"I didn"t know it, Iris; but am delighted to learn the fact on your indisputable authority," I answered.
She flung a handful of gra.s.s sprays at me, which she had been absently plucking.
"Don"t use those beastly long words," she said. "No, but really I am glad."
The straight glance of the pretty blue eyes full upon my face expressed all a delightful child"s genuine liking. I own to having felt in my innermost self considerably moved thereby.
"I must take off my hat this time," I said, suiting the action to the word with a sweep of mock elaboration. "Miss Matterson, will you second the resolution just proposed?" I added, turning to Beryl.
"Ah, why do you always say "Miss Matterson"?" interrupted Iris decisively. "It"s so stiff. Why don"t you say "Beryl"?"
"May I?" was the obvious rejoinder--indeed, the only possible one.
"Why not, Mr Holt? I"m sure if there is anybody whom we have every reason to look upon as one of ourselves it is you." Yet with the words, frank and friendly as they were, ever so slight a colour had come into the sweet calm face. But before I could make any reply Iris emitted a loud whistle.
"Look at that, Beryl," she cried derisively. "And then you call him "Mr Holt.""
"The very thing I was going to remark upon," I said.
"Very well, then," said Beryl. "Then I won"t do it again." This time the colour had disappeared, but I could have sworn I caught a momentary look in those soulful eyes that would have justified me, had I been alone, in throwing my hat in the air and hooraying, or executing any other frantic and maniacal manoeuvre indicative of delirious exaltation.
"Then it"s a bargain," I said.
"Yes," smiled Beryl.
Now what had given rise to that dear child"s original remark was a certain conversation that had been held that morning over at the kraals at counting-out time.
"Why don"t you make up your mind to stop out here altogether, Holt?"
Brian had said, as, the job aforesaid over, we were leaning against a gate watching the flocks streaming away to their respective pasture grounds. "You seem to take to the life, too. Man, you"ll never feel at home in one of those beastly stuffy offices again after this, grinding away at figures. Why don"t you cut loose from it all, and fix up out here? You can do it. Don"t you think he ought, dad?"
"I think he might do worse," was the answer. "As you say, he seems to take readily enough to it."
With the words an idea had flashed into my brain, an idea that was as a veritable illumination.
"But before I could start on my own account I should want a precious deal more experience than I"ve got at present," I said. "There are heaps of things I should have to learn."
"Yes, you would have a good deal to learn," said Septimus Matterson, shading a match with his hands as he lit his pipe.
"Look here, Mr Matterson," I said, coming straight to the point. "Will you teach me--you and Brian? I am not a man of large means, but anything in the way of a premium that you may think fair, I shall be only too happy--er--er--that I am content to leave entirely to you," I stuttered.
Septimus Matterson had lit his pipe now, and stood emitting puffs of smoke slowly, while a queer smile deepened upon his strong handsome face. Then he said--
"I don"t often swear, Holt, as I believe you"ll bear me out in saying.
But in this case I"m going to make an exception. Premium be d.a.m.ned!"
At this Brian threw back his head and roared, while I, puzzled, grinned idiotically.
"What I mean is," he went on, "in the first place it"s not likely I"d take any remuneration from you for giving me a helping hand. Even if you hadn"t saved my darling little girl"s life, as a friend of Brian"s you"re heartily welcome to any a.s.sistance I could give you. Wait a bit--" interrupting the protest I was trying to stammer forth. "In the next place, we don"t as a rule take premiums in this country for teaching a fellow to farm--the few who do are generally just the ones who can"t teach him anything at all. And, finally, every word I said to you the other day I meant. So if you"re inclined to stay on here and pick up your knowledge of the life and experience of the country by helping us, why this place is your home for just as long as ever you like to make it so."
"Rather," appended Brian in his quietly emphatic way. "Give us a fill, dad," reaching out a hand for the paternal pouch.
I have but a confused idea of what I said in reply, probably something incoherent, as my way is when genuinely moved, possibly because that is a mental process I so seldom undergo. Anyhow, the matter was settled to the satisfaction of all parties, which was the main thing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
THE OBJECTIONABLE TRASK.
Now as I sat there, that still and radiant afternoon, in the sylvan wildness of our shaded resting-place, whose cool gloom contrasted well with the golden warmth of the sunlight beyond, I was rather more disposed for silence than speech. I was thinking, and the subject matter of my thoughts was all unalloyed with any misgiving of foreboding that should tarnish its brightness. I was realising Beryl"s presence, and all that it meant to me. There she was, within a couple of yards of me, and the mere consciousness of this was all-sufficing. I was contrasting, too, this wondrous change which had come into my life--such a joy of living, such a new awakening to its possibilities. It seemed I was hardly the same man. I who had hitherto gone through life in a neutral-tinted sort of way, content to exist from day to day among neutral-tinted surroundings, with, as I thought hitherto, a happy immunity from all violent interests or emotions. And now, by an almost magical wave of a wizard wand, I had been transported to this fair land, to sunlight from gloom, to a golden awakening from a drab slumbrous acquiescence in a bovine state of existence, which supplied the physical wants, leaving all others untouched. And the magic which had wrought this upheaval--
"Well? A penny for your thoughts."
I turned to the speaker. It was perhaps as well that the child was with us, or I don"t know what I might have been led into saying, probably prematurely, and would thus have tumbled down my own bright castles in the air.
"He"s thinking of his pipe," said Iris mischievously. "Brian always gets into a brown study too when he"s plunged in smoke. Beryl, I think we must make him put it out."
"Don"t be a little barbarian, Iris," I answered, knocking the ashes out of the offending implement. "The fact is, I was thinking of what a blessed instrument of Providence was the prow of the _Kittiwake_ when it knocked my sculling boat to matchwood in mid-Channel and brought me here. That was all."
"Oh yes. You were thinking you"d like to be back in that smoky old London of yours, and how slow we all are," retorted Iris. "Trask"s always crowding London down our throats. I hate the very sound of its name. It must be a beastly hole. I always ask him why he doesn"t go back there if he"s so fond of it."
"I should say _Mr._ Trask, Iris," I said, with a sly glance at Beryl.
"Ach!" exclaimed the child disgustedly, throwing a handful of gra.s.s stalks at me.
After all, we were only enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, talking nonsense, as people will at such times--anyhow, indulging in no rational conversation worth chronicling. And Beryl and I would engage in a playful argument on some unimportant trifle, and Iris, with child-like restlessness, would wander about, now throwing a stone into a water-hole to scare a mud turtle floating with its head on the surface, or peer about from bush to bush trying to discover a bird"s nest; and at last as the afternoon wore on we started to retrace our steps homeward.
It will always linger in my memory, that peaceful, utterly uneventful stroll. The flaming wheel of the westering sun was drawing down to the farther ridge as we came in sight of the tree-embowered homestead, with a soft blue smoke-reek or two curling up into the still air. The bleat of the returning flocks was borne to us from the distance; and, approaching along a bush path which should converge with ours, came half a dozen Kafirs of both s.e.xes, walking single file, the red ochre colouring their blankets and persons harmonising not uneffectively with the prevailing green of the surroundings, while the full tones of their melodious language--the deep ba.s.s of the males and the rich pleasing inflection of women"s voices as they conversed--added an additional note of completeness to the closing beauty of a typical African day. And within my mind was the all-pervading thought that this day was but the beginning of many such; that the next, and the morrow, and the day after, that would be brightened and illuminated by the same sweet companionship--even that of her who was now beside me; that each day"s occupation would be sweetened and hallowed by the thought that we were dwellers beneath the same roof--and then--and then--who could tell? Ah, it was one of those periods that come to some of us at a time in our lives when imagination is fresh, and heart and mind unseared by shattered illusions, and the corroding gall of latter days not even so much as suspected then.
"Hullo!" I exclaimed, catching sight of a third figure strolling beside Brian and his father, "Who"s that? Looks like Trask."
"Yes, it is," a.s.sented Beryl.
The appearance of the stranger seemed to mar the harmony of the situation to my mind. I did not like Trask. He was one of those men who, wherever they find themselves, never give any one a chance of forgetting their presence; no, not even for a moment. When Trask appeared at Gonya"s Kloof--which, by the way, was the name of the Mattersons" farm--why, there was no possibility of overlooking the fact, for he simply monopolised the whole conversation. He was a man of about my own height and build, and three or four years my senior, on the strength of which, and of having about that amount of colonial experience, he chose to a.s.sume towards my humble self a good-humouredly contemptuous and patronising manner, which to me was insufferable. Not infrequently, too, he would try his hand at making me a b.u.t.t for his exceedingly forced and laboured wit, which is a thing I don"t take. He was a neighbour of twelve miles or so, where he farmed--or was supposed to farm--his own place, and was reputed well off. To crown his other offences in my eyes, he was a bachelor, and was a precious deal too fond of coming over to Gonya"s Kloof on any or no pretext.
Turning from his greeting to the girls--a greeting to my mind dashed with a perfectly unwarrantable tone of familiarity--he opened on me.
"Ha, Holt, getting more into the way of things now, I suppose? You"ll soon know your way about. Things take a little getting into at first-- ha-ha!"
This in a sort of bray, accompanied by a condescending expression.
Catching Brian"s eye, I discerned a killing twinkle therein.
"Why, Trask," he said in his quiet way, "Holt"s got into the way of things about twice as quick as any imported man I ever knew."
"Yes. Twice as quick," repeated Beryl, in emphatic a.s.sent.
I fancy Trask didn"t like this--he looked as if he didn"t; but I did, though of course I made no sign either way. Now all this was petty, and by every rule I ought to have been superior to any such trivial annoyances. But bear in mind that I make no claim to be a hero; indeed, I propose in this narrative to set down my own weaknesses with a candid and impartial hand. And I intensely disliked Trask.