"How provoking you are! Now I appeal to all of you. If you see me cornered by Will Jeffreys, come to the rescue."
"The greatest bore I ever knew," began Claverton, "was a lady--an elderly lady. She would volunteer instruction on any and every subject under heaven, from the precise length of Aaron"s beard, to the cost of soup-kitchens; and once she cornered you, you had to listen or pretend to. One day she cornered me. It was in the drawing-room, and there was no escape; but there was a clock opposite. It occurred to me to time her. For exactly twenty-one minutes she prosed on uninterruptedly, like a stream flowing over its bed; never stopped to take breath once. A sermon was a joke to it. Twenty-one minutes! Heaven knows how much longer she would have gone on, but for a lucky interruption."
"What was she prosing about?" said Ethel.
"I haven"t the very faintest idea."
"Well, I don"t believe a word of the story. I believe you made it all up."
"You don"t believe a word of that story?" said Claverton, with a stare of amazement, while Hicks and Laura went into fits.
"No, I don"t; at least, I"ll say this much--you may have known such a bore, but if so it was a man, not a lady."
"I"ve told you a bare fact, upon my honour. But if--"
They were interrupted by the appearance on the scene of Jeffreys himself; but Ethel was too quick for him. She had seen him coming, and was already on her way indoors. Then she began to sing duets with Laura, whom she had manoeuvred to the piano by some mysterious signal.
Young Jeffreys, feeling very sulky and sore at his enslaver"s capriciousness and want of consideration, went and sat by himself at the other side of the room, whence he could watch the author of his discomfort. The old people, under no necessity to talk, waxed drowsy, and nodded through the music. Presently Laura left the piano and, in a trice, she and Hicks were deep in an animated conversation in a low tone and in a snug corner, under pretence of looking through a pile of music.
Ethel the while was extracting wondrous combinations from the keys, under cover of which she was carrying on a sharp running fire of banter, or rather word-skirmish, with Claverton.
Jeffreys, watching them, was on thorns and tenterhooks. Who the deuce was this stranger? A month ago no one had ever heard of him, and now here he was, with his d.a.m.ned finicking ways and smooth tongue, thinking that all the world was made for him. A fellow, too, he"d be bound to say, that with all his easy-going blarney, couldn"t sit a bucking horse, or hit a haystack at ten yards. Yet there was Ethel carrying on furiously with this fellow, while he, Jeffreys, was sent to the wall.
In reality, however, there was nothing that those two were saying that all the world--Jeffreys included--would not have been perfectly welcome to hear.
"Claverton," suddenly exclaimed Hicks, as two hours later they were discussing the usual pipe before turning in. Jeffreys had joined them, but did not add much to the conversation. "I hear you"re going to stay on here."
"Yes, I am."
Jeffreys" jaw fell at this announcement. He had been laying balm to his wounded spirit in the thought that this interloping stranger would soon be going, and then--well, the field would be clear again.
"Glad to hear it, old fellow, awfully glad. By Jove, it"s the best news I"ve heard for a long time."
"The deuce it is! And why, may I ask?"
"Why? Only hear him! Haven"t I had to do everything by myself, and knock about by myself? No fellow to talk to at work, or to go out and sneak a buck with, or to blow a cloud with at night, and so on. Now we"ll have a rare good time of it together."
"Especially when you go down to feed the ostriches," said Claverton, with a mischievous laugh.
The other coloured and looked foolish, and was about to make some stammering reply.
"Never mind, Hicks," said Claverton, in that wonderfully attractive manner which he now and then exhibited, "I don"t think you and I will quarrel. Now I"m going to turn in. Good-night. Good-night, Jeffreys."
"I say," inquired Jeffreys, after he had gone out. "Is that cattle-branding on to-morrow?"
"Yes."
"Well, I think I"ll stay and give you a hand, if Mr Brathwaite doesn"t mind. Times are slack, and there"s nothing doing at home."
"Rather--mind you do; we"ll be only too glad," answered Hicks with a yawn, as he blew out the candle; and in five minutes more a mild snore or so showed that he was out of reach of any further conversation.
Jeffreys lay and ruminated. Here, at any rate, he would be in his element. What sort of a figure would that stuck-up, priggish fool-- again, reader, pardon a jealous man--cut in the cattle kraal among the clashing horns and the charging of maddened beasts, and all the dash and excitement of a piece of very rough work, by no means unattended with danger? He was all there in the drawing-room; but where would he be at this? And Jeffreys dropped off to sleep with a sardonic grin upon his countenance, to dream of his rival--for so he had already begun to regard Claverton--losing nerve, and being tossed and trampled by the wildest brute in the herd. As to the fulfilment of which benevolent expectation the morrow would show.
Note 1. No native is allowed to remove stock from the colony without a pa.s.s granted by his late employer to certify that he acquired it lawfully. This pa.s.s is countersigned by the various magistrates and native agents along the road.
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE CATTLE-BRANDING.
"Here they come. Is the whole of that lot to be done to-day, Xuvani?"
"Ja, Baas," replied that worthy, swinging back the ponderous gate of the cattle enclosure where he and Jeffreys were standing.
For the ground echoes a low rumble, drawing nearer every moment. It is the trample of many hoofs, and Jeffreys and his swart companion fix their attention upon a troop of cattle coming up the kloof. They are mostly young beasts, and skittish. Now and then one will leave the rest and attempt to strike out a line for itself, but lo, one of the two hors.e.m.e.n riding behind is down on it like lightning; a shout and a crack of the whip, and the recreant is back in the ways of the herd again.
Peradventure half-a-dozen will start off headlong down some well-known track, and with frolicsome bellow and heels tossed in the air away they go, refusing to hear the voice of the driver; but the spirited horse darts beneath the spur like a greyhound from the leash; over ant-heap and through rhinoster bush straight as an arrow he flies; and behold, suddenly, from around that clump of spekboem, appears the form of one of the drivers. A shout, half-a-dozen appalling whip-cracks, the errant beasts stop short, heads go up and eyeb.a.l.l.s dilate upon the unlooked-for apparition with startled inquiry, then wheeling round they scamper back to their comrades, helter-skelter, and the unruly ma.s.s moves swiftly on, urged by the hors.e.m.e.n, eyes glaring, horns clashing, and now and again an aggrieved "moo" as some quarrelsome brute playfully prods his nearest neighbour, in the crush. One young bull especially, a fine, well-made animal with curving wicked-looking horns, and not a speck of alien colour on his glistening red hide, is inordinately given to leading the rest astray, nor does he take kindly to correction, but puts his head down and throws his horns about as if he had more than half a mind to charge his drivers; but he is not quite used to that terrible cracking whip, and thinks better of it.
"That brute"ll make things lively for some of us to-day," remarked Hicks, as his companion fell behind after "collecting" it for about the twentieth time.
"Shouldn"t wonder. The interesting quadruped appears to be getting his hand in. That last time I had fully made up my mind for a roll, and should have got it too. "Sticks" is an awful fool at getting out of anything"s way."
"Well, we"re in now," said Hicks. "Hey, Xuvani!" he called out, darting forward to head the animals into the kraal, "Look out over there!"
The Kafir gave a couple of bounds and threw up his arms. He was just in time; two seconds later and the whole troop would have streamed past him and galloped away across the _veldt_, which meant that a large part of the morning"s work would have to be done over again. The animals stopped short, glared at the sudden obstacle, then looked wildly round on one side and on the other, but they were hemmed in; the rear part of the herd cannoned against the leaders, who at length made for the only egress open, and amid much crush and plunging, interlacing of horns, and starting eyeb.a.l.l.s, the whole crowd poured through the wide gateway, the pungent dust rising in clouds from the trampling hoofs.
"Whew! that"s warm work!" said Claverton, as Xuvani made fast the huge gate and drew a heavy beam across above the top of it for additional security. "Now for breakfast, I suppose. Hallo, Jeffreys.
Good-morning."
"Mornin"," replied Will, shortly, as they turned towards the stable to off-saddle their horses.
Mr Brathwaite was somewhat unwell that day, and not at all sorry to have the a.s.sistance of Will Jeffreys in the morning"s operations. So with many cautions to Hicks about this and that, more by way of showing that he didn"t let everything slide because of a little indisposition, than for any misgivings as to his lieutenant"s skill, he made up his mind to remain quiet in his room. Rheumatism is no respecter of persons, the only wonder being that the old farmer, after such a life of hardship and exposure, should be let down as easily as he was.
"Mr Claverton," said Ethel, as they were all seated round the breakfast-table, "Laura and I are going to see the branding, so I hope you"ll show us some fun."
"Are you? That determination I should advise you to reconsider."
"But we won"t. Aha, I know why you don"t want us. You have never done that sort of thing before, and you don"t want us to see you make a bad shot and run round the kraal with a cow after you. That"s it, isn"t it, Mr Jeffreys?" turning to him. She was in a bright, teasing mood, and looked bewitchingly pretty.
Jeffreys chuckled to himself at Claverton"s expense, as he thought, and mumbled something about "it being dangerous for her."
"Dangerous! Not a bit of it. We shall stand outside and look over the gate, and we shall be perfectly safe."
Hicks looked up from his plate with a low whistle.
"Perfectly safe!" he reiterated. "Why, it was only last branding that that big black and white ox of Jim"s, after chevying Tambusa twice round the kraal and knocking him down, jumped the gate, charged a big hencoop that was pitched close by and threw it fifty feet in the air, and then streaked off to the bush like a mad buffalo."
"What nonsense, Ethel! Of course you can"t go," said her aunt, who had re-entered the room during this conversation. "Why, the things often break out of the kraal."
"Very well, aunt, I don"t want to be a witness to poor Mr Claverton"s discomfiture;" and she cast at him a glance of petulance, mingled with compa.s.sion, whose effect upon the object thereof was absolutely nil.