""Respected Sir,"" read Jonaique, ""with pain and sorrow I write these few lines, to tell you of poor Peter Quilliam----""
"Aw boy veen, boy veen!" broke in Grannie.
""Knowing you were his friend in the old island, and the one he talked of mostly, except the girl----""
"Boy ve----"
"Hush, woman."
""He made good money out here, at the diamond mines----""
"Never a yellow sovereign he sent to me, then," said Black Tom, "nor the full of your fist of ha"pence either. What"s the use of getting grand-childers?"
Caesar waved his hand. "Go on, Jonaique. It"s bad when the deceitfulness of riches is getting the better of a man."
"Where was I? Oh, "good money ------" "Yet he was never for taking joy in it----""
"More money, more cares," muttered Caesar.
""But talking and talking, and scheming for ever, for coming home.""
"Ah! home is a full cup," moaned Grannie. "It was a show the way that lad was fond of it. "Give me a plate of mate, bolstered with cabbage, and what do I care for their buns and sarves, Grannie," says he. Aw, boy veen, boy bogh!"
"What does the nightingale care for a golden cage when he can get a twig?" said Caesar.
"Is the boy"s chest home yet?" asked John the Clerk.
"There"s something about it here," said Jonaique, "if people would only let a man get on."
"It"s mine," said Black Tom.
"We"ll think of that by-and-bye," said Caesar, waving his hand to Jonaique.
""He had packed his chest for going, when four blacklegs, who had been hanging round the compound, tempting and plaguing the Kaffirs, made off with a bag of stones. Desperate gang, too; so n.o.body was running to be sent after them. But poor Peter, being always a bit bull-necked, was up to the office in a jiffy, and Might he go? And off in chase in the everin" with the twenty Kaffirs of his own company to help him--not much of a lot neither, and suspected of dealing diamonds with the blacklegs times; but Peter always swore their love for him was getting thicker and stronger every day like sour cream. "The captain"s love has been their theme, and shall be till they die," said Peter.""
"He drank up the Word like a thirsty land the rain," said Caesar. "Peter Quilliam and I had mortal joy of each other. "Good-bye, father," says he, and he was shaking me by the hand ter"ble. But go on, Jonaique."
""That was four months ago, and a fortnight since eight of his Kaffirs came back.""
"Aw dear!" "Well, well!" "Lord-a-ma.s.sy!" "Hush!"
""They overtook the blacklegs far up country, and Peter tackled them.
But they had Winchester repeaters, and Peter"s boys didn"t know the muzzle of a gun from the neck of a gin-bottle. So the big man of the gang c.o.c.ked his piece at Peter, and shouted at him like a high bailiff, "You"d better go back the way you came." "Not immajetly," said Peter, and stretched him. Then there was smoke like a smithy on hooping-day, and "To your heels, boys," shouted Peter. And if the boys couldn"t equal Peter with their hands, they could bate him with their toes, and the last they heard of him he was racing behind them with the shots of the blacklegs behind him, and shouting mortal, "Oh, oh! All up! I"m done!
Home and tell, boys! Oh, oh."""
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall I shall arise.
Selah," said Caesar.
Amid the tumult of moans which followed the reading, Philip, sitting with head on his hand by the ingle, grew hot and cold with the thought that after all there was no actual certainty that Pete was dead. n.o.body had seen him die, n.o.body had buried him; the story of the returned Kaffirs might be a lie to cover their desertion of Pete, their betrayal of him, or their secret league with the thieving Boers. At one awful moment Philip asked himself how he had ever believed the letter. Perhaps he had _wanted_ to believe it.
Nancy Joe touched him on the shoulder. "Kate is waiting for a word with you alone, sir," she said, and Philip crossed the kitchen into the little parlour beyond, chill with china and bowls of sea-eggs and stuffed sea-birds.
"He"s feeling it bad," said Nancy.
"Never been the same since Pete went to the Cape," said Caesar.
"I don"t know for sure what good lads are going to it for," moaned Grannie. "And calling it Good Hope of all names! Died of a bullet in his head, too, aw dear, aw dear! Discussion of the brain it"s like. And look at them black-heads too, as naked as my hand, I"ll go bail. I hate the nasty dirts! Caesar may talk of one flesh and brethren and all to that, but for my part I"m not used of black brothers, and as for black angels in heaven, it"s ridiculous."
"When you"re all done talking I"ll finish the letter," said Jonaique.
"They can"t help it, Mr. Jelly, the women can"t help it," said Caesar.
""Respected Sir, I must now close, but we are strapping up the chest of the deceased, just as he left it, and sending it to catch the steamer, the _Johannesburg_, leaving Cape Town Wednesday fortnight----""
"Hm! Johannesburg. I"ll meet her at the quay--it"s my duty to meet her,"
said Caesar.
"And I"ll board her in the bay," shouted Black Tom.
"Thomas Quilliam," said Caesar, "it"s borne in on my spirit that the devil of greed is let loose on you."
"Caesar Cregeen, don"t make a nose of wax of me," bawled Tom, "and don"t think because you"re praiching a bit that religion is going to die with you. Your head"s swelling tre-menjous, and-you won"t be able to sleep soon without somebody to tickle your feet. You"ll be forgiving sins next, and taking money for absolution, and these ones will be making a pope of you and paying you pence. Pope Caesar, the publican, in his chapel hat and white choker! But that chiss is mine, and if there"s law in the land I"ll have it."
With that Black Tom swept out of the house, and Caesar wiped his eyes.
"No use smoothing a thistle, Mr. Cregeen," said Jonaique soothingly.
"I"ve a conscience void of offence." said Caesar. "I can only follow the spirit"s leading. But when Belial----"
He was interrupted by a most mournful cry of "Look here! Aw, look, then, look!"
Nancy was coming out of the back-kitchen with something between the tips of her fingers. It was a pair of old shoes, covered with dirt and cobwebs.
"These were his wearing boots," she said, and she put them on the counter.
"Dear heart, yes, the very ones," said Grannie. "Poor boy, they"d move a heart of stone to see them. Something to remember him by, anyway. Many a mile his feet walked in them; but they"re resting now in Abraham"s bosom."
Then Caesar"s voice rose loud over the doleful tones around the counter.
""Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame"--raise it, Mr. Niplightly. Pity we haven"t Peter and his fiddle here--he played with life."
"I can"d sing to-day, having a cold, bud I"ll whisle id," said the Constable.
"Pitch it in altoes, then," said Caesar. "I"m a bit of a base myself, but not near so base as Peter."
Meanwhile a little drama of serious interest was going on upstairs.
There sat Kate before the looking-gla.s.s, with flushed cheeks and quivering mouth. The low drone of many voices came to her through the floor. Then a dull silence and one voice, and Nancy Joe coming and going between the kitchen and bedroom.
"What are they doing now, Nancy?" said Kate.