The Story of an African Farm Page 5

  Chapter 1.III. I Was A Stranger, and Ye Took Me In.

  As the two girls rounded the side of the kopje, an unusual scenepresented itself. A large group was gathered at the back door of thehomestead.

  On the doorstep stood the Boer-woman, a hand on each hip, her facered and fiery, her head nodding fiercely. At her feet sat the yellowHottentot maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffer maids,with blankets twisted round their half-naked figures. Two, who stampedmealies in a wooden block, held the great stampers in their hands, andstared stupidly at the object of attraction. It certainly was not tolook at the old German overseer, who stood in the centre of the group,that they had all gathered together. His salt-and-pepper suit, grizzlyblack beard, and grey eyes were as familiar to every one on the farmas the red gables of the homestead itself; but beside him stood thestranger, and on him all eyes were fixed. Ever and anon the newcomercast a glance over his pendulous red nose to the spot where theBoer-woman stood, and smiled faintly.

  "I'm not a child," cried the Boer-woman, in low Cape Dutch, "and Iwasn't born yesterday. No, by the Lord, no! You can't take me in! Mymother didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye and I see the wholething. I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm," cried Tant Sannieblowing. "No, by the devil, no! not though he had sixty-times-six rednoses."

  There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not atramp, but a highly respectable individual, whose horse had died by anaccident three days before.

  "Don't tell me," cried the Boer-woman; "the man isn't born that can takeme in. If he'd had money, wouldn't he have bought a horse? Men who walkare thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devilin his nose!" cried Tant Sannie shaking her fist at him; "and to comewalking into the house of this Boer's child and shaking hands as thoughhe came on horseback! Oh, no, no!"

  The stranger took off his hat, a tall, battered chimneypot, anddisclosed a bald head, at the back of which was a little fringe ofcurled white hair, and he bowed to Tant Sannie.

  "What does she remark, my friend?" he inquired, turning hiscrosswise-looking eyes on the old German.

  The German rubbed his old hands and hesitated.

  "Ah--well--ah--the--Dutch--you know--do not like people who walk--inthis country--ah!"

  "My dear friend," said the stranger, laying his hand on the German'sarm, "I should have bought myself another horse, but crossing, five daysago, a full river, I lost my purse--a purse with five hundred poundsin it. I spent five days on the bank of the river trying to findit--couldn't. Paid a Kaffer nine pounds to go in and look for it at therisk of his life--couldn't find it."

  The German would have translated this information, but the Boer-womangave no ear.

  "No, no; he goes tonight. See how he looks at me--a poor unprotectedfemale! If he wrongs me, who is to do me right?" cried Tant Sannie.

  "I think," said the German in an undertone, "if you didn't look at herquite so much it might be advisable. She--ah--she--might--imagine thatyou liked her too well,--in fact--ah--"

  "Certainly, my dear friend, certainly," said the stranger. "I shall notlook at her."

  Saying this, he turned his nose full upon a small Kaffer of two yearsold. That small naked son of Ham became instantly so terrified that hefled to his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly.

  Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stamp-block,folding his hands on the head of his cane. His boots were broken, but hestill had the cane of a gentleman.

  "You vagabonds se Engelschman!" said Tant Sannie, looking straight athim.

  This was a near approach to plain English; but the man contemplated theblock abstractedly, wholly unconscious that any antagonism was beingdisplayed toward him.

  "You might not be a Scotchman or anything of that kind, might you?"suggested the German. "It is the English that she hates."

  "My dear friend," said the stranger, "I am Irish every inch ofme--father Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of English blood in myveins."

  "And you might not be married, might you?" persisted the German. "If youhad a wife and children, now? Dutch people do not like those who are notmarried."

  "Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dearwife and three sweet little children--two lovely girls and a noble boy."

  This information having been conveyed to the Boer-woman, she, after somefurther conversation, appeared slightly mollified; but remained firm toher conviction that the man's designs were evil.

  "For, dear Lord!" she cried; "all Englishmen are ugly; but was thereever such a red-rag-nosed thing with broken boots and crooked eyesbefore? Take him to your room," she cried to the German; "but all thesin he does I lay at your door."

  The German having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger madea profound bow to Tant Sannie and followed his host, who led the way tohis own little room.

  "I thought she would come to her better self soon," the German saidjoyously. "Tant Sannie is not wholly bad, far from it, far." Then seeinghis companion cast a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one ofsurprise, he added quickly, "Ah, yes, yes; we are all a primitive peoplehere--not very lofty. We deal not in titles. Every one is Tante andOom--aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he said, opening the door."It is rough, the room is rough; not a palace--not quite. But it may bebetter than the fields, a little better!" he said, glancing round at hiscompanion. "Come in, come in. There is something to eat--a mouthful: notthe fare of emperors or kings; but we do not starve, not yet," hesaid, rubbing his hands together and looking round with a pleased,half-nervous smile on his old face.

  "My friend, my dear friend," said the stranger, seizing him by the hand,"may the Lord bless you, the Lord bless and reward you--the God of thefatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have sleptin the fields, with the dews of heaven upon my head."

  Late that evening Lyndall came down to the cabin with the German'srations. Through the tiny square window the light streamed forth, andwithout knocking she raised the latch and entered. There was a fireburning on the hearth, and it cast its ruddy glow over the little dingyroom, with its worm-eaten rafters and mud floor, and broken whitewashedwalls. A curious little place, filled with all manner of articles. Nextto the fire was a great toolbox; beyond that the little bookshelf withits well-worn books; beyond that, in the corner, a heap of filled andempty grain-bags. From the rafters hung down straps, riems, old boots,bits of harness, and a string of onions. The bed was in another corner,covered by a patchwork quilt of faded red lions, and divided from therest of the room by a blue curtain, now drawn back. On the mantelshelfwas an endless assortment of little bags and stones; and on the wallhung a map of South Germany, with a red line drawn through it to showwhere the German had wandered. This place was the one home the girls hadknown for many a year. The house where Tant Sannie lived and ruled wasa place to sleep in, to eat in, not to be happy in. It was in vain shetold them they were grown too old to go there; every morning and eveningfound them there. Were there not too many golden memories hanging aboutthe old place for them to leave it?

  Long winter nights, when they had sat round the fire and roastedpotatoes, and asked riddles, and the old man had told of the littleGerman village, where, fifty years before, a little German boy hadplayed at snowballs, and had carried home the knitted stockings of alittle girl who afterward became Waldo's mother; did they not seem tosee the German peasant girls walking about with their wooden shoes andyellow, braided hair, and the little children eating their suppers outof little wooden bowls when the good mothers called them in to havetheir milk and potatoes?

  And were there not yet better times than these? Moonlight nights, whenthey romped about the door, with the old man, yet more a child than anyof them, and laughed, till the old roof of the wagon-house rang?

  Or, best of all, were there not warm, dark, starlight nights, when theysat together on the doorstep, holding each other's hands, singing Germanhymns, their voices rising clear in the still night air
--till the Germanwould draw away his hand suddenly to wipe quickly a tear the childrenmust not see? Would they not sit looking up at the stars and talking ofthem--of the dear Southern Cross, red, fiery Mars, Orion, with his belt,and the Seven Mysterious Sisters--and fall to speculating over them?How old are they? Who dwelt in them? And the old German would saythat perhaps the souls we loved lived in them; there, in that littletwinkling point was perhaps the little girl whose stockings he hadcarried home; and the children would look up at it lovingly, and call it"Uncle Otto's star." Then they would fall to deeper speculations--ofthe times and seasons wherein the heavens shall be rolled together asa scroll, and the stars shall fall as a fig-tree casteth her untimelyfigs, and there shall be time no longer: "When the Son of man shallcome in His glory, and all His holy angels with Him." In lower and lowertones they would talk, till at last they fell into whispers; then theywould wish good night softly, and walk home hushed and quiet.

  Tonight, when Lyndall looked in, Waldo sat before the fire watching apot which simmered there, with his slate and pencil in his hand; hisfather sat at the table buried in the columns of a three-weeks-oldnewspaper; and the stranger lay stretched on the bed in the corner,fast asleep, his mouth open, his great limbs stretched out loosely,betokening much weariness. The girl put the rations down upon the table,snuffed the candle, and stood looking at the figure on the bed.

  "Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper,and causing the old German to look up over his glasses, "how long didthat man say he had been walking?"

  "Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentleman--not accustomed towalking--horse died--poor fellow!" said the German, pushing out his lipand glancing commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction ofthe bed where the stranger lay, with his flabby double chin, and brokenboots through which the flesh shone.

  "And do you believe him, Uncle Otto?"

  "Believe him? why of course I do. He himself told me the story threetimes distinctly."

  "If," said the girl slowly, "he had walked for only one day his bootswould not have looked so; and if--"

  "If!" said the German starting up in his chair, irritated that any oneshould doubt such irrefragable evidence--"if! Why, he told me himself!Look how he lies there," added the German pathetically, "worn out--poorfellow! We have something for him though," pointing with his forefingerover his shoulder to the saucepan that stood on the fire. "We are notcooks--not French cooks, not quite; but it's drinkable, drinkable, Ithink; better than nothing, I think," he added, nodding his head in ajocund manner that evinced his high estimation of the contents ofthe saucepan and his profound satisfaction therein. "Bish! bish! mychicken," he said, as Lyndall tapped her little foot up and down uponthe floor. "Bish! bish! my chicken, you will wake him."

  He moved the candle so that his own head might intervene between itand the sleeper's face; and, smoothing his newspaper, he adjusted hisspectacles to read.

  The child's grey-black eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turnedto the German, then rested on the figure again.

  "I think he is a liar. Good night, Uncle Otto," she said slowly, turningto the door.

  Long after she had gone the German folded his paper up methodically, andput it in his pocket.

  The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son hadfallen asleep on the ground. Taking two white sheepskins from the heapof sacks in the corner, the old man doubled them up, and lifting theboy's head gently from the slate on which it rested, placed the skinsbeneath it.

  "Poor lambie, poor lambie!" he said, tenderly patting the great roughbear-like head; "tired is he!"

  He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet, and lifted the saucepan fromthe fire. There was no place where the old man could comfortably liedown himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a much-worn Bible, hebegan to read, and as he read pleasant thoughts and visions thronged onhim.

  "I was a stranger, and ye took me in," he read.

  He turned again to the bed where the sleeper lay.

  "I was a stranger."

  Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated bodynor the evil face of the man; but, as it were, under deep disguise andfleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made veryreal to him. "Jesus, lover, and is it given to us, weak and sinful,frail and erring, to serve Thee, to take Thee in!" he said softly, as herose from his seat. Full of joy, he began to pace the little room. Nowand again as he walked he sang the lines of a German hymn, or mutteredbroken words of prayer. The little room was full of light. It appearedto the German that Christ was very near him, and that at almost anymoment the thin mist of earthly darkness that clouded his human eyesmight be withdrawn, and that made manifest of which the friends atEmmaus, beholding it, said, "It is the Lord!"

  Again, and yet again, through the long hours of that night, as theold man walked he looked up to the roof of his little room, with itsblackened rafters, and yet saw them not. His rough bearded face wasilluminated with a radiant gladness; and the night was not shorter tothe dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams brought heavennear.

  So quickly the night fled, that he looked up with surprise when at fouro'clock the first grey streaks of summer dawn showed themselves throughthe little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the fewcoals that lay under the ashes, and his son, turning on the sheepskins,muttered sleepily to know if it were time to rise.

  "Lie still, lie still! I would only make a fire," said the old man.

  "Have you been up all night?" asked the boy.

  "Yes; but it has been short, very short. Sleep again, my chicken; it isyet early."

  And he went out to fetch more fuel.