wild as if the devil was in them.
He never was like other children. The dear Lord knows, if he doesn’t
walk alone for hours talking to himself. If you sit in the room with
him you can see his lips moving the whole time; and if you talk to him
twenty times he doesn’t hear you. Daft-eyes; he’s as mad as mad can be.”
This repetition of the word mad conveyed meaning to Bonaparte’s mind. He
left off paddling his toes in the water.
“Mad, mad? I know that kind of mad,” said Bonaparte, “and I know the
thing to give for it. The front end of a little horsewhip, the tip! Nice
thing; takes it out,” said Bonaparte.
The Hottentot laughed, and translated.
“No more walking about and talking to themselves on this farm now,” said
Bonaparte; “no more minding of sheep and reading of books at the same
time. The point of a horsewhip is a little thing, but I think he’ll
have a taste of it before long.” Bonaparte rubbed his hands and looked
pleasantly across his nose; and then the three laughed together grimly.
And Waldo in his cabin crouched in the dark in a corner, with his knees
drawn up to his chin.