"She"s been a good friend to us, and now we shall be put about as we were before for the want of her."
They did so; and a great shout went up from the outspan, echoing far along the sides of the darkening hills, where the lowering rain-clouds rested in an unbroken pall. The bridge had been a good friend to them, and now it was gone they would sorely feel the want of it for some time to come, until another should replace it, which might not be for years.
So they cheered right heartily; but with a feeling of genuine regret.
Meanwhile, at Seringa Vale, everything was at a standstill. The stock was kept at home, and in the soaked kraals the sheep stood huddled together, stolidly chewing the cad, and looking very forlorn in the dripping rain. But their owner"s watchful eye was everywhere, as, wrapped in a waterproof coat, he moved about, noting where it became necessary to cut a channel for the drainage of a fast acc.u.mulating body of water which threatened damage, and all hands would be turned out with spade and pick for this and such like duty. Even he was more than satisfied with the rainfall this time, and now and then cast an anxious look at the weather quarter.
"I don"t think I ever saw the kloof so full as this before, and it"s still rising," he said.
"No?" answered Claverton, who was meditatively jerking a pebble or two across the broad, surging rush of water in front of them. "All the rivers in the country must be tolerably well down. Why, the bridges will never stand."
"No, they won"t. If it goes on like this till morning there won"t be a bridge left in the country, that"s my opinion. There"ll be a heap of damage done besides. Well, we can"t do anything more now, and it"s getting dark," and they turned towards the house.
Very cosy and cheerful looked the interior of that domicile, as a few minutes later, Claverton found his way thither, and got into dry clothes. No one was about--wait--yes--there was some one in the inner room. It was Lilian. She had been reading, and was seated by the window with her book open in her hand, just as the twilight and then the darkness had surprised her.
"Trying to read in the dark? Worst thing possible for the eyes," he said. "What have you been doing with yourself all day?"
She turned to him.
"Very much what you see me doing now--reading and--dreaming."
"The best possible occupation for a day like this. I"ve been doing the latter--dreaming," he said.
"You? Why, you have been hard at work all day," said she. "I"ve been watching you walking about in the rain with a spade, and pitying you for being so uncomfortable, while we were all sitting indoors, dry and warm."
"Pitying me?"
"To any extent," she answered, looking up at him with a bright smile.
He bent over her. "Yes, I was dreaming--of such a moment as this."
She did not answer. Her eyes were fixed on the gloom without and the soft falling rain. Oh, the continuous drip, drip of that ceaseless rain throughout this livelong day, turning the daylight into dusk, and beating time in her heart to the echoes of the past! And throughout it all was a vague, indefinable longing for this man"s presence. The enforced imprisonment in the house had been doubly irksome without him, and at last she had been constrained to own it to herself. Once she had seen him coming towards the door, and all unconsciously had made ready such a bright smile of welcome; but he had turned back, and the smile had faded, and a chill, sickly feeling around her heart had taken its place. What right had she to feel thus, she thought? In a few weeks they would part as friends, acquaintances, nothing more, and then--well, at any rate he knew the worst. But now as he found her in the darkening twilight, her heart gave a bound, and her voice a.s.sumed a dangerous tenderness as she replied to him.
"The rain has been very cruel," he went on. "I couldn"t catch so much as one stray glimpse throughout the whole afternoon. If you are blockaded indoors, you might look out of the window now and then."
"Why, I"ve done nothing else. And you, did you get very wet?" And there is a little inflection as of anxiety in her voice as she raises her eyes to his.
"Don"t let"s talk about me, but about a far more interesting subject-- yourself. Haven"t you been frightfully bored to-day?"
"Well, I have rather--at least, I mean, I oughtn"t to say that, but one gets rather low sometimes, you know, even without much cause, and I"ve been so to-day," she answered, her tone relapsing into one of dejection, and he, standing there beside her, began to feel deliriously happy, though well knowing that it was for the moment. But the gloaming was about them, and they were alone together. What more could he--could they--want?
A light flashed from the other room; then a sound of voices. It was not exactly a blessing that Claverton gulped down, as some one was heard calling:
"Lilian. Are you there? It"s supper-time. Why, what has become of her?" added the voice, parenthetically.
Lilian started as if from a reverie. "Here I am," and she rose hastily.
Claverton was not the only one who watched her as she came out into the light, but the serene, beautiful face was as calm and unmoved as if she had been in their midst all the time.
Very cheerful and homelike looked the lighted room, and the table with its hissing tea-urn, and knives and forks and dish-covers sparkling on the snowy cloth. Very bright and exhilarating in contrast to the wet, chill gloom without, and to those two, who had been at work in the rain all day, especially so.
"The flood will do no end of damage," Mr Brathwaite was saying, as he began to make play with the carving-knife. "There"ll be lots of stock swept away, I fear, and the homesteads along the river banks stand a good chance of following."
"That"s cheerful, for their owners," remarked Claverton. "I should think old Garthorpe"s place would be one of the first to go."
"Serve him right, I was nearly saying. He doesn"t deserve to own a good farm like that--always preaching to the Kafirs instead of looking after it."
"Is he a missionary?" asked Lilian.
"No. He ought to be, though. He"s quite humbug enough."
"Tsh!" laughed Mrs Brathwaite. "Lilian will think you a regular heathen."
"Can"t help it," retorted the old man. "I know what I"m talking about, which is more than everybody does who professes to give an opinion on the subject. Any grocer"s boy, who in England would never get further than a shop-counter, makes a fine good trade of it by coming out here to "preach the Gospel" to the heathen. It"s less trouble and pays infinitely better. What is the consequence? Kafirland is chock-full of b.u.mptious, uneducated, hypocritical scamps, who live on the fat of the land, and are never happy unless meddling with what doesn"t concern them. All the disturbances which crop up from time to time, are hatched and fomented by these rascals. Call themselves teachers, indeed! What do they teach their lambs? To keep their hands off their neighbours"
property? Not a bit of it. And what missionary ever stuck to his post when war did break out, I should like to know? Not one. They clear out in time to save their own skins, never fear, and sneak off to befool the British public, while we are defending our lives and property. A set of meddlesome, mischief-brewing, slander-mongering frauds. They are the curse of the colony."
On this congenial theme the old man continued to descant for some time.
Then the tread of horses was heard outside, and the arrival of Hicks and Thorman created a diversion.
"So the bridge has gone," said Mr Brathwaite, dropping the missionary question. "I thought it would. It should have been built ten feet higher from the first. This flood, though, is a flood, and no mistake.
I only remember one like it."
"Ha, ha?" laughed Thorman, who was quite in a genial mood. "You should have seen Hicks pitching into a transport-rider. He doubled him up by the roadside like a ninepin."
"And how would he double up a ninepin, Mr Thorman?" queried Ethel, mischievously.
Meanwhile, Hicks looked sheepish. "I couldn"t help it," he said. "The fellow challenged me."
As predicted, the flood did an immense amount of damage. Every bridge was torn away by the force of the waters, as if it had been a bit of stick. Homesteads by the river-side flooded or swept away; gardens and corn lands swamped and utterly laid waste; every runnel or golly washed out as clean as a tube, the piles of drift-wood and rubbish, deposited here and there on their banks, alone showing the height to which the waters had risen. And when in a few days the rain ceased, and it was practicable to ascertain the fall extent of devastation--though even then in parts of the _veldt_ it was impossible to ride with any safety or comfort, for a horse would sink knee-deep in the spongy soil--the land was noisome with the carcases of drowned animals, sheep and goats lying by tens and by twenties rotting in the sun in roadway and golly.
Note 1. Hottentots with an admixture of white blood are thus known in Colonial parlance.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
THE BUSHMAN"S CAVE.
Christmas has come and gone, bringing with it, contrary to expectation, peace instead of a sword. The dreaded outbreak, by some inexplicable turn of events, has been averted, and instead of deluging the land in blood, and scattering rain and desolation broadcast, the tribes are, in their own expressive idiom, "sitting still," and the frontier is at peace.
No one can tell exactly how this welcome turn in the tide of affairs came about. Whether it was that the different sections of the Amaxosa race distrusted each other, suspicion being a leading trait in the savage character, and were unable to coalesce; or that they deemed the time not yet come when they could venture to strike a blow with any hope of success; or whether the counsels of the peace-loving party in the nation--the older men, who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by war, and who, moreover, had learnt by sad experience of former struggles, the futility of embarking in such undertakings--prevailed, no one can say for certain. Some contended that with the prospect of such a thriving good season before them, the Kafirs could not afford to throw it away, for the recent rains had made the land to blossom like a rose.
Anyhow, the natives were tilling their mealie gardens, and the more well-to-do of them were laying out cash in the purchase of ploughs and other agricultural implements, which certainly did not point in the direction of hostilities. Christmas was past, and once well over Christmas without an outbreak, there was no fear of war this year, at any rate. So said the old frontiersmen, and they ought to know.
Anyhow, at that moment, the tribes within and beyond the colonial border were more quiet and settled than they had been for some years past.
Stock-stealing had decreased with a rapidity bordering on the miraculous, and daring outrages, which a month ago had been waxing alarmingly common, were now absolutely unknown.
So peace reigned, and with it its twin blessing, plenty. In the gardens the trees groaned beneath their weighted branches; yellow apricots, with a warm red flush through their golden skin as they turned lovingly towards the sun; velvety peaches, rosy-cheeked and fragrant, dragged down the branches, or lay scattered upon the earth in lavish profusion.
Up among the purple figs, the spreuws were having a rare good time, but n.o.body grudged even those mischievous birds their share, for was there not abundance for all? And the long green pears hanging on the drooping boughs, which swept as in a natural harbour round the wooden seat at the foot of the tree, what a luscious refection they promised in two or three weeks" time, when they should have felt a little more sun, to those who would avail themselves of that cool, shady retreat!
In the fold, as in the lands, plenty reigned. The flocks and herds were fat and well-liking, for the gra.s.s was abundant and good; and, strengthened by the sweet and nutritious pasturage, the animals remained free alike from the ravages of disease or tick, and the better able to stand against the attacks of those insidious foes, that they were in excellent condition and likely so to remain; for, as if in compensation for the widespread havoc it had wrought, the great flood, besides washing away many impurities, both in noxious herb and insect, had thoroughly permeated the long parched-up soil, softening it to a depth of many feet. It had done more than this, for it had broken up the long continuation of settled drought; and periodical showers, soft and penetrating, had fallen from time to time since, so that the land had lost its brown, sun-baked aspect, and lay everywhere green and well watered, luxuriously reposing in the rich, generous glow of the Southern summer.