Story of an African Farm...................................................................................................................................1

Olive Schreiner (Ralph Iron)...................................................................................................................1

Chapter 2.VII. Waldo Goes Out to Taste Life, and Em Stays At Home and Tastes It.

I have to thank cordially the public and my critics for the reception they have given this little book.

Dealing with a subject that is far removed from the round of English daily life, it of necessity lacks the charm

that hangs about the ideal representation of familiar things, and its reception has therefore been the more

A word of explanation is necessary. Two strangers appear on the scene, and some have fancied that in the

second they have again the first, who returns in a new guise. Why this should be we cannot tell; unless there

is a feeling that a man should not appear upon the scene, and then disappear, leaving behind him no more

substantial trace than a mere book; that he should return later on as husband or lover, to fill some more

Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage method. According to that each

character is duly marshalled at first, and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that at the right crises

each one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a

sense of satisfaction in this, and of completeness. But there is another methodthe method of the life we all

lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and

react upon each other, and pass away. When the crisis comes the man who would fit it does not return.

When the curtain falls no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out; and what the

name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the

gaslight cannot hear his breathing. Life may be painted according to either method; but the methods are

different. The canons of criticism that bear upon the one cut cruelly upon the other.

It has been suggested by a kind critic that he would better have liked the little book if it had been a history of

wild adventure; of cattle driven into inaccessible kranzes by Bushmen; "of encounters with ravening lions,

and hairbreadth escapes." This could not be. Such works are best written in Piccadilly or in the Strand: there

the gifts of the creative imagination, untrammelled by contact with any fact, may spread their wings.

But, should one sit down to paint the scenes among which he has grown, he will find that the facts creep in

upon him. Those brilliant phases and shapes which the imagination sees in faroff lands are not for him to

portray. Sadly he must squeeze the colour from his brush, and dip it into the gray pigments around him. He

The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy

earth, with its coating of stunted karoo bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the

milkbushes with their long fingerlike leaves, all were touched by a weird and an almost oppressive beauty

In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the centre a small solitary kopje rose.

Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant's grave. Here and

there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among its stones, and on the very summit a

clump of pricklypears lifted their thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their broad

fleshy leaves. At the foot of the kopje lay the homestead. First, the stonewalled sheep kraals and Kaffer

huts; beyond them the dwellinghouse a square, redbrick building with thatched roof. Even on its bare

red walls, and the wooden ladder that led up to the loft, the moonlight cast a kind of dreamy beauty, and quite

etherealized the low brick wall that ran before the house, and which inclosed a bare patch of sand and two

straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great open wagonhouse, on the roofs of the outbuildings that

jutted from its side, the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar brightness, till it seemed that every rib in the

Sleep ruled everywhere, and the homestead was not less quiet than the solitary plain.

In the farmhouse, on her great wooden bedstead, Tant Sannie, the Boer woman, rolled heavily in her sleep.

She had gone to bed, as she always did, in her clothes, and the night was warm and the room close, and she

dreamed bad dreams. Not of the ghosts and devils that so haunted her waking thoughts; not of her second

husband the consumptive Englishman, whose grave lay away beyond the ostrichcamps, nor of her first, the

young Boer; but only of the sheep's trotters she had eaten for supper that night. She dreamed that one stuck

fast in her throat, and she rolled her huge form from side to side, and snorted horribly.

In the next room, where the maid had forgotten to close the shutter, the white moonlight fell in in a flood, and

made it light as day. There were two small beds against the wall. In one lay a yellowhaired child, with a low

forehead and a face of freckles; but the loving moonlight hid defects here as elsewhere, and showed only the

The figure in the companion bed belonged of right to the moonlight, for it was of quite elfinlike beauty. The

child had dropped her cover on the floor, and the moonlight looked in at the naked little limbs. Presently she

"Em!" she called to the sleeper in the other bed; but received no answer. Then she drew the cover from the

floor, turned her pillow, and pulling the sheet over her head, went to sleep again.

Only in one of the outbuildings that jutted from the wagonhouse there was some one who was not asleep.

The room was dark; door and shutter were closed; not a ray of light entered anywhere. The German overseer,

to whom the room belonged, lay sleeping soundly on his bed in the corner, his great arms folded, and his

bushy grey and black beard rising and falling on his breast. But one in the room was not asleep. Two large

eyes looked about in the darkness, and two small hands were smoothing the patchwork quilt. The boy, who

slept on a box under the window, had just awakened from his first sleep. He drew the quilt up to his chin, so

that little peered above it but a great head of silky black curls and the two black eyes. He stared about in the

darkness. Nothing was visible, not even the outline of one wormeaten rafter, nor of the deal table, on which

lay the Bible from which his father had read before they went to bed. No one could tell where the toolbox

was, and where the fireplace. There was something very impressive to the child in the complete darkness.

At the head of his father's bed hung a great silver hunting watch. It ticked loudly. The boy listened to it, and

began mechanically to count. Ticktickone, two, three, four! He lost count presently, and only listened.

It never waited; it went on inexorably; and every time it ticked a man died! He raised himself a little on his

How many times had it ticked since he came to lie down? A thousand times, a million times, perhaps.

He lay down quickly, and pulled the cover up over his head: but presently the silky curls reappeared.

He thought of the words his father had read that evening"For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

The boy lay with his eyes wide open. He saw before him a long stream of people, a great dark multitude, that

moved in one direction; then they came to the dark edge of the world and went over. He saw them passing on

before him, and there was nothing that could stop them. He thought of how that stream had rolled on through

all the long ages of the pasthow the old Greeks and Romans had gone over; the countless millions of China

and India, they were going over now. Since he had come to bed, how many had gone!

And all the while the watch kept ticking on; just like God's will, that never changes or alters, you may do

Great beads of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead. He climbed out of bed and lay with his face turned to

"Oh, God, God! save them!" he cried in agony. "Only some, only a few! Only for each moment I am praying

Oh, the long, long ages of the past, in which they had gone over! Oh, the long, long future, in which they

The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a weary flat of loose red sand, sparsely

covered by dry karoo bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere.

Here and there a milkbush lifted its palecoloured rods, and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about

in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings, the stone walls of the

kraals, all reflected the fierce sunlight, till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or

near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door, outstared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the

sand; and the little cicadalike insects cried aloud among the stones of the kopje.

The Boerwoman, seen by daylight, was even less lovely than when, in bed, she rolled and dreamed. She sat

on a chair in the great front room, with her feet on a wooden stove, and wiped her flat face with the corner of

her apron, and drank coffee, and in Cape Dutch swore that the beloved weather was damned. Less lovely, too,

by daylight was the dead Englishman's child, her little stepdaughter, upon whose freckles and low, wrinkled

"Lyndall," the child said to her little orphan cousin, who sat with her on the floor threading beads, "how is it

"I try," said the little one gravely, moistening her tiny finger. "That is why."

The overseer, seen by daylight, was a huge German, wearing a shabby suit, and with a childish habit of

rubbing his hands and nodding his head prodigiously when pleased at anything. He stood out at the kraals in

the blazing sun, explaining to two Kaffer boys the approaching end of the world. The boys, as they cut the

cakes of dung, winked at each other, and worked as slowly as they possibly could; but the German never saw

Away, beyond the kopje, Waldo his son herded the ewes and lambsa small and dusty herdpowdered all

over from head to foot with red sand, wearing a ragged coat and shoes of undressed leather, through whose

holes the toes looked out. His hat was too large, and had sunk down to his eyes, concealing completely the

silky black curls. It was a curious small figure. His flock gave him little trouble. It was too hot for them to

move far; they gathered round every little milkbush, as though they hoped to find shade, and stood there

motionless in clumps. He himself crept under a shelving rock that lay at the foot of the kopje, stretched

Soon, from the blue bag where he kept his dinner, he produced a fragment of slate, an arithmetic, and a

pencil. Proceeding to put down a sum with solemn and earnest demeanour, he began to add it up aloud: "Six

and two is eightand four is twelveand two is fourteenand four is eighteen." Here he paused. "And

four is eighteenandfouriseighteen." The last was very much drawled. Slowly the pencil slipped

from his fingers, and the slate followed it into the sand. For a while he lay motionless, then began muttering

to himself, folded his little arms, laid his head down upon them, and might have been asleep, but for the

muttering sound that from time to time proceeded from him. A curious old ewe came to sniff at him; but it

was long before he raised his head. When he did, he looked at the faroff hills with his heavy eyes.

He sat up then. Slowly the dulness and heaviness melted from his face; it became radiant. Midday had come

now, and the sun's rays were poured down vertically; the earth throbbed before the eye.

The boy stood up quickly, and cleared a small space from the bushes which covered it. Looking carefully, he

found twelve small stones of somewhat the same size; kneeling down, he arranged them carefully on the

cleared space in a square pile, in shape like an altar. Then he walked to the bag where his dinner was kept; in

it was a mutton chop and a large slice of brown bread. The boy took them out and turned the bread over in his

hand, deeply considering it. Finally he threw it away and walked to the altar with the meat, and laid it down

on the stones. Close by in the red sand he knelt down. Sure, never since the beginning of the world was there

so ragged and so small a priest. He took off his great hat and placed it solemnly on the ground, then closed

"Oh, God, my Father, I have made Thee a sacrifice. I have only twopence, so I cannot buy a lamb. If the

lambs were mine, I would give Thee one; but now I have only this meat; it is my dinner meat. Please, my

Father, send fire down from heaven to burn it. Thou hast said, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be

thou cast into the sea, nothing doubting, it shall be done. I ask for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen."

He knelt down with his face upon the ground, and he folded his hands upon his curls. The fierce sun poured

down its heat upon his head and upon his altar. When he looked up he knew what he should seethe glory

of God! For fear his very heart stood still, his breath came heavily; he was half suffocated. He dared not look

up. Then at last he raised himself. Above him was the quiet blue sky, about him the red earth; there were the

He looked upnothing broke the intense stillness of the blue overhead. He looked round in astonishment,

When he raised himself the second time all was unaltered. Only the sun had melted the fat of the little mutton

Then, the third time he bowed himself. When at last he looked up, some ants had come to the meat on the

altar. He stood up and drove them away. Then he put his hat on his hot curls, and sat in the shade. He clasped

his hands about his knees. He sat to watch what would come to pass. The glory of the Lord God Almighty!

"My dear God is trying me," he said; and he sat there through the fierce heat of the afternoon. Still he

watched and waited when the sun began to slope, and when it neared the horizon and the sheep began to cast

long shadows across the karoo, he still sat there. He hoped when the first rays touched the hills till the sun

dipped behind them and was gone. Then he called his ewes together, and broke down the altar, and threw the

He walked home behind his flock. His heart was heavy. He reasoned so: "God cannot lie. I had faith. No fire

The boy's heart was heavy. When he reached the kraal gate the two girls met him.

"Come," said the yellowhaired Em, "let us play coop." There is still time before it gets quite dark. You,

Waldo, go and hide on the kopje; Lyndall and I will shut eyes here, and we will not look."

The girls hid their faces in the stone wall of the sheepkraal, and the boy clambered half way up the kopje.

He crouched down between two stones and gave the call. Just then the milkherd came walking out of the

"Ah!" thought the boy, "perhaps he will die tonight, and go to hell! I must pray for him, I must pray!"

"Ah! this is not right at all," little Em said, peeping between the stones, and finding him in a very curious

posture. "What are you doing Waldo? It is not the play, you know. You should run out when we come to the

"II will play nicely now," said the boy, coming out and standing sheepishly before them; "II only forgot;

"No," said beautiful little Lyndall, looking curiously at him: "he has been crying."

One night, two years after, the boy sat alone on the kopje. He had crept softly from his father's room and

come there. He often did, because, when he prayed or cried aloud, his father might awake and hear him; and

none knew his great sorrow, and none knew his grief, but he himself, and he buried them deep in his heart.

He turned up the brim of his great hat and looked at the moon, but most at the leaves of the prickly pear that

grew just before him. They glinted, and glinted, and glinted, just like his own heartcold, so hard, and very

wicked. His physical heart had pain also; it seemed full of little bits of glass, that hurt. He had sat there for

He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in all the world, and he knew it. He folded

his arms and began to crynot aloud; he sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched

marks where they fell. He could not pray; he had prayed night and day for so many months; and tonight he

could not pray. When he left off crying, he held his aching head with his brown hands. If one might have

gone up to him and touched him kindly; poor, ugly little thing! Perhaps his heart was almost broken.

With his swollen eyes he sat there on a flat stone at the very top of the kopje; and the tree, with every one of

its wicked leaves, blinked, and blinked, and blinked at him. Presently he began to cry again, and then stopped

his crying to look at it. He was quiet for a long while, then he knelt up slowly and bent forward. There was a

secret he had carried in his heart for a year. He had not dared to look at it; he had not whispered it to himself,

but for a year he had carried it. "I hate God!" he said. The wind took the words and ran away with them,

among the stones, and through the leaves of the prickly pear. He thought it died away half down the kopje.

The wind carried away that sound as it had done the first. Then he got up and buttoned his old coat about

him. He knew he was certainly lost now; he did not care. If half the world were to be lost, why not he too? He

would not pray for mercy any more. Better sobetter to know certainly. It was ended now. Better so.

Better so! But oh, the loneliness, the agonized pain! for that night, and for nights on nights to come! The

anguish that sleeps all day on the heart like a heavy worm, and wakes up at night to feed!

There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, "Now deal us your hardest blow, give us what you will;

The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this: its intense loneliness, its intense agony.

At last came the year of the great drought, the year of eighteensixtytwo. From end to end of the land the

earth cried for water. Man and beast turned their eyes to the pitiless sky, that like the roof of some brazen

oven arched overhead. On the farm, day after day, month after month, the water in the dams fell lower and

lower; the sheep died in the fields; the cattle, scarcely able to crawl, tottered as they moved from spot to spot

in search of food. Week after week, month after month, the sun looked down from the cloudless sky, till the

karoobushes were leafless sticks, broken into the earth, and the earth itself was naked and bare; and only the

milk bushes, like old hags, pointed their shrivelled fingers heavenward, praying for the rain that never came.

It was on an afternoon of a long day in that thirsty summer, that on the side of the kopje furthest from the

homestead the two girls sat. They were somewhat grown since the days when they played hideandseek

Their dress was of dark, coarse stuff; their common blue pinafores reached to their ankles, and on their feet

They sat under a shelving rock, on the surface of which were still visible some old Bushman paintings, their

red and black pigments having been preserved through long years from wind and rain by the overhanging

ledge; grotesque oxen, elephants, rhinoceroses, and a onehorned beast, such as no man ever has seen or ever

The girls sat with their backs to the paintings. In their laps were a few fern and iceplant leaves, which by

Em took off her big brown kapje and began vigorously to fan her red face with it; but her companion bent

low over the leaves in her lap, and at last took up an iceplant leaf and fastened it on to the front of her blue

"Diamonds must look as these drops do," she said, carefully bending over the leaf, and crushing one crystal

drop with her delicate little nail. "When I," she said, "am grown up, I shall wear real diamonds, exactly like

"Where will you find them, Lyndall? The stones are only crystals that we picked up yesterday. Old Otto says

"Ah, no," said her companion. "I suppose some day we shall go somewhere; but now we are only twelve, and

we cannot marry till we are seventeen. Four years, fivethat is a long time to wait. And we might not have

"Tant Sannie is a miserable old woman," she said. "Your father married her when he was dying, because he

thought she would take better care of the farm, and of us, than an English woman. He said we should be

taught and sent to school. Now she saves every farthing for herself, buys us not even one old book. She does

not illuse uswhy? Because she is afraid of your father's ghost. Only this morning she told her Hottentot

that she would have beaten you for breaking the plate, but that three nights ago she heard a rustling and a

grunting behind the pantry door, and knew it was your father coming to spook her. She is a miserable old

woman," said the girl, throwing the leaf from her; "but I intend to go to school."

The child took not the slightest notice of the last question, and folded her small arms across her knees.

"There is nothing helps in this world," said the child slowly, "but to be very wise, and to know

"And you do not need to. When you are seventeen this Boerwoman will go; you will have this farm and

everything that is upon it for your own; but I," said Lyndall, "will have nothing. I must learn."

"Oh, Lyndall! I will give you some of my sheep," said Em, with a sudden burst of pitying generosity.

"I do not want your sheep," said the girl slowly; "I want things of my own. When I am grown up," she added,

the flush on her delicate features deepening at every word, "there will be nothing that I do not know. I shall

be rich, very rich; and I shall wear not only for best, but every day, a pure white silk, and little rosebuds,

like the lady in Tant Sannie's bedroom, and my petticoats will be embroidered, not only at the bottom, but all

The lady in Tant Sannie's bedroom was a gorgeous creature from a fashion sheet, which the Boerwoman,

somewhere obtaining, had pasted up at the foot of her bed, to be profoundly admired by the children.

"It would be very nice," said Em; but it seemed a dream of quite too transcendent a glory ever to be realized.

At this instant there appeared at the foot of the kopje two figuresthe one, a dog, white and sleek, one

yellow ear hanging down over his left eye; the other, his master, a lad of fourteen, and no other than the boy

Waldo, grown into a heavy, slouching youth of fourteen. The dog mounted the kopje quickly, his master

followed slowly. He wore an aged jacket much too large for him, and rolled up at the wrists, and, as of old, a

pair of dilapidated velschoens and a felt hat. He stood before the two girls at last.

"Looking after ewes and lambs below the dam. Here!" he said, holding out his hand awkwardly, "I brought

"They look nice there," said the boy, awkwardly rubbing his great hands and watching her.

He now stood silent before them, his great hands hanging loosely at either side.

"I did not notice; but he has a very large nose," said the boy slowly. "He asked the way to the house."

"Bonaparte!" said Em, "why that is like the reel Hottentot Hans plays on the violin

'Bonaparte, Bonaparte, my wife is sick; In the middle of the week, but Sundays not, I give her rice and beans

"Ah yes, I know," said Em"the poor prophet whom the lions ate. I am always so sorry for him."

"And what did he do?" asked Em, conscious that she had made a mistake, and that her prophet was not the

"He was one man, only one," said her little companion slowly, "yet all the people in the world feared him. He

was not born great, he was common as we are; yet he was master of the world at last. Once he was only a

little child, then he was a lieutenant, then he was a general, then he was an emperor. When he said a thing to

himself he never forgot it. He waited, and waited and waited, and it came at last."

"I do not know," said Lyndall; "but he had what he said he would have, and that is better than being happy.

He was their master, and all the people were white with fear of him. They joined together to fight him. He

was one and they were many, and they got him down at last. They were like the wild cats when their teeth are

fast in a great dog, like cowardly wild cats," said the child, "they would not let him go. There were many; he

was only one. They sent him to an island on the sea, a lonely island, and kept him there fast. He was one man,

and they were many, and they were terrified at him. It was glorious!" said the child.

"Then he was alone there in that island with men to watch him always," said her companion, slowly and

quietly. "And in the long lonely nights he used to lie awake and think of the things he had done in the old

days, and the things he would do if they let him go again. In the day when he walked near the shore it seemed

to him that the sea all around him was a cold chain about his body pressing him to death."

"It is a terrible, hateful ending," said the little teller of the story, leaning forward on her folded arms; "and the

worst is, it is true. I have noticed," added the child very deliberately, "that it is only the madeup stories that

He nodded. "Yes; but the Brown history tells only what he did, not what he thought."

"It was in the Brown history that I read of him," said the girl; "but I know what he thought. Books do not tell

"No," said the boy, slowly drawing nearer to her and sitting down at her feet. "What you want to know they

Then the children fell into silence, till Doss, the dog, growing uneasy at its long continuance, sniffed at one

"If they could talk, if they could tell us now!" he said, moving his hand out over the surrounding

objects"then we would know something. This kopje, if it could tell us how it came here! The 'Physical

Geography' says," he went on most rapidly and confusedly, "that what were dry lands now were once lakes;

and what I think is thisthese low hills were once the shores of a lake; this kopje is some of the stones that

were at the bottom, rolled together by the water. But there is thisHow did the water come to make one

heap here alone, in the centre of the plain?" It was a ponderous question; no one volunteered an answer.

"When I was little," said the boy, "I always looked at it and wondered, and I thought a great giant was buried

under it. Now I know the water must have done it; but how? It is very wonderful. Did one little stone come

first, and stop the others as they rolled?" said the boy with earnestness, in a low voice, more as speaking to

The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching argument. What effect it had on the

"Lyndall, has it never seemed to you that the stones were talking with you? Sometimes," he added in a yet

lower tone, "I lie under there with my sheep, and it seems that the stones are really speakingspeaking of

the old things, of the time when the strange fishes and animals lived that are turned into stone now, and the

lakes were here; and then of the time when the little Bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used to

sleep in the wild dog holes, and in the sloots, and eat snakes, and shot the bucks with their poisoned arrows. It

was one of them, one of these old wild Bushmen, that painted those," said the boy, nodding toward the

pictures "one who was different from the rest. He did not know why, but he wanted to make something

beautifulhe wanted to make something, so he made these. He worked hard, very hard, to find the juice to

make the paint; and then he found this place where the rocks hang over, and he painted them. To us they are

"He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting; and he wondered at the things he made himself,"

said the boy, rising and moving his hand in deep excitement. "Now the Boers have shot them all, so that we

never see a little yellow face peeping out among the stones." He paused, a dreamy look coming over his face.

"And the wild bucks have gone, and those days, and we are here. But we will be gone soon, and only the

stones will lie on here, looking at everything like they look now. I know that it is I who am thinking," the

fellow added slowly, "but it seems as though it were they who are talking. Has it never seemed so to you,

The sun had dipped now below the hills, and the boy, suddenly remembering the ewes and lambs, started to

"Let us also go to the house and see who has come," said Em, as the boy shuffled away to rejoin his flock,

while Doss ran at his heels, snapping at the ends of the torn trousers as they fluttered in the wind.

As the two girls rounded the side of the kopje, an unusual scene presented itself. A large group was gathered

On the doorstep stood the Boerwoman, a hand on each hip, her face red and fiery, her head nodding

fiercely. At her feet sat the yellow Hottentot maid, her satellite, and around stood the black Kaffer maids,

with blankets twisted round their halfnaked figures. Two, who stamped mealies in a wooden block, held the

great stampers in their hands, and stared stupidly at the object of attraction. It certainly was not to look at the

old German overseer, who stood in the centre of the group, that they had all gathered together. His

saltandpepper suit, grizzly black beard, and grey eyes were as familiar to every one on the farm as the red

gables of the homestead itself; but beside him stood the stranger, and on him all eyes were fixed. Ever and

anon the newcomer cast a glance over his pendulous red nose to the spot where the Boerwoman stood, and

"I'm not a child," cried the Boerwoman, in low Cape Dutch, "and I wasn't born yesterday. No, by the Lord,

no! You can't take me in! My mother didn't wean me on Monday. One wink of my eye and I see the whole

thing. I'll have no tramps sleeping on my farm," cried Tant Sannie blowing. "No, by the devil, no! not though

There the German overseer mildly interposed that the man was not a tramp, but a highly respectable

"Don't tell me," cried the Boerwoman; "the man isn't born that can take me in. If he'd had money, wouldn't

he have bought a horse? Men who walk are thieves, liars, murderers, Rome's priests, seducers! I see the devil

in his nose!" cried Tant Sannie shaking her fist at him; "and to come walking into the house of this Boer's

The stranger took off his hat, a tall, battered chimneypot, and disclosed a bald head, at the back of which was

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

"My dear friend," said the stranger, laying his hand on the German's arm, "I should have bought myself

another horse, but crossing, five days ago, a full river, I lost my pursea purse with five hundred pounds in

it. I spent five days on the bank of the river trying to find itcouldn't. Paid a Kaffer nine pounds to go in and

The German would have translated this information, but the Boerwoman gave no ear.

"No, no; he goes tonight. See how he looks at mea poor unprotected female! If he wrongs me, who is to do

"I think," said the German in an undertone, if you didn't look at her quite so much it might be advisable.

"Certainly, my dear friend, certainly," said the stranger. "I shall not look at her."

Saying this, he turned his nose full upon a small Kaffer of two years old. That small naked son of Ham

became instantly so terrified that he fled to his mother's blanket for protection, howling horribly.

Upon this the newcomer fixed his eyes pensively on the stampblock, folding his hands on the head of his

This was a near approach to plain English; but the man contemplated the block abstractedly, wholly

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

"My dear friend," said the stranger, "I am Irish every inch of mefather Irish, mother Irish. I've not a drop of

"And you might not be married, might you?" persisted the German. "If you had a wife and children, now?

"Ah," said the stranger, looking tenderly at the block, "I have a dear wife and three sweet little childrentwo

This information having been conveyed to the Boerwoman, she, after some further conversation, appeared

slightly mollified; but remained firm to her conviction that the man's designs were evil.

"For, dear Lord!" she cried; "all Englishmen are ugly; but was there ever such a redragnosed thing with

broken boots and crooked eyes before? Take him to your room," she cried to the German; "but all the sin he

The German having told him how matters were arranged, the stranger made a profound bow to Tant Sannie

"I thought she would come to her better self soon," the German said joyously. "Tant Sannie is not wholly bad,

far from it, far." Then seeing his companion cast a furtive glance at him, which he mistook for one of

surprise, he added quickly, "Ah, yes, yes; we are all a primitive people herenot very lofty. We deal not in

titles. Every one is Tante and Oom aunt and uncle. This may be my room," he said, opening the door. "It is

rough, the room is rough; not a palacenot quite. But it may be better than the fields, a little better!" he said,

glancing round at his companion. "Come in, come in. There is something to eata mouthful: not the fare of

emperors or kings; but we do not starve, not yet," he said, rubbing his hands together and looking round with

"My friend, my dear friend," said the stranger, seizing him by the hand, "may the Lord bless you, the Lord

bless and reward youthe God of the fatherless and the stranger. But for you I would this night have slept in

Late that evening Lyndall came down to the cabin with the German's rations. Through the tiny square

window the light streamed forth, and without knocking she raised the latch and entered. There was a fire

burning on the hearth, and it cast its ruddy glow over the little dingy room, with its wormeaten rafters and

mud floor, and broken whitewashed walls. A curious little place, filled with all manner of articles. Next to the

fire was a great toolbox; beyond that the little bookshelf with its wellworn books; beyond that, in the corner,

a heap of filled and empty grainbags. 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 the rest of the room by a blue curtain, now drawn back. On the mantelshelf was an endless

assortment of little bags and stones; and on the wall hung a map of South Germany, with a red line drawn

through it to show where the German had wandered. This place was the one home the girls had known for

many a year. The house where Tant Sannie lived and ruled was a place to sleep in, to eat in, not to be happy

in. It was in vain she told them they were grown too old to go there; every morning and evening found them

there. Were there not too many golden memories hanging about the old place for them to leave it?

Long winter nights, when they had sat round the fire and roasted potatoes, and asked riddles, and the old man

had told of the little German village, where, fifty years before, a little German boy had played at snowballs,

and had carried home the knitted stockings of a little girl who afterward became Waldo's mother; did they not

seem to see the German peasant girls walking about with their wooden shoes and yellow, braided hair, and

the little children eating their suppers out of little wooden bowls when the good mothers called them in to

And were there not yet better times than these? Moonlight nights, when they romped about the door, with the

old man, yet more a child than any of them, and laughed, till the old roof of the wagonhouse rang?

Or, best of all, were there not warm, dark, starlight nights, when they sat together on the doorstep, holding

each other's hands, singing German hymns, their voices rising clear in the still night airtill the German

would draw away his hand suddenly to wipe quickly a tear the children must not see? Would they not sit

looking up at the stars and talking of themof the dear Southern Cross, red, fiery Mars, Orion, with his belt,

and the Seven Mysterious Sistersand fall to speculating over them? How old are they? Who dwelt in them?

And the old German would say that perhaps the souls we loved lived in them; there, in that little twinkling

point was perhaps the little girl whose stockings he had carried home; and the children would look up at it

lovingly, and call it "Uncle Otto's star." Then they would fall to deeper speculationsof the times and

seasons wherein the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the stars shall fall as a figtree casteth

her untimely figs, and there shall be time no longer: "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all

His holy angels with Him." In lower and lower tones they would talk, till at last they fell into whispers; then

Tonight, when Lyndall looked in, Waldo sat before the fire watching a pot which simmered there, with his

slate and pencil in his hand; his father sat at the table buried in the columns of a threeweeksold newspaper;

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

"Uncle Otto," she said presently, laying her hand down on the newspaper, and causing the old German to

"Since this morning, poor fellow! A gentlemannot accustomed to walking horse diedpoor fellow!"

said the German, pushing out his lip and glancing commiseratingly over his spectacles in the direction of the

bed where the stranger lay, with his flabby double chin, and broken boots through which the flesh shone.

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

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

"If!" said the German starting up in his chair, irritated that any one should doubt such irrefragable

evidence"if! Why, he told me himself! Look how he lies there," added the German pathetically, "worn

outpoor fellow! We have something for him though," pointing with his forefinger over his shoulder to the

saucepan that stood on the fire. "We are not cooksnot French cooks, not quite; but it's drinkable, drinkable,

I think; better than nothing, I think," he added, nodding his head in a jocund manner that evinced his high

estimation of the contents of the saucepan and his profound satisfaction therein. "Bish! bish! my chicken," he

said, as Lyndall tapped her little foot up and down upon the floor. "Bish! bish! my chicken, you will wake

He moved the candle so that his own head might intervene between it and the sleeper's face; and, smoothing

The child's greyblack eyes rested on the figure on the bed, then turned to the German, then rested on the

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

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

The stranger had not awakened to partake of the soup, and his son had fallen asleep on the ground. Taking

two white sheepskins from the heap of sacks in the corner, the old man doubled them up, and lifting the boy's

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

He threw an overcoat across the boy's feet, and lifted the saucepan from the fire. There was no place where

the old man could comfortably lie down himself, so he resumed his seat. Opening a muchworn Bible, he

Very tenderly the old man looked at him. He saw not the bloated body nor the evil face of the man; but, as it

were, under deep disguise and fleshly concealment, the form that long years of dreaming had made very real

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 he rose from his seat. Full of joy, he began to pace the little room. Now and again as he

walked he sang the lines of a German hymn, or muttered broken words of prayer. The little room was full of

light. It appeared to the German that Christ was very near him, and that at almost any moment the thin mist of

earthly darkness that clouded his human eyes might be withdrawn, and that made manifest of which the

Again, and yet again, through the long hours of that night, as the old man walked he looked up to the roof of

his little room, with its blackened rafters, and yet saw them not. His rough bearded face was illuminated with

a radiant gladness; and the night was not shorter to the dreaming sleepers than to him whose waking dreams

So quickly the night fled, that he looked up with surprise when at four o'clock the first grey streaks of

summer dawn showed themselves through the little window. Then the old man turned to rake together the

few coals that lay under the ashes, and his son, turning on the sheepskins, muttered sleepily to know if it were

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

Bonaparte Blenkins sat on the side of the bed. He had wonderfully revived since the day before, held his head

high, talked in a full sonorous voice, and ate greedily of all the viands offered him. At his side was a basin of

soup, from which he took a deep draught now and again as he watched the fingers of the German, who sat on

Presently he looked out, where, in the afternoon sunshine, a few halfgrown ostriches might be seen

wandering listlessly about, and then he looked in again at the little whitewashed room, and at Lyndall, who

sat in the doorway looking at a book. Then he raised his chin and tried to adjust an imaginary shirtcollar.

Finding none, he smoothed the little grey fringe at the back of his head, and began:

"You are a student of history, I perceive, my friend, from the study of these volumes that lie scattered about

"Being a student of history then," said Bonaparte, raising himself loftily, "you will doubtless have heard of

"I, sir," said Bonaparte, "was born at this hour, on an April afternoon, threeandfifty years ago. The nurse,

sirshe was the same who attended when the Duke of Sutherland was bornbrought me to my mother.

'There is only one name for this child,' she said: 'he has the nose of his great kinsman;' and so Bonaparte

Blenkins became my nameBonaparte Blenkins. Yes, sir," said Bonaparte, "there is a stream on my

"The connection," said Bonaparte, "is one which could not be easily comprehended by one unaccustomed to

"Is it possible!" said the German, pausing in his work with much interest and astonishment. "Napoleon an

"Yes," said Bonaparte, "on the mother's side, and that is how we are related. There wasn't a man to beat him,"

said Bonaparte, stretching himself"not a man except the Duke of Wellington. And it's a strange

coincidence," added Bonaparte, bending forward, "but he was a connection of mine. His nephew, the Duke of

Wellington's nephew, married a cousin of mine. She was a woman! See her at one of the court ballsamber

satin daisies in her hair. Worth going a hundred miles to look at her! Often seen her there myself, sir!"

The German moved the leather thongs in and out, and thought of the strange vicissitudes of human life,

"Ah, that Duke of Wellington's nephew!" he broke forth suddenly; "many's the joke I've had with him. Often

came to visit me at Bonaparte Hall. Grand place I had thenpark, conservatory, servants. He had only one

fault, that Duke of Wellington's nephew," said Bonaparte, observing that the German was deeply interested in

every word, "He was a cowardwhat you might call a coward. You've never been in Russia, I suppose?"

"No, no," said the old man humbly. "France, England, Germany, a little in this country; it is all I have

"I, my friend," said Bonaparte, "I have been in every country in the world, and speak every civilised

language, excepting only Dutch and German. I wrote a book of my travelsnoteworthy incidents. Publisher

got it cheated me out of it. Great rascals those publishers! Upon one occasion the Duke of Wellington's

nephew and I were travelling in Russia. All of a sudden one of the horses dropped down dead as a doornail.

There we were cold nightsnow four feet thickgreat forestone horse not being able to move the

"There, sticking out under a bush, was nothing less than the nose of a bear. The Duke of Wellington's nephew

was up a tree like a shot; I stood quietly on the ground, as cool as I am at this moment, loaded my gun, and

"'All right,' said I; 'but keep your gun ready. There are more coming.' He'd got his face buried in my back.

"'Wall,' I said, turning round and seizing his hand, 'Wallie, my dear lad, goodbye. I'm not afraid to die. My

legs are longthey hang downthe first bear that comes and I don't hit him, off goes my foot. When he

takes it I shall give you my gun and go. You may yet be saved; but tell, oh, tell Mary Ann that I thought of

"By this time the bears were sitting in a circle all around the tree. Yes," said Bonaparte impressively, fixing

his eyes on the German, "a regular, exact, circle. The marks of their tails were left in the snow, and I

measured it afterward; a drawingmaster couldn't have done it better. It was that saved me. If they'd rushed

on me at once, poor old Bon would never have been here to tell this story. But they came on, sir,

systematically, one by one. All the rest sat on their tails and waited. The first fellow came up, and I shot him;

the second fellowI shot him; the thirdI shot him. At last the tenth came; he was the biggest of all the

"'Wall,' I said, 'give me your hand. My fingers are stiff with the cold; there is only one bullet left. I shall miss

him. While he is eating me you get down and take your gun; and live, dear friend, live to remember the man

who gave his life for you!' By that time the bear was at me. I felt his paw on my trousers.

"'Oh, Bonnie! Bonnie!' said the Duke of Wellington's nephew. But I just took my gun and put the muzzle to

Bonaparte Blenkins waited to observe what effect his story had made. Then he took out a dirty white

"It always affects me to relate that adventure," he remarked, returning the handkerchief to his pocket.

"Ingratitudebase, vile ingratitudeis recalled by it! That man, that man, who but for me would have

perished in the pathless wilds of Russia, that man in the hour of my adversity forsook me." The German

looked up. "Yes," said Bonaparte, "I had money, I had lands; I said to my wife: 'There is Africa, a struggling

country; they want capital; they want men of talent; they want men of ability to open up that land. Let us go.'

"I bought eight thousand pounds' worth of machinerywinnowing, plowing, reaping machines; I loaded a

ship with them. Next steamer I came out wife, children, all. Got to the Cape. Where is the ship with the

"My wife wrote to the Duke of Wellington's nephew; I didn't wish her to; she did it without my knowledge.

"What did the man whose life I saved do? Did he send me thirty thousand pounds? say, 'Bonaparte, my

"My wife said, 'Write.' I said, 'Mary Ann, NO. While these hands have power to work, NO. While this frame

has power to endure, NO. Never shall it be said that Bonaparte Blenkins asked of any man.'"

Bonaparte took another draught of the soup, leaned back against the pillows, and sighed deeply.

"I think," he said after a while, rousing himself, "I shall now wander in the benign air, and taste the gentle

So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head, and moved to the door. After he had

"Uncle Otto," said the child in the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten bears sitting on their tails in a circle?"

"Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It is nothing unheard of," said the German.

"That is what I do hate!" he cried. "Know that is true! How do you know that anything is true? Because you

are told so. If we begin to question everythingproof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? How

do you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter, except that Peter said so? How do you know that

The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than the German dreamed of; for, mark

you, the old dream little how their words and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed

them. Not what we are taught, but what we see, makes us, and the child gathers the food on which the adult

When the German looked up next there was a look of supreme satisfaction in the little mouth and the

The child said nothing, and an agonizing shriek was borne on the afternoon breeze.

"Oh, God! my God! I am killed!" cried the voice of Bonaparte, as he, with wide open mouth and shaking

flesh, fell into the room, followed by a half grown ostrich, who put its head in at the door, opened its beak at

"Shut the door! shut the door! As you value my life, shut the door!" cried Bonaparte, sinking into a chair, his

face blue and white, with a greenishness about the mouth. "Ah, my friend," he said tremulously, "eternity has

looked me in the face! My life's thread hung upon a cord! The valley of the shadow of death!" said

"Dear, dear, dear!" said the German, who had closed the lower half of the door, and stood much concerned

beside the stranger, "you have had a fright. I never knew so young a bird to chase before; but they will take

dislikes to certain people. I sent a boy away once because a bird would chase him. Ah, dear, dear!"

"When I looked round," said Bonaparte, "the red and yawning cavity was above me, and the reprehensible

paw raised to strike me. My nerves," said Bonaparte, suddenly growing faint, "always delicatehighly

strungare brokenbroken! You could not give a little wine, a little brandy my friend?"

The old German hurried away to the bookshelf, and took from behind the books a small bottle, half of whose

The German went out to pick up the battered chimneypot which had fallen before the door.

"I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know them," he said sympathetically, as he

"My friend," said Bonaparte, holding out his hand, "I forgive you; do not be disturbed. Whatever the

consequences, I forgive you. I know, I believe, it was with no illintent that you allowed me to go out. Give

"You are very kind," said the German, taking the extended hand, and feeling suddenly convinced that he was

He knocked out the crown of his cavedin old hat, placed it on the table before him, leaned his elbows on the

"Ah, my old friend," he thus apostrophized the hat, "you have served me long, you have served me faithfully,

but the last day has come. Never more shall you be borne upon the head of your master. Never more shall you

protect his brow from the burning rays of summer or the cutting winds of winter. Henceforth bareheaded

At the end of this affecting appeal the German rose. He went to the box at the foot of his bed; out of it he took

"It's not exactly what you may have been accustomed to," he said nervously, putting it down beside the

battered chimneypot, "but it might be of some usea protection to the head, you know."

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "you are not following my advice; you are allowing yourself to be reproached

"No, no, no!" cried the German energetically. "I have no use for the hat, none at all. It is shut up in the box."

"Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one's own mind when you have unintentionally injured any

one to make reparation. I know the feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one was,

but it will serve, yes, it will serve. Thank you," said Bonaparte, adjusting it on his head, and then replacing it

on the table. "I shall lie down now and take a little repose," he added; "I much fear my appetite for supper

"I hope not, I hope not," said the German, reseating himself at his work, and looking much concerned as

Bonaparte stretched himself on the bed and turned the end of the patchwork quilt over his feet.

"You must not think to make your departure, not for many days," said the German presently. "Tant Sannie

"My friend," said Bonaparte, closing his eyes sadly, "you are kind; but were it not that tomorrow is the

Sabbath, weak and trembling as I lie here, I would proceed on my way. I must seek work; idleness but for a

He doubled the pillar under his head, and watched how the German drew the leather thongs in and out.

After a while Lyndall silently put her book on the shelf and went home, and the German stood up and began

to mix some water and meal for roastercakes. As he stirred them with his hands he said:

"I make always a double supply on Saturday night; the hands are then free as the thoughts for Sunday."

There was a pause. Bonaparte twisted his eyes without moving his head, to see if supper were already on the

"You must sorely miss the administration of the Lord's word in this desolate spot," added Bonaparte. "Oh,

"Well, we do; yes," said the German; "but we do our best. We meet together, and Iwell, I say a few words,

"Strange coincidence," said Bonaparte; "my plan always was the same. Was in the Free State oncesolitary

farmone neighbour. Every Sunday I called together friend and neighbour, child and servant, and said,

'Rejoice with me, that we may serve the Lord,' and then I addressed them. Ah, those were blessed times," said

The German stirred at the cakes, and stirred, and stirred, and stirred. He could give the stranger his bed, and

he could give the stranger his hat, and he could give the stranger his brandy; but his Sunday service!

"I might speak to Tant Sannie; I might arrange; you might take the service in my place, if it"

"My friend," said Bonaparte, "it would give me the profoundest felicity, the most unbounded satisfaction; but

in these wornout habiliments, in these deteriorated garments, it would not be possible, it would not be fitting

that I should officiate in service of One whom, for respect, we shall not name. No, my friend, I will remain

here; and, while you are assembling yourselves together in the presence of the Lord, I, in my solitude, will

It was a touching picturethe solitary man there praying for them. The German cleared his hands from the

meal, and went to the chest from which he had taken the black hat. After a little careful feeling about, he

produced a black cloth coat, trousers, and waistcoat, which he laid on the table, smiling knowingly. They

were of new shining cloth, worn twice a year, when he went to the town to nachtmaal. He looked with great

"It's not the latest fashion, perhaps, not a West End cut, not exactly; but it might do; it might serve at a push.

Bonaparte stood up and tried on the coat. It fitted admirably; the waistcoat could be made to button by

ripping up the back, and the trousers were perfect; but below were the ragged boots. The German was not

disconcerted. Going to the beam where a pair of topboots hung, he took them off, dusted them carefully, and

put them down before Bonaparte. The old eyes now fairly brimmed over with sparkling enjoyment.

Bonaparte drew them on and stood upright, his head almost touching the beams. The German looked at him

with profound admiration. It was wonderful what a difference feathers made in the bird.

The boy Waldo kissed the pages of his book and looked up. Far over the flat lay the kopje, a mere speck; the

sheep wandered quietly from bush to bush; the stillness of the early Sunday rested everywhere, and the air

He looked down at his book. On its page a black insect crept. He lifted it off with his finger. Then he leaned

"Even you," he whispered, "shall not die. Even you He loves. Even you He will fold in His arms when He

When the thing had gone he smoothed the leaves of his Bible somewhat caressingly. The leaves of that book

had dropped blood for him once; they had taken the brightness out of his childhood; from between them had

sprung the visions that had clung about him and made night horrible. Adderlike thoughts had lifted their

heads, had shot out forked tongues at him, asking mockingly strange, trivial questions that he could not

Why did the women in Mark see only one angel and the women in Luke two? Could a story be told in

opposite ways and both ways be true? Could it? could it? Then again: Is there nothing always right, and

nothing always wrong? Could Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite "put her hand to the nail, and her right hand

to the workman's hammer?" and could the Spirit of the Lord chant paeans over her, loud paeans, high paeans,

set in the book of the Lord, and no voice cry out it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and kill the trusting in

their sleep? Could the friend of God marry his own sister, and be beloved, and the man who does it today

Those leaves had dropped blood for him once: they had made his heart heavy and cold; they had robbed his

"My father God knows, my father knows," he said; "we cannot understand; He knows." After a while he

whispered, smiling"I heard your voice this morning when my eyes were not yet open, I felt you near me,

my Father. Why do you love me so? His face was illuminated. "In the last four months the old question has

gone from me. I know you are good; I know you love everything; I know, I know, I know! I could not have

borne it any more, not any more." He laughed softly. "And all the while I was so miserable you were looking

at me and loving me, and I never knew it. But I know it now. I feel it," said the boy, and he laughed low; "I

After a while he began partly to sing, partly to chant the disconnected verses of hymns, those which spoke his

gladness, many times over. The sheep with their senseless eyes turned to look at him as he sang.

At last he lapsed into quiet. Then as the boy lay there staring at bush and sand, he saw a vision.

He had crossed the river of Death, and walked on the other bank in the Lord's land of Beulah. His feet sank

into the dark grass, and he walked alone. Then, far over the fields, he saw a figure coming across the dark

green grass. At first he thought it must be one of the angels; but as it came nearer he began to feel what it

was. And it came closer, closer to him, and then the voice said, "Come," and he knew surely Who it was. He

ran to the dear feet and touched them with his hands; yes, he held them fast! He lay down beside them. When

he looked up the face was over him, and the glorious eyes were loving him; and they two were there alone

"Oh, God! He cried, "I cannot wait; I cannot wait! I want to die; I want to see Him; I want to touch him. Let

me die!" He folded his hands, trembling. "How can I wait so longfor long, long years perhaps? I want to

Weeping he bowed himself, and quivered from head to foot. After a long while he lifted his head.

"Yes; I will wait; I will wait. But not long; do not let it be very long, Jesus King. I want you; oh, I want

In the front room of the farmhouse sat Tant Sannie in her elbowchair. In her hand was her great

brassclasped hymnbook, round her neck was a clean white handkerchief, under her feet was a wooden

stove. There too sat Em and Lyndall, in clean pinafores and new shoes. There too was the spruce Hottentot in

a starched white kapje, and her husband on the other side of the door, with his wool oiled and very much

combed out, and staring at his new leather boots. The Kaffer servants were not there because Tant Sannie

held they were descended from apes, and needed no salvation. But the rest were gathered for the Sunday

Meanwhile Bonaparte and the German approached arm in armBonaparte resplendent in the black cloth

clothes, a spotless shirt, and a spotless collar; the German in the old saltandpepper, casting shy glances of

At the front door Bonaparte removed his hat with much dignity, raised his shirt collar, and entered. To the

centre table he walked, put his hat solemnly down by the big Bible, and bowed his head over it in silent

The Boerwoman looked at the Hottentot, and the Hottentot looked at the Boerwoman.

There was one thing on earth for which Tant Sannie had a profound reverence, which exercised a subduing

influence over her, which made her for the time a better womanthat thing was new, shining black cloth. It

made her think of the predikant; it made her think of the elders who sat in the top pew of the church on

Sundays, with the hair so nicely oiled, so holy and respectable, with their little swallowtailed coats; it made

her think of heaven, where everything was so holy and respectable, and nobody wore tancord, and the littlest

angel had a blacktailed coat. She wished she hadn't called him a thief and a Roman Catholic. She hoped the

German hadn't told him. She wondered where those clothes were when he came in rags to her door. There

The German began to read a hymn. At the end of each line Bonaparte groaned, and twice at the end of every

The Boerwoman had often heard of persons groaning during prayers, to add a certain poignancy and finish

to them; old Jan Vanderlinde, her mother's brother, always did it after he was converted; and she would have

looked upon it as no especial sign of grace in any one; but to groan at hymntime! She was startled. She

wondered if he remembered that she shook her fist in his face. This was a man of God. They knelt down to

pray. The Boerwoman weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and could not kneel. She sat in her chair, and

peeped between her crossed fingers at the stranger's back. She could not understand what he said; but he was

in earnest. He shook the chair by the back rail till it made quite a little dust on the mud floor.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte solemnly seated himself in the chair and opened the Bible. He

blew his nose, pulled up his shirt collar, smoothed the leaves, stroked down his capacious waistcoat, blew his

"All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Having read this portion of Scripture, Bonaparte paused impressively, and looked all round the room.

"I shall not, my dear friends," he said, "long detain you. Much of our precious time has already fled blissfully

from us in the voice of thanksgiving and the tongue of praise. A few, a very few words are all I shall address

to you, and may they be as a rod of iron dividing the bones from the marrow, and the marrow from the bones.

The question was put so pointedly, and followed by a pause so profound, that even the Hottentot man left off

"Have you any of you ever seen a liar, my dear friends?" There was a still longer pause. "I hope not; I truly

hope not. But I will tell you what a liar is. I knew a liar oncea little boy who lived in Cape Town, in Short

Market Street. His mother and I sat together one day, discoursing about our souls.

"'Here, Sampson,' said his mother, 'go and buy sixpence of meiboss from the Malay round the corner.'

"He was afraid if he said six and a half she'd ask for some. And, my friends, that was a lie. The half of a

meiboss stuck in his throat and he died and was buried. And where did the soul of that little liar go to, my

friends? It went to the lake of fire and brimstone. This brings me to the second point of my discourse.

"What is a lake of fire and brimstone? I will tell you, my friends," said Bonaparte condescendingly. "The

imagination unaided cannot conceive it: but by the help of the Lord I will put it before your mind's eye.

"I was travelling in Italy once on a time; I came to a city called Rome, a vast city, and near it is a mountain

which spits forth fire. Its name is Etna. Now, there was a man in that city of Rome who had not the fear of

God before his eyes, and he loved a woman. The woman died, and he walked up that mountain spitting fire,

and when he got to the top he threw himself in at the hole that is there. The next day I went up. I was not

afraid; the Lord preserves His servants. And in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest at any time thou fall

into a volcano. It was dark night when I got there, but in the fear of the Lord I walked to the edge of the

yawning abyss, and looked in. That sightthat sight, my friends, is impressed upon my most indelible

memory. I looked down into the lurid depths upon an incandescent lake, a melted fire, a seething sea; the

billows rolled from side to side, and on their fiery crests tossed the white skeleton of the suicide. The heat had

burnt the flesh from off the bones; they lay as a light cork upon the melted, fiery waves. One skeleton hand

was raised upward, the finger pointing to heaven; the other, with outstretched finger, pointing downward, as

though it would say, 'I go below, but you, Bonaparte, may soar above.' I gazed; I stood entranced. At that

instant there was a crack in the lurid lake; it swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the suicide disappeared,

"The lake of melted stone rose in the crater, it swelled higher and higher at the side, it streamed forth at the

top. I had presence of mind; near me was a rock; I stood upon it. The fiery torrent was vomited out and

streamed on either side of me. And through that long and terrible night I stood there alone upon that rock, the

glowing, fiery lava on every handa monument of the longsuffering and tender providence of the Lord,

"Now, my dear friends, let us deduce the lessons that are to be learnt from this narrative.

"Firstly: let us never commit suicide. The man is a fool, my friends, that man is insane, my friends, who

would leave this earth, my friends. Here are joys innumerable, such as it hath not entered into the heart of

man to understand, my friends. Here are clothes, my friends; here are beds, my friends; here is delicious food,

my friends. Our precious bodies were given us to love, to cherish. Oh, let us do so! Oh, let us never hurt

"Thirdly; let us not love too much. If that young man had not loved that young woman, he would not have

jumped into Mount Etna. The good men of old never did so. Was Jeremiah ever in love, or Ezekiel, or Hosea,

or even any of the minor prophets? No. Then why should we be? Thousands are rolling in that lake at this

moment who would say, 'It was love that brought us here.' Oh, let us think always of our own souls first.

"'A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; A neverdying soul to save, And fit it for the sky.'

"Oh, beloved friends, remember the little boy and the meiboss; remember the young girl and the young man;

remember the lake, the fire, and the brimstone; remember the suicide's skeleton on the pitchy billows of

Mount Etna; remember the voice of warning that has this day sounded in your ears; and what I say to you I

Here the Bible closed with a tremendous thud. Tant Sannie loosened the white handkerchief about her neck

and wiped her eyes, and the coloured girl, seeing her do so, sniffled. The did not understand the discourse,

There hung over it that inscrutable charm which hovers forever for the human intellect over the

incomprehensible and shadowy. When the last hymn was sung the German conducted the officiator to Tant

Sannie, who graciously extended her hand, and offered coffee and a seat on the sofa. Leaving him there, the

German hurried away to see how the little plumpudding he had left at home was advancing; and Tant

Sannie remarked that it was a hot day. Bonaparte gathered her meaning as she fanned herself with the end of

her apron. He bowed low in acquiescence. A long silence followed. Tant Sannie spoke again. Bonaparte gave

her no ear; his eye was fixed on a small miniature on the opposite wall, which represented Tant Sannie as she

had appeared on the day before her confirmation, fifteen years before, attired in green muslin. Suddenly he

started to his feet, walked up to the picture, and took his stand before it. Long and wistfully he gazed into its

features; it was easy to see that he was deeply moved. With a sudden movement, as though no longer able to

restrain himself, he seized the picture, loosened it from its nail, and held it close to his eyes. At length,

"You will, I trust, dear madam, excuse this exhibition of my feelings; but thisthis little picture recalls to me

my first and best beloved, my dear departed wife, who is now a saint in heaven."

Tant Sannie could not understand; but the Hottentot maid, who had taken her seat on the floor beside her

"Ah, my first, my beloved!" he added, looking tenderly down at the picture. "Oh, the beloved, the beautiful

lineaments! My angel wife! This is surely a sister of yours, madame?" he added, fixing his eyes on Tant

Carefully, intently, Bonaparte looked from the picture in his hand to Tant Sannie's features, and from the

features back to the picture. Then slowly a light broke over his countenance, he looked up, it became a smile;

"Ah, yes; I see it now," he cried, turning his delighted gaze on the Boer woman; "eyes, mouth, nose, chin,

the very expression!" he cried. "How is it possible I did not notice it before?"

Bonaparte hung the picture tenderly up, and was turning to take the cup from her hand, when the German

"He's a Godfearing man, and one who knows how to behave himself," said the Boerwoman as he went out

at the door. "If he's ugly, did not the Lord make him? And are we to laugh at the Lord's handiwork? It is

better to be ugly and good than pretty and bad; though of course it's nice when one is both," said Tant Sannie,

In the afternoon the German and Bonaparte sat before the door of the cabin. Both smoked in complete

silenceBonaparte with a book in his hands and his eyes half closed; the German puffing vigorously, and

"Supposingyouyou, in fact, made the remark to me," burst forth the German suddenly, "that you were

"Now supposing," said the German"merely supposing, of coursethat some one, some one, in fact,

should make an offer to you, say, to become schoolmaster on their farm and teach two children, two little

girls, perhaps, and would give you forty pounds a year, would you accept it? Just supposing, of course."

"Well, my dear friend," said Bonaparte, "that would depend on circumstances. Money is no consideration

with me. For my wife I have made provision for the next year. My health is broken. Could I meet a place

where a gentleman would be treated as a gentleman I would accept it, however small the remuneration. With

"Well," said the German, when he had taken a whiff or two more from his pipe, "I think I shall go up and see

Tant Sannie a little. I go up often on Sunday afternoon to have a general conversation, to see her, you know.

The old man put his book into his pocket, and walked up to the farmhouse with a peculiarly knowing and

"He doesn't suspect what I'm going to do," soliloquized the German; "hasn't the least idea. A nice surprise for

The man whom he had left at his doorway winked at the retreating figure with a wink that was not to be

"Ah, what is the matter?" asked Waldo, stopping at the foot of the ladder with a load of skins on his back that

he was carrying up to the loft. Through the open door in the gable little Em was visible, her feet dangling

from the high bench on which she sat. The room, once a storeroom, had been divided by a row of mealie bags

"Lyndall made him angry," said the girl tearfully; "and he has given me the fourteenth of John to learn. He

"You see," said Em, hopelessly turning the leaves, "whenever he talks she looks out at the door, as though

she did not hear him. Today she asked him what the signs of the Zodiac were, and he said he was surprised

that she should ask him; it was not a fit and proper thing for little girls to talk about. Then she asked him who

Copernicus was; and he said he was one of the Emperors of Rome, who burned the Christians in a golden pig,

and the worms ate him up while he was still alive. I don't know why," said Em plaintively, "but she just put

her books under her arm and walked out; and she will never come to his school again, she says, and she

always does what she says. And now I must sit here every day alone," said Em, the great tears dropping

"Perhaps Tant Sannie will send him away," said the boy, in his mumbling way, trying to comfort her.

"No," said Em, shaking her head; "no. Last night when the little Hottentot maid was washing her feet, he told

her he liked such feet, and that fat women were so nice to him; and she said I must always put pure cream in

The boy put down his skins and fumbled in his pocket, and produced a small piece of paper containing

Em opened it and found a small bit of gum, a commodity prized by the children; but the great tears dropped

Waldo was distressed. He had cried so much in his morsel of life that tears in another seemed to burn him.

"If," he said, stepping in awkwardly and standing by the table, "if you will not cry I will tell you

"Yes; a machine for shearing sheep. It is almost done," said the boy. "There is only one thing that is not right

yet; but it will be soon. When you think, and think, and think, all night and all day, it comes at last," he added

"Here! I always carry it here," said the boy, putting his hand to his breast, where a bulgingout was visible.

"It is a beautiful secret," said Em; and the boy shuffled out to pick up his skins.

That evening father and son sat in the cabin eating their supper. The father sighed deeply sometimes. Perhaps

he thought how long a time it was since Bonaparte had visited the cabin; but his son was in that land in which

sighs have no part. It is a question whether it were not better to be the shabbiest of fools, and know the way

up the little stair of imagination to the land of dreams, than the wisest of men, who see nothing that the eyes

do not show, and feel nothing that the hands do not touch. The boy chewed his brown bread and drank his

coffee; but in truth he saw only his machine finishedthat last something found out and added. He saw it as

it worked with beautiful smoothness; and over and above, as he chewed his bread and drank his coffee, there

was that delightful consciousness of something bending over him and loving him. It would not have been

better in one of the courts of heaven, where the walls are set with rows of the King of Glory's amethysts and

As they sat in silence there was a knock at the door. When it was opened the small woolly head of a little

nigger showed itself. She was a messenger from Tant Sannie: the German was wanted at once at the

homestead. Putting on his hat with both hands, he hurried off. The kitchen was in darkness, but in the pantry

A Kaffer girl, who had been grinding pepper between two stones, knelt on the floor, the lean Hottentot stood

with a brass candlestick in her hand, and Tant Sannie, near the shelf, with a hand on each hip, was evidently

"What may be it?" cried the old German in astonishment. The room beyond the pantry was the storeroom.

Through the thin wooden partition there arose at that instant, evidently from some creature ensconced there, a

prolonged and prodigious howl, followed by a succession of violent blows against the partition wall.

The German seized the churnstick, and was about to rush round the house, when the Boerwoman

"But what might it be?" asked the German, looking from one to the other, churnstick in hand.

A low hollow bellow prevented reply, and the voice of Bonaparte lifted itself on high.

"Isn't it dreadful?" said Tant Sannie, as the blows were repeated fiercely. "He has got a letter; his wife is

dead. You must go and comfort him," said Tant Sannie at last, "and I will go with you. It would not be the

thing for me to go aloneme, who am only thirtythree, and he an unmarried man now," said Tant Sannie,

Upon this they all trudged round the house in companythe Hottentot maid carrying the light, Tant Sannie

"Oh," said Tant Sannie, "I see now it wasn't wickedness made him do without his wife so longonly

At the door she motioned to the German to enter, and followed him closely. On the stretcher behind the sacks

Bonaparte lay on his face, his head pressed into a pillow, his legs kicking gently. The Boerwoman sat down

"Ah, II also! Two dear, dear wives, whom I shall never see any more!" cried Bonaparte, flinging himself

He howled, till the tarantulas, who lived between the rafters and the zinc roof, felt the unusual vibration, and

Tant Sannie sighed, the Hottentot maid sighed, the Kaffer girl who looked in at the door put her hand over

"You must trust in the Lord," said Tant Sannie. "He can give you more than you have lost."

"Ask him if he won't have a little papnice, fine, flour pap. There is some boiling on the kitchen fire."

"No, nothing shall pass my lips. I should be suffocated. No, no! Speak not of food to me!"

"Perhaps, perhapsif I struggled with myselffor the sake of my duties I might imbibe a few drops," he

said, looking with quivering lip up into the German's face. "I must do my duty, must I not?"

"I know how it was when my first husband died. They could do nothing with me," the Boerwoman said, "till

Bonaparte sat up on the bed with his legs stretched out in front of him, and a hand on each knee, blubbering

"Oh, she was a woman! You are very kind to try and comfort me, but she was my wife. For a woman that is

my wife I could live; for the woman that is my wife I could die! For a woman that is my wife I couldAh!

When his feelings had subsided a little he raised the corners of his turneddown mouth, and spoke to the

"Do you think she understands me? Oh, tell her every word, that she may know I thank her."

At that instant the girl reappeared with a basin of steaming gruel and a black bottle.

Tant Sannie poured some of its contents into the basin, stirred it well, and came to the bed.

"Oh, I can't, I can't! I shall die! I shall die!" said Bonaparte, putting his hands to his side.

Tant Sannie added from the contents of the bottle and held out a spoonful; Bonaparte opened his mouth like a

little bird waiting for a worm, and held it open, as she dipped again and again into the pap.

"Ah, this will do your heart good," said Tant Sannie, in whose mind the relative functions of heart and

When the basin was emptied the violence of his grief was much assuaged; he looked at Tant Sannie with

"Tell him," said the Boerwoman, "that I hope he will sleep well, and that the Lord will comfort him, as the

When the door was safely shut on the German, the Hottentot, and the Dutchwoman, he got off the bed and

"Bon," he said, slapping his leg, "you're the cutest lad I ever came across. If you don't turn out the old

Hymnsandprayers, and pummel the Ragged coat, and get your arms round the fat one's waist and a

weddingring on her finger, then you are not Bonaparte. But you are Bonaparte. Bon, you're a fine boy!"

Making which pleasing reflection, he pulled off his trousers and got into bed cheerfully.

"May I come in? I hope I do not disturb you, my dear friend," said Bonaparte, late one evening, putting his

nose in at the cabin door, where the German and his son sat finishing their supper.

It was now two months since he had been installed as schoolmaster in Tant Sannie's household, and he had

grown mighty and more mighty day by day. He visited the cabin no more, sat close to Tant Sannie drinking

coffee all the evening, and walked about loftily with his hands under the coattails of the German's black

cloth and failed to see even a nigger who wished him a deferential good morning. It was therefore with no

"Walk in, walk in," he said joyfully. "Boy, boy, see if there is any coffee left. Well, none. Make a fire. We

"My dear friend," said Bonaparte, taking off his hat, "I came not to sup, not for mere creature comforts, but

for an hour of brotherly intercourse with a kindred spirit. The press of business and the weight of thought, but

they alone, may sometimes prevent me from sharing the secrets of my bosom with him for whom I have so

"Oh, no, no! Make a fire, make a fire, boy. We will have a pot of hot coffee presently," said the German,

rubbing his hands and looking about, not knowing how best to show his pleasure at the unexpected visit.

For three weeks the German's diffident "Good evening" had met with a stately bow; the chin of Bonaparte

lifting itself higher daily; and his shadow had not darkened the cabin doorway since he came to borrow the

two pounds. The German walked to the head of the bed and took down a blue bag that hung there. Blue bags

were a speciality of the German's. He kept above fifty stowed away in different corners of his roomsome

filled with curious stones, some with seeds that had been in his possession fifteen years, some with rusty

nails, buckles, and bits of old harnessin all, a wonderful assortment, but highly prized.

"We have something here not so bad," said the German, smiling knowingly, as he dived his hand into the bag

and took out a handful of almonds and raisins; "I buy these for my chickens. They increase in size, but they

still think the old man must have something nice for them. And the old manwell, a big boy may have a

sweet tooth sometimes, may he not? Ha, ha!" said the German, chuckling at his own joke, as he heaped the

plate with almonds. "Here is a stonetwo stones to crack themno late patent improvementwell, Adam's

nutcracker; ha, ha! But I think we shall do. We will not leave them uncracked. We will consume a few

Here the German sat down on one side of the table, Bonaparte on the other; each one with a couple of flat

"Do not be afraid," said the German, "do not be afraid. I do not forget the boy at the fire; I crack for him. The

bag is full. Why, this is strange," he said suddenly, cracking upon a large nut; "three kernels! I have not

observed that before. This must be retained. This is valuable." He wrapped the nut gravely in paper, and put it

carefully in his waistcoat pocket. "Valuable, very valuable!" he said, shaking his head.

"Ah, my friend," said Bonaparte, "what joy it is to be once more in your society."

The German's eyes glistened, and Bonaparte seized his hand and squeezed it warmly. They then proceeded to

crack and eat. After a while Bonaparte said, stuffing a handful of raisins into his mouth:

"I was so deeply grieved, my dear friend, that you and Tant Sannie had some slight unpleasantness this

"Oh, no, no," said the German; "it is all right now. A few sheep missing; but I make it good myself. I give my

"It is rather hard that you should have to make good the lost sheep, said Bonaparte; "it is no fault of yours."

"Well," said the German, "this is the case. Last evening I count the sheep at the kraaltwenty are missing. I

ask the herd; he tells me they are with the other flock; he tells me so distinctly; how can I think he lies? This

afternoon I count the other flock. The sheep are not there. I come back here: the herd is gone; the sheep are

gone. But I cannotno, I will notbelieve he stole them," said the German, growing suddenly excited.

"Some one else, but not he. I know that boy. I knew him three years. He is a good boy. I have seen him

deeply affected on account of his soul. And she would send the police after him! I say I would rather make

the loss good myself. I will not have it; he has fled in fear. I know his heart. It was," said the German, with a

little gentle hesitation, "under my words that he first felt his need of a Saviour."

Bonaparte cracked some more almonds, then said, yawning, and more as though he asked for the sake of

having something to converse about than from any interest he felt in the subject:

"Yes; his wife. She has a child six days old, and Tant Sannie would turn her out into the fields this night.

That," said the German rising, "that is what I call crueltydiabolical cruelty. My soul abhors that deed. The

man that could do such a thing I could run him through with a knife!" said the German, his grey eyes

flashing, and his bushy black beard adding to the murderous fury of his aspect. Then suddenly subsiding, he

said, "But all is now well; Tant Sannie gives her word that the maid shall remain for some days. I go to Oom

Muller's tomorrow to learn if the sheep may not be there. If they are not, then I return. They are gone, that is

"Tant Sannie is a singular woman," said Bonaparte, taking the tobacco bag the German passed to him.

"Singular! Yes," said the German; "but her heart is on her right side. I have lived long years with her, and I

may say, I have for her an affection, which she returns. I may say," added the German with warmth, "I may

"Ah, my friend," said Bonaparte, "when the grace of God is in our hearts, is it not with us all? Do we not love

the very worm we tread upon, and as we tread upon it? Do we know distinctions of race, or of sex, or of

"The coloured female who waits upon Tant Sannie appears to be of a virtuous disposition, an individual

"Virtuous!" said the German; "I have confidence in her. There is that in her which is pure, that which is

noble. The rich and high that walk this earth with lofty eyelids might exchange with her."

The German here got up to bring a coal for Bonaparte's pipe, and they sat together talking for a while. At

"It is time that I took my departure, dear friend," he said; "but, before I do so, shall we not close this evening

of sweet communion and brotherly intercourse by a few words of prayer? Oh, how good and how pleasant a

thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the dew upon the mountains of Hermon; for there

"No, thank you, my friend; I have business that must be done tonight," said Bonaparte. "Your dear son

appears to have gone to sleep. He is going to take the wagon to the mill tomorrow! What a little man he is."

But though the boy nodded before the fire he was not asleep; and they all knelt down to pray.

When they rose from their knees Bonaparte extended his hand to Waldo, and patted him on the head.

"Good night, my lad," said he. "As you go to the mill tomorrow, we shall not see you for some days. Good

night! Goodbye! The Lord bless and guide you; and may He bring you back to us in safety and find us all as

you have left us!" He laid some emphasis on the last words. "And you, my dear friend," he added, turning

with redoubled warmth to the German, "long, long shall I look back to this evening as a time of refreshing

from the presence of the Lord, as an hour of blessed intercourse with a brother in Jesus. May such often

return. The Lord bless you!" he added, with yet deeper fervour, "richly, richly."

"He, he, he!" laughed Bonaparte, as he stumbled over the stones. "If there isn't the rarest lot of fools on this

farm that ever God Almighty stuck legs to. He, he, he! When the worms come out then the blackbirds feed.

Ha, ha, ha!" Then he drew himself up; even when alone he liked to pose with a certain dignity; it was second

He looked in at the kitchen door. The Hottentot maid who acted as interpreter between Tant Sannie and

"Never mind, Bon, my boy," he said, as he walked round to his own room, "tomorrow will do. He, he, he!"

At four o'clock the next afternoon the German rode across the plain, returning from his search for the lost

sheep. He rode slowly, for he had been in the saddle since sunrise and was somewhat weary, and the heat of

the afternoon made his horse sleepy as it picked its way slowly along the sandy road. Every now and then a

great red spider would start out of the karoo on one side of the path and run across to the other, but nothing

else broke the still monotony. Presently, behind one of the highest of the milkbushes that dotted the

roadside, the German caught sight of a Kaffer woman, seated there evidently for such shadow as the

The German turned the horse's head out of the road. It was not his way to pass a living creature without a

word of greeting. Coming nearer, he found it was no other than the wife of the absconding Kaffer herd. She

had a baby tied on her back by a dirty strip of red blanket; another strip hardly larger was twisted round her

waist, for the rest her black body was naked. She was a sullen, illlooking woman with lips hideously

The German questioned her as to how she came there. She muttered in broken Dutch that she had been turned

away. Had she done evil? She shook her head sullenly. Had she had food given her? She grunted a negative,

and fanned the flies from her baby. Telling the woman to remain where she was, he turned his horse's head to

"Yes, yes, yes," ejaculated the old man as he rode on; but, presently, his anger began to evaporate, his horse's

pace slackened, and by the time he had reached his own door he was nodding and smiling.

Dismounting quickly, he went to the great chest where his provisions were kept. Here he got out a little meal,

a little mealies, a few roaster cakes. These he tied up in three blue handkerchiefs, and putting them into a

sailcloth bag, he strung them over his shoulders. Then he looked circumspectly out at the door. It was very

bad to be discovered in the act of giving; it made him red up to the roots of his old grizzled hair. No one was

about, however, so he rode off again. Beside the milkbush sat the Kaffer woman stilllike Hagar, he

thought, thrust out by her mistress in the wilderness to die. Telling her to loosen the handkerchief from her

head, he poured into it the contents of his bag. The woman tied it up in sullen silence.

The German reflected. Kaffer women were accustomed to sleep in the open air; but then, the child was small,

and after so hot a day the night might be chilly. That she would creep back to the huts at the homestead when

the darkness favoured her, the German's sagacity did not make evident to him. He took off the old brown

saltandpepper coat, and held it out to her. The woman received it in silence, and laid it across her knee.

"With that they will sleep warmly; not so bad. Ha, ha!" said the German. And he rode home, nodding his

The two girls sat on the step of the cabin weeping for the German's return. Lyndall shaded her eyes with her

"There he comes," she said, "whistling 'Ach Jerusalem du schone' so loud I can hear him from here."

"Found them!" said Lyndall. "He would whistle just so if he knew he had to die tonight."

"You look at the sunset, eh, chickens?" the German said, as he came up at a smart canter. "Ah, yes, that is

beautiful!" he added, as he dismounted, pausing for a moment with his hand on the saddle to look at the

evening sky, where the sun shot up long flaming streaks, between which and the eye thin yellow clouds

The German looked up. He thought the Dutchwoman, come out to cool herself in the yard, called to some

Tant Sannie stood before the steps of the kitchen; upon them sat the lean Hottentot, upon the highest stood

Bonaparte Blenkins, both hands folded under the tails of his coat, and his eyes fixed on the sunset sky.

"Bish, bish, bish! what may this be?" he said, and walked toward the house. "Very strange!"

The girls followed him: Em still weeping; Lyndall with her face rather white and her eyes wide open.

"And I have the heart of a devil, did you say? You could run me through with a knife, could you?" cried the

Dutchwoman. "I could not drive the Kaffer maid away because I was afraid of you, was I? Oh, you miserable

rag! I loved you, did I? I would have liked to marry you, would I? would I? WOULD I?" cried the

Boerwoman; "you cat's tail, you dog's paw! Be near my house tomorrow morning when the sun rises," she

gasped, "my Kaffers will drag you through the sand. They would do it gladly, any of them, for a bit of

"I am bewildered, I am bewildered, said the German, standing before her and raising his hand to his forehead;

"Ask him, ask him?" cried Tant Sannie, pointing to Bonaparte; "he knows. You thought he could not make

me understand, but he did, he did, you old fool! I know enough English for that. You be here," shouted the

Dutchwoman, "when the morning star rises, and I will let my Kaffers take you out and drag you, till there is

not one bone left in your old body that is not broken as fine as bobootiemeat, you old beggar! All your rags

are not worth thatthey should be thrown out onto the ashheap," cried the Boerwoman; "but I will have

them for my sheep. Not one rotten hoof of your old mare do you take with you; I will have herall, all for

The German turned to Bonaparte, who still stood on the step absorbed in the beauty of the sunset.

"Do not address me; do not approach me, lost man," said Bonaparte, not moving his eye nor lowering his

chin. "There is a crime from which all nature revolts; there is a crime whose name is loathsome to the human

ear that crime is yours; that crime is ingratitude. This woman has been your benefactress; on her farm you

have lived; after her sheep you have looked; into her house you have been allowed to enter and hold Divine

servicean honour of which you were never worthy; and how have you rewarded her? basely, basely,

"But it is all false, lies and falsehoods. I must, I will speak," said the German, suddenly looking round

"Go, dog," cried the Dutchwoman; "I would have been a rich woman this day if it had not been for your

laziness. Praying with the Kaffers behind the kraal walls. Go, you Kaffer's dog!"

"But what then is the matter? What may have happened since I left?" said the German, turning to the

She was his friend; she would tell him kindly the truth. The woman answered by a loud, ringing laugh.

It was so nice to see the white man who had been master hunted down. The coloured woman laughed, and

All anger and excitement faded from the old man's face. He turned slowly away and walked down the little

path to his cabin, with his shoulders bent; it was all dark before him. He stumbled over the threshold of his

Em, sobbing bitterly, would have followed him; but the Boerwoman prevented her by a flood of speech

"Come, Em," said Lyndall, lifting her small proud head, "let us go in. We will not stay to hear such

She looked into the Boerwoman's eyes. Tant Sannie understood the meaning of the look if not the words.

She waddled after them, and caught Em by the arm. She had struck Lyndall once years before, and had never

"So you will defy me, too, will you, you Englishman's ugliness!" she cried, and with one hand she forced the

child down, and held her head tightly against her knee; with the other she beat her first upon one cheek, and

For one instant Lyndall looked on, then she laid her small fingers on the Boerwoman's arm. With the

exertion of half its strength Tant Sannie might have flung the girl back upon the stones. It was not the power

of the slight fingers, tightly though they clinched her broad wristso tightly that at bedtime the marks were

still there; but the Boerwoman looked into the clear eyes and at the quivering white lips, and with a

"Move!" she said to Bonaparte, who stood in the door, and he, Bonaparte the invincible, in the hour of his

The Hottentot ceased to laugh, and an uncomfortable silence fell on all the three in the doorway.

Once in their room, Em sat down on the floor and wailed bitterly. Lyndall lay on the bed with her arm drawn

"Hoo, hoo!" cried Em; "and they won't let him take the grey mare; and Waldo has gone to the mill. Hoo, hoo,

"I wish you would be quiet," said Lyndall without moving. "Does it give you such felicity to let Bonaparte

know he is hurting you? We will ask no one. It will be suppertime soon. Listenand when you hear the clink

Em suppressed her sobs and listened intently, kneeling at the door. Suddenly some one came to the window

But Lyndall sprang from the bed and seized the handle of the door, shaking it fiercely. The door was locked

She turned, and went back to bed again. But ere long Em heard a sound of movement. Lyndall had climbed

up into the window, and with her fingers felt the woodwork that surrounded the panes. Slipping down, the

girl loosened the iron knob from the foot of the bedstead, and climbing up again she broke with it every pane

Her companion made her no reply; but leaned on every little crossbar, which cracked and gave way beneath

her. Then she pressed with all her strength against the shutter. She had thought the wooden buttons would

give way, but by the clinking sound she knew that the iron bar had been put across. She was quite quiet for a

time. Clambering down, she took from the table a small onebladed penknife, with which she began to peck

"What are you doing now?" asked Em, who had ceased crying in her wonder, and had drawn near.

In an agony of suspense Em waited. For ten minutes Lyndall pecked. The hole was threeeighths of an inch

"Nothing," said Lyndall. "Bring me my nightgown, a piece of paper, and the matches."

She arranged the nightgown carefully in the corner of the window, with the chips of the frame about it. There

was only one match in the box. She drew it carefully along the wall. For a moment it burnt up blue, and

showed the tiny face with its glistening eyes. She held it carefully to the paper. For an instant it burnt up

brightly, then flickered and went out. She blew the spark, but it died also. Then she threw the paper on to the

"Oh, Tant Sannie! Tant Sannie! Oh, let us out!" she cried. "Oh, Lyndall, what are we to do?"

"I am going to sleep," she said. "If you like to sit there and howl till the morning, do. Perhaps you will find

Long after, when Em herself had gone to bed and was almost asleep, Lyndall came and stood at her bedside.

"Here," she said, slipping a little pot of powder into her hand; "rub some on to your face. Does it not burn

Then she crept back to her own bed. Long, long after, when Em was really asleep, she lay still awake, and

"When that day comes, and I am strong, I will hate everything that has power, and help everything that is

The German looked out at the cabin door for the last time that night. Then he paced the room slowly and

sighed. Then he drew out pen and paper, and sat down to write, rubbing his old grey eyes with his knuckles

"My Chickens: You did not come to say goodbye to the old man. Might you? Ah, well, there is a land where

"I sit here alone, and I think of you. Will you forget the old man? When you wake tomorrow he will be far

away. The old horse is lazy, but he has his stick to help him; that is three legs. He comes back one day with

gold and diamonds. Will you welcome him? Well, we shall see. I go to meet Waldo. He comes back with the

wagon; then he follows me. Poor boy? God knows. There is a land where all things are made right, but that

"My little children, serve the Saviour; give your hearts to Him while you are yet young. Life is short.

"Nothing is mine, otherwise I would say, Lyndall, take my books, Em my stones. Now I say nothing. The

things are mine: it is not righteous, God knows? But I am silent. Let it be. But I feel it, I must say I feel it.

"Do not cry too much for the old man. He goes out to seek his fortune, and comes back with it in a bag, it

"I love my children. Do they think of me? I am Old Otto, who goes out to seek his fortune.

Having concluded this quaint production, he put it where the children would find it the next morning, and

proceeded to prepare his bundle. He never thought of entering a protest against the loss of his goods; like a

child, he submitted, and wept. He had been there eleven years, and it was hard to go away. He spread open on

the bed a blue handkerchief, and on it put one by one the things he thought most necessary and importanta

little bag of curious seeds, which he meant to plant some day, an old German hymnbook, three misshapen

stones that he greatly valued, a Bible, a shirt and two handkerchiefs; then there was room for nothing more.

He put his knotted stick beside it, his blue tobacco bag and his short pipe, and then inspected his coats. He

had two lefta motheaten overcoat and a black alpaca, out at the elbows. He decided for the overcoat; it

was warm, certainly, but then he could carry it over his arm and only put it on when he met some one along

He hung the greatcoat over the back of the chair, and stuffed a hard bit of roastercake under the knot of the

bundle, and then his preparations were completed. The German stood contemplating them with much

satisfaction. He had almost forgotten his sorrow at leaving in his pleasure at preparing. Suddenly he started;

an expression of intense pain passed over his face. He drew back his left arm quickly, and then pressed his

His face was white, but it quickly regained its colour. Then the old man busied himself in putting everything

"I will leave it neat. They shall not say I did not leave it neat," he said. Even the little bags of seeds on the

mantelpiece he put in rows and dusted. Then he undressed and got into bed. Under his pillow was a little

storybook. He drew it forth. To the old German a story was no story. Its events were as real and as important

He could not go away without knowing whether that wicked earl relented and whether the baron married

Emilina. So he adjusted his spectacles and began to read. Occasionally, as his feelings became too strongly

moved, he ejaculated: "Ah, I thought so! That was a rogue! I saw it before! I knew it from the beginning!"

More than half an hour had passed when he looked up to the silver watch at the top of his bed.

"The march is long tomorrow; this will not do," he said, taking off his spectacles and putting them carefully

into the book to mark the place. "This will be good reading as I walk along tomorrow," he added, as he

stuffed the book into the pocket of the greatcoat; "very good reading." He nodded his head and lay down. He

thought a little of his own troubles, a good deal of the two little girls he was leaving, of the earl, of Emilina,

of the baron; but he was soon asleepsleeping as peacefully as a little child, upon whose innocent soul

It was very quiet in the room. The coals in the fireplace threw a dull red light across the floor upon the red

One o'clock came. The glimmer had died out, though the ashes were still warm, and the room was very dark.

The grey mouse, who had his hole under the toolbox, came out and sat on the sacks in the corner; then,

growing bolder, the room was so dark, it climbed the chair at the bedside, nibbled at the roastercake, took

one bite quickly at the candle, and then sat on his haunches listening. It heard the even breathing of the old

man, and the steps of the hungry Kaffer dog going his last round in search of a bone or a skin that had been

forgotten; and it heard the white hen call out as the wild cat ran away with one of her brood, and it heard the

chicken cry. Then the grey mouse went back to its hole under the toolbox, and the room was quiet. And two

o'clock came. By that time the night was grown dull and cloudy. The wild cat had gone to its home on the

An intense quiet reigned everywhere. Only in her room the Boerwoman tossed her great arms in her sleep;

for she dreamed that a dark shadow with outstretched wings fled slowly over her house, and she moaned and

But, quiet as all places were, there was a quite peculiar quiet in the German's room. Though you strained your

He was not gone, for the old coat still hung on the chairthe coat that was to be put on when he met any

one; and the bundle and stick were ready for tomorrow's long march. The old German himself lay there, his

wavy black hair just touched with grey thrown back upon the pillow. The old face was lying there alone in

the dark, smiling like a little child'soh, so peacefully. There is a stranger whose coming, they say, is worse

than all the ills of life, from whose presence we flee away trembling; but he comes very tenderly sometimes.

And it seemed almost as though Death had known and loved the old man, so gently it touched him. And how

So it smoothed out the wrinkles that were in the old forehead, and fixed the passing smile, and sealed the eyes

that they might not weep again; and then the short sleep of time was melted into the long, long sleep of

"How has he grown so young in this one night?" they said when they found him in the morning.

Yes, dear old man; to such as you time brings no age. You die with the purity and innocence of your

Bonaparte stood on the ashheap. He espied across the plain a moving speck and he chucked his coattails

The wagon came on slowly. Waldo laid curled among the sacks at the back of the wagon, the hand in his

breast resting on the sheepshearing machine. It was finished now. The right thought had struck him the day

before as he sat, half asleep, watching the water go over the millwheel. He muttered to himself with

"Tomorrow smooth the cogstighten the screws a littleshow it to them." Then after a pause"Over the

whole worldthe whole worldmine, that I have made!" He pressed the little wheels and pulleys in his

pocket till they cracked. Presently his muttering became louder"And fifty poundsa black hat for my

daddafor Lyndall a blue silk, very light; and one purple like the earthbells, and white shoes." He muttered

on"A box full, full of books. They shall tell me all, all, all," he added, moving his fingers desiringly: "why

the crystals grow in such beautiful shapes; why lightning runs to the iron; why black people are black; why

the sunlight makes things warm. I shall read, read, read," he muttered slowly. Then came over him suddenly

what he called "The presence of God"; a sense of a good, strong something folding him round. He smiled

through his halfshut eyes. "Ah, Father, my own Father, it is so sweet to feel you, like the warm sunshine.

The Bibles and books cannot tell of you and all I feel you. They are mixed with men's words; but you"

His muttering sank into inaudible confusion, till, opening his eyes wide, it struck him that the brown plain he

looked at was the old home farm. For half an hour they had been riding in it, and he had not known it. He

roused the leader, who sat nodding on the front of the wagon in the early morning sunlight. They were within

half a mile of the homestead. It seemed to him that he had been gone from them all a year. He fancied he

could see Lyndall standing on the brick wall to watch for him; his father, passing from one house to the other,

He called aloud to the oxen. For each one at home he had brought something. For his father a piece of

tobacco, bought at the shop by the mill; for Em a thimble; for Lyndall a beautiful flower dug out by the roots,

at a place where they had outspanned; for Tant Sannie a handkerchief. When they drew near the house he

threw the whip to the Kaffer leader, and sprung from the side of the wagon to run on. Bonaparte stopped him

"Good morning, my dear boy. Where are you running to so fast with your rosy cheeks?"

"There, beyond the camps," said Bonaparte, waving his hand oratorically toward the stonewalled

"We could not keep him any more, it was too hot. We've buried him, my boy," said Bonaparte, touching with

his finger the boy's cheek. We couldn't keep him any more. He, he, he!" laughed Bonaparte, as the boy fled

At five o'clock Bonaparte knelt before a box in the German's room. He was busily unpacking it.

It had been agreed upon between Tant Sannie and himself, that now the German was gone he, Bonaparte, was

to be no longer schoolmaster, but overseer of the farm. In return for his past scholastic labours he had

expressed himself willing to take possession of the dead man's goods and room. Tant Sannie hardly liked the

arrangement. She had a great deal more respect for the German dead than the German living, and would

rather his goods had been allowed to descend peacefully to his son. For she was a firm believer in the chinks

in the world above, where not only ears, but eyes might be applied to see how things went on in this world

below. She never felt sure how far the spiritworld might overlap this world of sense, and, as a rule,

prudently abstained from doing anything which might offend unseen auditors. For this reason she abstained

from illusing the dead Englishman's daughter and niece, and for this reason she would rather the boy had

had his father's goods. But it was hard to refuse Bonaparte anything when she and he sat so happily together

in the evening drinking coffee, Bonaparte telling her in the broken Dutch he was fast learning how he adored

"Somewhere, here it is," he said, as he packed the old clothes carefully out of the box, and, finding nothing,

packed them in again. "Somewhere in this room it is; and if it's here Bonaparte finds it," he repeated. "You

didn't stay here all these years without making a little pile somewhere, my lamb. You weren't such a fool as

He now walked about the room, diving his fingers in everywhere: sticking them into the great crevices in the

wall and frightening out the spiders; rapping them against the old plaster till it cracked and fell in pieces;

peering up the chimney, till the soot dropped on his bald head and blackened it. He felt in little blue bags; he

tried to raise the hearth stone; he shook each book, till the old leaves fell down in showers on the floor.

It was getting dark, and Bonaparte stood with his finger on his nose reflecting. Finally he walked to the door,

behind which hung the trousers and waistcoat the dead man had last worn. He had felt in them, but hurriedly,

just after the funeral the day before; he would examine them again. Sticking his fingers into the waistcoat

pockets, he found in one corner a hole. Pressing his hand through it, between the lining and the cloth, he

presently came into contact with something. Bonaparte drew it fortha small, square parcel, sewed up in

sailcloth. He gazed at it, squeezed it; it cracked, as though full of banknotes. He put it quickly into his own

waistcoat pocket, and peeped over the halfdoor to see if there was any one coming. There was nothing to be

seen but the last rays of yellow sunset light, painting the karoo bushes in the plain, and shining on the

ashheap, where the fowls were pecking. He turned and sat down on the nearest chair, and, taking out his

penknife, ripped the parcel open. The first thing that fell was a shower of yellow faded papers. Bonaparte

opened them carefully one by one, and smoothed them out on his knee. There was something very valuable to

be hidden so carefully, though the German characters he could not decipher. When he came to the last one, he

"You've got it, Bon, my boy! you've got it!" he cried, slapping his leg hard. Edging nearer to the door, for the

light was fading, he opened the paper carefully. There was nothing inside but a plain gold weddingring.

"Better than nothing!" said Bonaparte, trying to put it on his little finger, which, however, proved too fat.

He took it off and set it down on the table before him, and looked at it with his crosswise eyes.

"When that auspicious hour, Sannie," he said, "shall have arrived, when, panting, I shall lead thee, lighted by

Hymen's torch, to the connubial altar, then upon thy fair amaranthine finger, my joyous bride, shall this ring

"Thy fair body, oh, my girl, Shall Bonaparte possess; His fingers in thy moneybags, He therein, too, shall

Having given utterance to this flood of poesy, he sat lost in joyous reflection.

At this instant, as Bonaparte swore, and swore truly to the end of his life, a slow and distinct rap was given on

Bonaparte started and looked up. No riem or strap, hung down from the rafters above, and not a human

creature was near the door. It was growing dark; he did not like it. He began to fold up the papers

expeditiously. He stretched out his hand for the ring. The ring was gone! Gone, although no human creature

He stuffed the papers into his pocket. As he did so, three slow and distinct taps were given on the crown of

his head. Bonaparte's jaw fell: each separate joint lost its power: he could not move; he dared not rise; his

Here a resolute tug at the grey curls at the back of his head caused him to leap up, yelling wildly. Was he to

sit still paralyzed, to be dragged away bodily to the devil? With terrific shrieks he fled, casting no glance

When the dew was falling, and the evening was dark, a small figure moved toward the gate of the furthest

ostrichcamp, driving a bird before it. When the gate was opened and the bird driven in and the gate fastened,

The boy was sitting on the damp ground with his back to the wall. He gave her no answer.

"You have had nothing to eat. I have put some supper in your room. You must come home with me, Waldo."

"You must forget," she whispered. "Since it happened I walk, I talk, I never sit still. If we remember, we

cannot bring back the dead." She knit her little fingers closer among his. "Forgetting is the best thing. He did

watch it coming," she whispered presently. "That is the dreadful thing, to see it coming!" She shuddered. "I

want it to come so to me too. Why do you think I was driving that bird?" she added quickly. "That was Hans,

the bird that hates Bonaparte. I let him out this afternoon; I thought he would chase him and perhaps kill

"He did not catch him; but he put his head over the halfdoor of your cabin and frightened him horribly. He

was there, busy stealing your things. Perhaps he will leave them alone now; but I wish the bird had trodden

"There is a candle and supper on the table. You must eat," she said authoritatively. "I cannot stay with you

In truth, is it not life's way? We fight our little battles alone; you yours, I mine. We must not help or find

When your life is most real, to me you are mad; when your agony is blackest, I look at you and wonder.

Friendship is good, a strong stick; but when the hour comes to lean hard, it gives. In the day of their bitterest

Lyndall stood by him in the dark, pityingly, wonderingly. As he walked to the door, she came after him.

In the front room the little woolly Kaffer girl was washing Tant Sannie's feet in a small tub, and Bonaparte,

who sat on the wooden sofa, was pulling off his shoes and stockings that his own feet might be washed also.

There were three candles burning in the room, and he and Tant Sannie sat close together, with the lean

Hottentot not far off; for when ghosts are about much light is needed, there is great strength in numbers.

Bonaparte had completely recovered from the effects of his fright in the afternoon, and the numerous doses of

brandy that it had been necessary to administer to him to effect his restoration had put him into a singularly

"That boy Waldo," said Bonaparte, rubbing his toes, "took himself off coolly this morning as soon as the

wagon came, and has not done a stiver of work all day. I'll not have that kind of thing now I'm master of this

"Ah, I expect he's sorry that his father's dead," said Tant Sannie. "It's nature, you know. I cried the whole

morning when my father died. One can always get another husband, but one can't get another father," said

Bonaparte expressed a wish to give Waldo his orders for the next day's work, and accordingly the little

woollyheaded Kaffer was sent to call him. After a considerable time the boy appeared, and stood in the

If they had dressed him in one of the swallowtailed coats, and oiled his hair till the drops fell from it, and it

lay as smooth as an elder's on sacrament Sunday, there would still have been something unanointed in the

aspect of the fellow. As it was, standing there in his strange old costume, his head presenting much the

appearance of having been deeply rolled in sand, his eyelids swollen, the hair hanging over his forehead, and

a dogged sullenness on his features, he presented most the appearance of an illconditioned young buffalo.

"Beloved Lord," cried Tant Sannie, "how he looks! Come in, boy. Couldn't you come and say goodday to

"There's a ghost been seen in your father's room," said Tant Sannie. "If you're afraid you can sleep in the

"Yes, be up early, my boy," interrupted Bonaparte, smiling. "I am to be master of this farm now; and we shall

be good friends, I trust, very good friends, if you try to do your duty, my dear boy."

Waldo turned to go, and Bonaparte, looking benignly at the candle, stretched out one unstockinged foot, over

which Waldo, looking at nothing in particular, fell with a heavy thud upon the floor.

"Dear me! I hope you are not hurt, my boy," said Bonaparte. "You'll have many a harder thing than that

though, before you've gone through life," he added consolingly, as Waldo picked himself up.

The lean Hottentot laughed till the room rang again; and Tant Sannie tittered till her sides ached.

"Oh, Lord, beloved Lord, how he did fall! I can't think of it," cried Tant Sannie, and she laughed again. "I

always did know he was not right; but this evening any one could see it," she added, wiping the tears of mirth

from her face. "His eyes are as wild as if the devil was in them. He never was like other children. The dear

Lord knows, if he doesn't walk alone for hours talking to himself. If you sit in the room with him you can see

his lips moving the whole time; and if you talk to him twenty times he doesn't hear you. Dafteyes; he's as

This repetition of the word mad conveyed meaning to Bonaparte's mind. He left off paddling his toes in the

"Mad, mad? I know that kind of mad," said Bonaparte, "and I know the thing to give for it. The front end of a

"No more walking about and talking to themselves on this farm now," said Bonaparte; "no more minding of

sheep and reading of books at the same time. The point of a horsewhip is a little thing, but I think he'll have a

taste of it before long." Bonaparte rubbed his hands and looked pleasantly across his nose; and then the three

And Waldo in his cabin crouched in the dark in a corner, with his knees drawn up to his chin.

Doss sat among the karoo bushes, one yellow ear drawn over his wicked little eye, ready to flap away any

adventurous fly that might settle on his nose. Around him in the morning sunlight fed the sheep; behind him

lay his master polishing his machine. He found much comfort in handling it that morning. A dozen

philosophical essays, or angelically atuned songs for the consolation of the bereaved, could never have been

After struggling to see the unseeable, growing drunk with the endeavour to span the infinite, and writhing

before the inscrutable mystery, it is a renovating relief to turn to some simple, feelable, weighable substance;

to something which has a smell and a colour, which may be handled and turned over this way and that.

Whether there be or be not a hereafter, whether there be any use in calling aloud to the Unseen power,

whether there be an Unseen power to call to, whatever be the true nature of the "I" who call and of the objects

around me, whatever be our meaning, our internal essence, our cause (and in a certain order of minds death

and the agony of loss inevitably awaken the wild desire, at other times smothered, to look into these things),

whatever be the nature of that which lies beyond the unbroken wall which the limits of the human intellect

build up on every hand, this thing is certaina knife will cut wood, and one cogged wheel will turn another.

Waldo found an immeasurable satisfaction in the handling of his machine; but Doss winked and blinked, and

thought it all frightfully monotonous out there on the flat, and presently dropped asleep, sitting bolt upright.

Suddenly his eyes opened wide; something was coming from the direction of the homestead. Winking his

eyes and looking intently, he perceived it was the grey mare. Now Doss had wondered much of late what had

become of her master. Seeing she carried some one on her back, he now came to his own conclusion, and

began to move his tail violently up and down. Presently he pricked up one ear and let the other hang; his tail

became motionless, and the expression of his mouth was one of decided disapproval bordering on scorn. He

The sand was soft, and the grey mare came on so noiselessly that the boy heard nothing till Bonaparte

dismounted. Then Doss got up and moved back a step. He did not approve of Bonaparte's appearance. His

costume, in truth, was of a unique kind. It was a combination of the town and country. The tails of his black

cloth coat were pinned up behind to keep them from rubbing; he had on a pair of moleskin trousers and

Waldo started and looked up. Had there been a moment's time he would have dug a hole in the sand with his

hands and buried his treasure. It was only a toy of wood, but he loved it, as one of necessity loves what has

been born of him, whether of the flesh or spirit. When cold eyes have looked at it, the feathers are rubbed off

"What have you here, my lad?" said Bonaparte, standing by him, and pointing with the end of his whip to the

"But this seems to be a very ingenious little machine," said Bonaparte, seating himself on the antheap, and

"It is a very nice little machine," said Bonaparte. "How does it work, now? I have never seen anything so

There was never a parent who heard deception in the voice that praised his childhis firstborn. Here was

one who liked the thing that had been created in him. He forgot everything. He showed how the shears would

work with a little guidance, how the sheep would be held, and the wool fall into the trough. A flush burst over

"I tell you what, my lad," said Bonaparte emphatically, when the explanation was finished, "we must get you

a patent. Your fortune is made. In three years' time there'll not be a farm in this colony where it isn't working.

"If it were made larger," said the boy, raising his eyes, "it would work more smoothly. Do you think there

"I'm sure they could," said Bonaparte; "and if not, why I'll do my best for you. I'll send it to England. It must

"Oh, it is such a nice little machine," said Bonaparte, "one can't help feeling an interest in it. There is only

Bonaparte put his foot on the machine and crushed it into the sand. The boy looked up into his face.

"Looks better now," said Bonaparte, "doesn't it? If we can't have it made in England we'll send it to America.

Goodbye; tata," he added. "You're a great genius, a born genius, my dear boy, there's no doubt about it."

He mounted the grey mare and rode off. The dog watched his retreat with cynical satisfaction; but his master

lay on the ground with his head on his arms in the sand, and the little wheels and chips of wood lay on the

ground around him. The dog jumped on to his back and snapped at the black curls, till, finding that no notice

was taken, he walked off to play with a black beetle. The beetle was hard at work trying to roll home a great

ball of dung it had been collecting all the morning: but Doss broke the ball, and ate the beetle's hind legs, and

then bit off its head. And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. A striving,

"I have found something in the loft," said Em to Waldo, who was listlessly piling cakes of fuel on the kraal

wall, a week after. "It is a box of books that belonged to my father. We thought Tant Sannie had burnt them."

"I don't think they are very nice, not stories," she added, "but you can go and take any you like."

So saying, she took up the plate in which she had brought his breakfast, and walked off to the house.

After that the boy worked quickly. The pile of fuel Bonaparte had ordered him to pack was on the wall in half

an hour. He then went to throw salt on the skins laid out to dry. Finding the pot empty, he went to the loft to

Bonaparte Blenkins, whose door opened at the foot of the ladder, saw the boy go up, and stood in the

doorway waiting for his return. He wanted his boots blacked. Doss, finding he could not follow his master up

the round bars, sat patiently at the foot of the ladder. Presently he looked up longingly, but no one appeared.

Then Bonaparte looked up also, and began to call; but there was no answer. What could the boy be doing?

The loft was an unknown land to Bonaparte. He had often wondered what was up there; he liked to know

what was in all lockedup places and outoftheway corners, but he was afraid to climb the ladder. So

Bonaparte looked up, and in the name of all that was tantalizing, questioned what the boy did up there. The

loft was used only as a lumberroom. What could the fellow find up there to keep him so long?

Could the Boerwoman have beheld Waldo at that instant, any lingering doubt which might have remained in

her mind as to the boy's insanity would instantly have vanished. For, having filled the saltpot, he proceeded

to look for the box of books among the rubbish that filled the loft. Under a pile of sacks he found ita rough

packingcase, nailed up, but with one loose plank. He lifted that, and saw the even backs of a row of books.

He knelt down before the box, and ran his hand along its rough edges, as if to assure himself of its existence.

He stuck his hand in among the books, and pulled out two. He felt them, thrust his fingers in among the

leaves, and crumpled them a little, as a lover feels the hair of his mistress. The fellow gloated over his

treasure. He had had a dozen books in the course of his life; now here was a mine of them opened at his feet.

After a while he began to read the titles, and now and again opened a book and read a sentence; but he was

too excited to catch the meanings distinctly. At last he came to a dull, brown volume. He read the name,

opened it in the centre, and where he opened began to read. It was a chapter on property that he fell

uponCommunism, Fourierism, St. Simonism, in a work on Political Economy. He read down one page and

turned over to the next; he read down that without changing his posture by an inch; he read the next, and the

All he read he did not fully understand; the thoughts were new to him; but this was the fellow's startled joy in

the bookthe thoughts were his, they belonged to him. He had never thought them before, but they were his.

So, then, all thinking creatures did not send up the one cry"As thou, dear Lord, has created things in the

beginning, so are they now, so ought they to be, so will they be, world without end; and it doesn't concern us

what they are. Amen." There were men to whom not only kopjes and stones were calling out imperatively,

"What are we, and how came we here? Understand us, and know us;" but to whom even the old, old relations

between man and man, and the customs of the ages called, and could not be made still and forgotten.

The boy's heavy body quivered with excitement. So he was not alone, not alone. He could not quite have told

any one why he was so glad, and this warmth had come to him. His cheeks were burning. No wonder that

Bonaparte called in vain, and Doss put his paws on the ladder, and whined till three quarters of an hour had

passed. At last the boy put the book in his breast and buttoned it tightly to him. He took up the salt pot, and

went to the top of the ladder. Bonaparte, with his hands folded under his coattails, looked up when he

"You've been rather a long time up there, my lad," he said, as the boy descended with a tremulous haste, most

Bonaparte whisked the tails of his coat up and down as he looked at him. He, Bonaparte Blenkins, had eyes

which were very farseeing. He looked at the pot. It was rather a small pot to have taken threequarters of an

hour in the filling. He looked at the face. It was flushed. And yet, Tant Sannie kept no winehe had not been

drinking; his eyes were wide open and brighthe had not been sleeping; there was no girl up therehe had

not been making love. Bonaparte looked at him sagaciously. What would account for the marvellous change

in the boy coming down the ladder from the boy going up the ladder? One thing there was. Did not Tant

Sannie keep in the loft bultongs, and nice smoked sausages? There must be something nice to eat up there!

Bonaparte was so interested in carrying out this chain of inductive reasoning that he quite forgot to have his

He watched the boy shuffle off with the saltpot under his arm; then he stood in his doorway and raised his

"What is the connection between the naked back of a certain boy with a greatcoat on and a saltpot under his

arm, and the tip of a horsewhip? Answer: No connection at present, but there will be soon."

Bonaparte was so pleased with this sally of his wit that he chuckled a little and went to lie down on his bed.

There was breadbaking that afternoon, and there was a fire lighted in the brick oven behind the house, and

Tant Sannie had left the great wooden elbowed chair in which she passed her life, and waddled out to look

at it. Not far off was Waldo, who, having thrown a pail of food into the pigsty, now leaned over the sod wall

looking at the pigs. Half of the sty was dry, but the lower half was a pool of mud, on the edge of which the

mother sow lay with closed eyes, her ten little ones sucking; the father pig, knee deep in the mud, stood

Waldo wondered dreamily as he stared why they were pleasant to look at. Taken singly they were not

beautiful; taken together they were. Was it not because there was a certain harmony about them? The old sow

was suited to the little pigs, and the little pigs to their mother, the old boar to the rotten pumpkin, and all to

the mud. They suggested the thought of nothing that should be added, of nothing that should be taken away.

And, he wondered on vaguely, was not that the secret of all beauty, that you who look on So he stood

dreaming, and leaned further and further over the sod wall, and looked at the pigs.

All this time Bonaparte Blenkins was sloping down from the house in an aimless sort of way; but he kept one

eye fixed on the pigsty, and each gyration brought him nearer to it. Waldo stood like a thing asleep when

In old days, when a small boy, playing in an Irish streetgutter, he, Bonaparte, had been familiarly known

among his comrades under the title of Tripping Ben; this, from the rare ease and dexterity with which, by

merely projecting his foot, he could precipitate any unfortunate companion on to the crown of his head. Years

had elapsed, and Tripping Ben had become Bonaparte; but the old gift was in him still. He came close to the

pigsty. All the defunct memories of his boyhood returned on him in a flood, as, with an adroit movement, he

The little pigs were startled at the strange intruder, and ran behind their mother, who sniffed at him. Tant

Sannie smote her hands together and laughed; but Bonaparte was far from joining her. Lost in reverie, he

The sudden reversal of head and feet had thrown out the volume that Waldo carried in his breast. Bonaparte

picked it up and began to inspect it, as the boy climbed slowly over the wall. He would have walked off

"Ha!" said Bonaparte, raising his eyes from the leaves of the book which he was examining, "I hope your coat

has not been injured; it is of an elegant cut. An heirloom, I presume, from your paternal grandfather? It looks

"Oh, Lord! oh! Lord!" cried Tant Sannie, laughing and holding her sides; how the child looksas though he

thought the mud would never wash off. Oh, Lord, I shall die! You, Bonaparte, are the funniest man I ever

Bonaparte Blenkins was now carefully inspecting the volume he had picked up. Among the subjects on which

the darkness of his understanding had been enlightened during his youth, Political Economy had not been

one. He was not, therefore, very clear as to what the nature of the book might be; and as the name of the

writer, J.S. Mill, might, for anything he knew to the contrary, have belonged to a venerable member of the

British and Foreign Bible Society, it by no means threw light upon the question. He was not in any way sure

that Political Economy had nothing to do with the cheapest way of procuring clothing for the army and navy,

But Bonaparte soon came to a conclusion as to the nature of the book and its contents, by the application of a

simple rule now largely acted upon, but which, becoming universal, would save much thought and valuable

time. It is of marvellous simplicity, of infinite utility, of universal applicability. It may easily be committed to

Whenever you come into contact with any book, person, or opinion of which you absolutely comprehend

nothing, declare that book, person or opinion to be immoral. Bespatter it, vituperate against it, strongly insist

that any man or woman harbouring it is a fool or a knave, or both. Carefully abstain from studying it. Do all

Acting on this rule, so wide in its comprehensiveness, so beautifully simple in its working, Bonaparte

approached Tant Sannie with the book in his hand. Waldo came a step nearer, eyeing it like a dog whose

"This book," said Bonaparte, "is not a fit and proper study for a young and immature mind."

"This book," said Bonaparte, bringing down his finger with energy on the cover, "this book is sleg, sleg,

Tant Sannie perceived from the gravity of his countenance that it was no laughing matter. From the words

"sleg" and "Davel" she understood that the book was evil, and had some connection with the prince who pulls

"Where did you get this book?" she asked, turning her twinkling little eyes on Waldo. "I wish that my legs

may be as thin as an Englishman's if it isn't one of your father's. He had more sins than all the Kaffers in

Kafferland, for all that he pretended to be so good all those years, and to live without a wife because he was

thinking of the one that was dead! As though ten dead wives could make up for one fat one with arms and

"It was not my father's book," said the boy savagely. "I got it from your loft."

"Give it here. What is the name of it? What is it about?" she asked, putting her finger upon the title.

"Dear Lord!" said Tant Sannie, "cannot one hear from the very sound what an ungodly book it is! One can

hardly say the name. Haven't we got curses enough on this farm?" cried Tant Sannie, eloquently; "my best

imported Merino ram dying of nobody knows what, and the shorthorn cow casting her two calves, and the

sheep eaten up with the scab and the drought? And is this a time to bring ungodly things about the place, to

call down the vengeance of Almighty God to punish us more? Didn't the minister tell me when I was

confirmed not to read any book except my Bible and hymnbook, that the devil was in all the rest? And I

never have read any other book," said Tant Sannie with virtuous energy, "and I never will!"

Waldo saw that the fate of his book was sealed, and turned sullenly on his heel.

"So you will not stay to hear what I say!" cried Tant Sannie. "There, take your Politygollitygominy, your

"Go on," she cried; "I know you are going to talk to yourself. People who talk to themselves always talk to

But the boy neither quickened nor slackened his pace, and passed sullenly round the back of the

Books have been thrown at other heads before and since that summer afternoon, by hands more white and

delicate than those of the Boerwoman; but whether the result of the process has been in any case wholly

satisfactory, may be questioned. We love that with a peculiar tenderness, we treasure it with a peculiar care, it

has for us quite a fictitious value, for which we have suffered. If we may not carry it anywhere else we will

Bonaparte Blenkins went to pick up the volume, now loosened from its cover, while Tant Sannie pushed the

stumps of wood further into the oven. Bonaparte came close to her, tapped the book knowingly, nodded, and

looked at the fire. Tant Sannie comprehended, and, taking the volume from his hand, threw it into the back of

the oven. It lay upon the heap of coals, smoked, flared, and blazed, and the "Political Economy" was no

Bonaparte grinned, and to watch the process brought his face so near the oven door that the white hair on his

Learning that there were, he made signs indicative of taking up armfuls and flinging them into the fire. But

Tant Sannie was dubious. The deceased Englishman had left all his personal effects specially to his child. It

was all very well for Bonaparte to talk of burning the books. He had had his hair spiritually pulled, and she

She shook her head. Bonaparte was displeased. But then a happy thought occurred to him. He suggested that

the key of the loft should henceforth be put into his own safe care and keepingno one gaining possession

of it without his permission. To this Tant Sannie readily assented, and the two walked lovingly to the house

Bonaparte Blenkins was riding home on the grey mare. He had ridden out that afternoon, partly for the

benefit of his health, partly to maintain his character as overseer of the farm. As he rode on slowly, he

"No, Bon, my boy," he addressed himself, "don't propose! You can't marry for four years, on account of the

will; then why propose? Wheedle her, tweedle her, teedle her, but don't let her make sure of you. When a

woman," said Bonaparte, sagely resting his finger against the side of his nose, "When a woman is sure of you

she does what she likes with you; but when she isn't, you do what you like with her. And I" said

Here he drew the horse up suddenly and looked. He was now close to the house, and leaning over the pigsty

wall, in company with Em, who was showing her the pigs, was a strange female figure. It was the first visitor

that had appeared on the farm since his arrival, and he looked at her with interest. She was a tall, pudgy girl

of fifteen, weighing a hundred and fifty pounds, with baggy pendulous cheeks and upturned nose. She

strikingly resembled Tant Sannie, in form and feature, but her sleepy good eyes lacked that twinkle that dwelt

in the Boerwoman's small orbs. She was attired in a bright green print, wore brass rings in her ears and glass

beads round her neck, and was sucking the tip of her large finger as she looked at the pigs.

"Who is it that has come?" asked Bonaparte, when he stood drinking his coffee in the front room.

"Why, my niece, to be sure," said Tant Sannie, the Hottentot maid translating. "She's the only daughter of my

only brother Paul, and she's come to visit me. She'll be a nice mouthful to the man that can get her," added

Tant Sannie. "Her father's got two thousand pounds in the green wagon box under his bed, and a farm, and

five thousand sheep, and God Almighty knows how many goats and horses. They milk ten cows in mid

winter, and the young men are after her like flies about a bowl of milk. She says she means to get married in

four months, but she doesn't yet know to whom. It was so with me when I was young," said Tant Sannie.

"I've sat up with the young men four and five nights a week. And they will come riding again, as soon as ever

they know that the time's up that the Englishman made me agree not to marry in."

"Where are you going to?" asked Tant Sannie presently, seeing that Bonaparte rose.

Nevertheless, when he reached his own door he stopped and turned in there. Soon after he stood before the

little glass, arrayed in his best white shirt with the little tucks, and shaving himself. He had on his very best

trousers, and had heavily oiled the little fringe at the back of his head, which, however, refused to become

darker. But what distressed him most was his noseit was very red. He rubbed his finger and thumb on the

wall, and put a little whitewash on it; but, finding it rather made matters worse, he rubbed it off again. Then

he looked carefully into his own eyes. They certainly were a little pulled down at the outer corners, which

gave them the appearance of looking crosswise; but then they were a nice blue. So he put on his best coat,

"Aunt," said Trana to Tant Sannie when that night they lay together in the great wooden bed, "why does the

"Ha!" said Tant Sannie, who was half asleep, but suddenly started, wide awake. "It's because he thinks you

look like me. I tell you, Trana," said Tant Sannie, "the man is mad with love of me. I told him the other night

I couldn't marry till Em was sixteen, or I'd lose all the sheep her father left me. And he talked about Jacob

working seven years and seven years again for his wife. And of course he meant me," said Tant Sannie

pompously. "But he won't get me so easily as he thinks; he'll have to ask more than once."

"Oh!" said Trana, who was a lumpish girl and not much given to talking; but presently she added, "Aunt, why

"Phugh!" said Tant Sannie. It's only because we're not accustomed to such noses in this country. In his

country he says all the people have such noses, and the redder your nose is the higher you are. He's of the

family of the Queen Victoria, you know," said Tant Sannie, wakening up with her subject; "and he doesn't

think anything of governors and church elders and such people; they are nothing to him. When his aunt with

"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only fortyone, though you'd take him to be sixty. And he told me last

Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age, Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady.

How a deadly rival, jealous of his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a damnable and

insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How, applying it in the evening, on rising in

the morning he found his pillow strewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the glass, beheld the shining

and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The few remaining hairs were turned to a silvery

"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace of God, and reading of the psalms, he says

he would have killed himself. He says he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman and

Every one was lost in sleep soon; but from the window of the cabin the light streamed forth. It came from a

dung fire, over which Waldo sat brooding. Hour after hour he sat there, now and again throwing a fresh lump

of fuel on to the fire, which burnt up bravely, and then sank into a great bed of red coals, which reflected

themselves in the boy's eyes as he sat there brooding, brooding, brooding. At last, when the fire was blazing

at its brightest, he rose suddenly and walked slowly to a beam from which an ox riem hung. Loosening it, he

"Mine, mine! I have a right," he muttered; and then something louder, "if I fall and am killed, so much the

He walked with his eyes bent upon the ground, but overhead it was one of those brilliant southern nights

when every space so small that your hand might cover it shows fifty cold white points, and the MilkyWay is

a belt of sharp frosted silver. He passed the door where Bonaparte lay dreaming of Trana and her wealth, and

he mounted the ladder steps. From those he clambered with some difficulty on to the roof of the house. It was

of old rotten thatch with a ridge of white plaster, and it crumbled away under his feet at every step. He trod as

He knelt down when he got to the far gable, and began to fasten his riem to the crumbling bricks. Below was

the little window of the loft. With one end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist,

how easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the broken panes, and to go in, and to fill his arms

with books, and to clamber up again! They had burnt one bookhe would have twenty. Every man's hand

was against hishis should be against every man's. No one would help himhe would help himself.

He lifted the black damp hair from his knit forehead, and looked round to cool his hot face. Then he saw what

a regal night it was. He knelt silently and looked up. A thousand eyes were looking down at him, bright and

He was ashamed. He folded his arms, and sat on the ridge of the roof looking up at them.

It was as though a cold hand had been laid upon his throbbing forehead, and slowly they began to fade and

grow dim. Tant Sannie and the burnt book, Bonaparte and the broken machine, the box in the loft, he himself

sitting therehow small they all became! Even the grave over yonder. Those stars that shone on up above so

quietly, they had seen a thousand such little existences fight just so fiercely, flare up just so brightly and go

"We," said the stars, have seen the earth when it was young. We have seen small things creep out upon its

surfacesmall things that prayed and loved and cried very loudly, and then crept under it again. But we,"

He leaned his chin against the palm of his hand and looked up at them. So long he sat there that bright stars

What did it matter about the books? The lust and the desire for them had died out. If they pleased to keep

them from him they might. What matter? it was a very little thing. Why hate, and struggle, and fight? Let it

By this time Bonaparte Blenkins had finished his dream of Trana, and as he turned himself round for a fresh

doze he heard the steps descending the ladder. His first impulse was to draw the blanket over his head and his

legs under him, and to shout; but recollecting that the door was locked and the window carefully bolted, he

allowed his head slowly to crop out among the blankets, and listened intently. Whosoever it might be, there

was no danger of their getting at him; so he clambered out of bed, and going on tiptoe to the door, applied his

eye to the keyhole. There was nothing to be seen; so walking to the window, he brought his face as close to

the glass as his nose would allow. There was a figure just discernible. The lad was not trying to walk softly,

and the heavy shuffling of the well known velschoens could be clearly heard through the closed window as

they crossed the stones in the yard. Bonaparte listened till they had died away round the corner of the

wagonhouse; and, feeling that his bare legs were getting cold, he jumped back into bed again.

"What do you keep up in your loft?" inquired Bonaparte of the Boerwoman the next evening, pointing

upwards and elucidating his meaning by the addition of such Dutch words as he knew, for the lean Hottentot

"Dried skins," said the Boerwoman, "and empty bottles, and boxes, and sacks, and soap."

"You don't keep any of your provisions theresugar, now?" said Bonaparte, pointing to the sugarbasin and

"Dried peaches! Eh?" said Bonaparte. "Shut the door, my dear child, shut it tight," he called out to Em, who

stood in the dining room. Then he leaned over the elbow of the sofa and brought his face as close as possible

to the Boerwoman's, and made signs of eating. Then he said something she did not comprehend; then said,

Now an inkling of his meaning dawned on the Boerwoman's mind. To make it clearer, he moved his legs

after the manner of one going up a ladder, appeared to be opening a door, masticated vigorously, said,

It was now evident to Tant Sannie that Waldo had been in her loft and eaten her peaches.

To exemplify his own share in the proceedings, Bonaparte lay down on the sofa, and shutting his eyes tightly,

said, "Night, night, night!" Then he sat up wildly, appearing to be intently listening, mimicked with his feet

the coming down a ladder, and looked at Tant Sannie. This clearly showed how, roused in the night, he had

"He must have been a great fool to eat my peaches," said Tant Sannie. "They are full of mites as a sheepskin,

Bonaparte, fumbling in his pocket, did not even hear her remark, and took out from his coattail a little

horsewhip, nicely rolled up. Bonaparte winked at the little rhinoceros horsewhip, at the Boerwoman, and

Tant Sannie nodded, and giggled. There was something so exceedingly humorous in the idea that he was

going to beat the boy, though for her own part she did not see that the peaches were worth it. When the

Kaffer maid came with the washtub she was sent to summon Waldo; and Bonaparte doubled up the little

whip and put it in his pocket. Then he drew himself up, and prepared to act his important part with becoming

"You need not be so afraid, child," said Tant Sannie. "I was a child myself once. It's no great harm if you

Bonaparte perceived that her remark was not in keeping with the nature of the proceedings, and of the little

drama he intended to act. Pursing out his lips, and waving his hand, he solemnly addressed the boy.

"Waldo, it grieves me beyond expression to have to summon you for so painful a purpose; but it is at the

imperative call of duty, which I dare not evade. I do not state that frank and unreserved confession will

obviate the necessity of chastisement, which if requisite shall be fully administered; but the nature of that

chastisement may be mitigated by free and humble confession. Waldo, answer me as you would your own

father, in whose place I now stand to you; have you, or have you not, did you, or did you not, eat of the

"Say you took them, boy, say you took them, then he won't beat you much," said the Dutchwoman,

The boy raised his eyes slowly and fixed them vacantly upon her, then suddenly his face grew dark with

"So, you haven't got anything to say to us, my lad?" said Bonaparte, momentarily forgetting his dignity, and

bending forward with a little snarl. "But what I mean is just this, my ladwhen it takes a boy three quarters

of an hour to fill a saltpot, and when at three o'clock in the morning he goes knocking about the doors of a

loft, it's natural to suppose there's mischief in it. It's certain there is mischief in it; and where there's mischief

in, it must be taken out," said Bonaparte, grinning into the boy's face. Then, feeling that he had fallen from

that high gravity which was as spice to the pudding, and the flavour of the whole little tragedy, he drew

himself up. "Waldo," he said, "confess to me instantly, and without reserve, that you ate the peaches."

The boy's face was white now. His eyes were on the ground, his hands doggedly clasped before him.

The boy looked up at them once from under his bent eyebrows, and then looked down again.

"The creature looks as if all the devils in hell were in it," cried Tant Sannie. "Say you took them, boy. Young

things will be young things; I was older than you when I used to eat bultong in my mother's loft, and get the

"I think a little solitary confinement might perhaps be beneficial," said Bonaparte. "It will enable you, Waldo,

to reflect on the enormity of the sin you have committed against our Father in heaven. And you may also

think of the submission you owe to those who are older and wiser than you are, and whose duty it is to check

Saying this, Bonaparte stood up and took down the key of the fuelhouse, which hung on a nail against the

"Walk on, my boy," said Bonaparte, pointing to the door; and as he followed him out he drew his mouth

expressively on one side, and made the lash of the little horsewhip stick out of his pocket and shake up and

Tant Sannie felt half sorry for the lad; but she could not help laughing, it was always so funny when one was

going to have a whipping, and it would do him good. Anyhow, he would forget all about it when the places

Bonaparte took up a lighted candle that had been left burning on the kitchen table, and told the boy to walk

before him. They went to the fuel house. It was a little stone erection that jutted out from the side of the

wagonhouse. It was low and without a window, and the dried dung was piled in one corner, and the

coffeemill stood in another, fastened on the top of a short post about three feet high. Bonaparte took the

Waldo obeyed sullenly; one place to him was much the same as another. He had no objection to being locked

Bonaparte followed him in, and closed the door carefully. He put the light down on the heap of dung in the

corner, and quietly introduced his hand under his coattails, and drew slowly from his pocket the end of a

"I'm very sorry, exceedingly sorry, Waldo, my lad, that you should have acted in this manner. It grieves me,"

He moved round toward the boy's back. He hardly liked the look in the fellow's eyes, though he stood there

So he drew the rope out very carefully, and shifted round to the wooden post. There was a slipknot in one end

of the rope, and a sudden movement drew the boy's hands to his back and passed it round them. It was an

For a moment the boy struggled to free himself; then he knew that he was powerless, and stood still.

"Horses that kick must have their legs tied," said Bonaparte, as he passed the other end of the rope round the

boy's knees. "And now, my dear Waldo," taking the whip out of his pocket, "I am going to beat you."

He paused for a moment. It was perfectly quiet; they could hear each other's breath.

"'Chasten thy son while there is hope,'" said Bonaparte, "'and let not thy soul spare for his crying.' Those are

God's words. I shall act as a father to you, Waldo. I think we had better have your naked back."

He took out his penknife, and slit the shirt down from the shoulder to the waist.

"Now," said Bonaparte, "I hope the Lord will bless and sanctify to you what I am going to do to you."

The first cut ran from the shoulder across the middle of the back; the second fell exactly in the same place. A

"Nice, eh?" said Bonaparte, peeping round into his face, speaking with a lisp, as though to a very little child.

But the eyes were black and lustreless, and seemed not to see him. When he had given sixteen Bonaparte

"Cold, eh? What makes you shiver so? Perhaps you would like to pull up your shirt? But I've not quite done

When he had finished he wiped the whip again, and put it back in his pocket. He cut the rope through with his

"You don't seem to have found your tongue yet. Forgotten how to cry?" said Bonaparte, patting him on the

The boy looked up at himnot sullenly, not angrily. There was a wild, fitful terror in the eyes. Bonaparte

made haste to go out and shut the door, and leave him alone in the darkness. He himself was afraid of that

It was almost morning. Waldo lay with his face upon the ground at the foot of the fuelheap. There was a

round hole near the top of the door, where a knot of wood had fallen out, and a stream of grey light came in

Ah, it was going to end at last. Nothing lasts forever, not even the night. How was it he had never thought of

that before? For in all that long dark night he had been very strong, had never been tired, never felt pain, had

run on and on, up and down, up and down; he had not dared to stand still, and he had not known it would end.

He had been so strong, that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stone wall it did not stun him

When he clasped his hands frantically and prayed"O God, my beautiful God, my sweet God, once, only

once, let me feel you near me tonight!" he could not feel him. He prayed aloud, very loud, and he got no

answer; when he listened it was all quite quietlike when the priests of Baal cried aloud to their god"Oh,

That was a long wild night, and wild thoughts came and went in it; but they left their marks behind them

forever: for, as years cannot pass without leaving their traces behind them, neither can nights into which are

forced the thoughts and sufferings of years. And now the dawn was coming, and at last he was very tired. He

shivered and tried to draw the shirt up over his shoulders. They were getting stiff. He had never known they

were cut in the night. He looked up at the white light that came in through the hole at the top of the door and

Some hours later Bonaparte came toward the fuelhouse with a lump of bread in his hand. He opened the

door and peered in; then entered, and touched the fellow with his boot. Seeing that he breathed heavily,

though he did not rouse, Bonaparte threw the bread down on the ground. He was alive, that was one thing. He

bent over him, and carefully scratched open one of the cuts with the nail of his forefinger, examining with

much interest his last night's work. He would have to count his sheep himself that day; the boy was literally

"Oh, Lyndall," said Em, entering the dining room, and bathed in tears, that afternoon, "I have been begging

"Oh, but it's late, and I think they want to kill him," said Em, weeping bitterly; and finding that no more

consolation was to be gained from her cousin, she went off blubbering"I wonder you can cut out aprons

For ten minutes after she was gone Lyndall worked on quietly; then she folded up her stuff, rolled it tightly

together, and stood before the closed door of the sitting room with her hands closely clasped. A flush rose to

her face: she opened the door quickly, and walked in, went to the nail on which the key of the fuelroom

So they looked at each other, talking, while Lyndall walked to the fuel house with the key, her underlip

"Waldo," she said, as she helped him to stand up, and twisted his arm about her waist to support him, "we

will not be children always; we shall have the power, too, some day." She kissed his naked shoulder with her

"Here," said Tant Sannie to her Hottentot maid, "I have been in this house four years, and never been up in

the loft. Fatter women than I go up ladders; I will go up today and see what it is like, and put it to rights up

"There's one would be sorry if you were to fall," said the Hottentot maid, leering at Bonaparte's pipe, that lay

"Hold your tongue, jade," said her mistress, trying to conceal a pleased smile, "and go and fetch the ladder."

There was a neverused trapdoor at one end of the sitting room: this the Hottentot maid pushed open, and

setting the ladder against it, the Boer woman with some danger and difficulty climbed into the loft. Then the

Hottentot maid took the ladder away, as her husband was mending the wagon house, and needed it; but the

For a little while Tant Sannie poked about among the empty bottles and skins, and looked at the bag of

peaches that Waldo was supposed to have liked so; then she sat down near the trapdoor beside a barrel of

salt mutton. She found that the pieces of meat were much too large, and took out her claspknife to divide

That was always the way when one left things to servants, she grumbled to herself: but when once she was

married to her husband Bonaparte it would not matter whether a sheep spoiled or nowhen once his rich

aunt with the dropsy was dead. She smiled as she dived her hand into the picklewater.

At that instant her niece entered the room below, closely followed by Bonaparte, with his head on one side,

smiling mawkishly. Had Tant Sannie spoken at that moment the life of Bonaparte Blenkins would have run a

wholly different course; as it was, she remained silent, and neither noticed the open trapdoor above their

"Sit there, my love," said Bonaparte, motioning Trana into her aunt's elbowchair, and drawing another close

up in front of it, in which he seated himself. "There, put your feet upon the stove too. Your aunt has gone out

Trana, who understood not one word of English, sat down in the chair and wondered if this was one of the

strange customs of other lands, that an old gentleman may bring his chair up to yours, and sit with his knees

touching you. She had been five days in Bonaparte's company, and feared the old man, and disliked his nose.

"How long have I desired this moment!" said Bonaparte. "But that aged relative of thine is always casting her

Bonaparte knew that she comprehended not a syllable; but he understood that it is the eye, the tone, the

action, and not at all the rational word, that touches the lovechords. He saw she changed colour.

"All night," said Bonaparte, "I lie awake; I see naught but thy angelic countenance. I open my arms to receive

theewhere art thou, where? Thou art not there!" said Bonaparte, suiting the action to the words, and

"Yes, yes," said Bonaparte, leaning back in his chair, to her great relief, and pressing his hands on his heart,

"since first thy amethystine countenance was impressed herewhat have I not suffered, what have I not felt?

Oh, the pangs unspoken, burning as an ardent coal in a fiery and uncontaminated bosom!" said Bonaparte,

"Dear Lord!" said Trana to herself, "how foolish I have been! The old man has a pain in his stomach, and

She smiled kindly at Bonaparte, and pushing past him, went to the bedroom, quickly returning with a bottle

"They are very good for benauwdheid; my mother always drinks them," she said, holding the bottle out.

The face in the trapdoor was a fiery red. Like a tigercat ready to spring. Tant Sannie crouched, with the

shoulder of mutton in her hand. Exactly beneath her stood Bonaparte. She rose and clasped with both arms

"What, rose of the desert, nightingale of the colony, that with thine amorous lay whilest the lonesome night!"

cried Bonaparte, seizing the hand that held the vonlicsense. Nay, struggle not! Fly as a stricken fawn into the

Here a stream of cold picklewater, heavy with ribs and shoulders, descending on his head abruptly

terminated his speech. Halfblinded, Bonaparte looked up through the drops that hung from his eyelids, and

saw the red face that looked down at him. With one wild cry he fled. As he passed out at the front door a

shoulder of mutton, welldirected, struck the black coat in the small of the back.

"Bring the ladder! bring the ladder! I will go after him!" cried the Boer woman, as Bonaparte Blenkins

Late in the evening of the same day Waldo knelt on the floor of his cabin. He bathed the foot of his dog

which had been pierced by a thorn. The bruises on his own back had had five days to heal in, and, except a

The troubles of the young are soon over; they leave no external mark. If you wound the tree in its youth the

bark will quickly cover the gash; but when the tree is very old, peeling the bark off, and looking carefully,

Waldo poured the warm milk over the little swollen foot; Doss lay very quiet, with tears in his eyes. Then

there was a tap at the door. In an instant Doss looked wide awake, and winked the tears out from between his

"Come in," said Waldo, intent on his work; and slowly and cautiously the door opened.

"Good evening, Waldo, my boy," said Bonaparte Blenkins in a mild voice, not venturing more than his nose

Doss growled and showed his little teeth, and tried to rise, but his paw hurt him so he whined.

Doss showed his little white teeth again. His master went on with his work without looking round. There are

Bonaparte stepped cautiously a little way into the room, and left the door open behind him. He looked at the

"You won't go and tell her that I am here, will you, Waldo?" said Bonaparte most uneasily. "You've heard

how she used me, Waldo? I've been badly treated; you'll know yourself what it is some day when you can't

carry on a little conversation with a lady without having salt meat and picklewater thrown at you. Waldo,

"You wouldn't go and tell her that I am here, would you?" said Bonaparte, whiningly. "There's no knowing

what she would do to me. I've such trust in you, Waldo; I've always thought you such a promising lad, though

Bonaparte, who knew the truth when another spoke it, closed the door, carefully putting on the button. Then

he looked to see that the curtain of the window was closely pulled down, and seated himself at the table. He

was soon munching the cold meat and bread. Waldo knelt on the floor, bathing the foot with hands which the

dog licked lovingly. Once only he glanced at the table, and turned away quickly.

"Ah, yes! I don't wonder that you can't look at me, Waldo," said Bonaparte; "my condition would touch any

heart. You see, the water was fatty, and that has made all the sand stick to me; and my hair," said Bonaparte,

tenderly touching the little fringe at the back of his head, "is all caked over like a little plank; you wouldn't

think it was hair at all," said Bonaparte, plaintively. "I had to creep all along the stone walls for fear she'd see

me, and with nothing on my head but a red handkerchief, tied under my chin, Waldo; and to hide in a sloot

the whole day, with not a mouthful of food, Waldo. And she gave me such a blow, just here," said Bonaparte.

He had cleared the plate of the last morsel, when Waldo rose and walked to the door.

"Oh, Waldo, my dear boy, you are not going to call her," said Bonaparte, rising anxiously.

"Oh, we can both sleep in this bed; there's plenty of room. Do stay, my boy, please."

"It was such a little whip, Waldo," said Bonaparte, following him deprecatingly. "I didn't think it would hurt

you so much. It was such a little whip. I am sure you didn't take the peaches. You aren't going to call her,

Bonaparte waited till his figure had passed round the front of the wagon house, and then slipped out. He hid

himself round the corner, but kept peeping out to see who was coming. He felt sure the boy was gone to call

Tant Sannie. His teeth chattered with inward cold as he looked round into the darkness and thought of the

snakes that might bite him, and the dreadful things that might attack him, and the dead that might arise out of

their graves if he slept out in the field all night. But more than an hour passed and no footstep approached.

Then Bonaparte made his way back to the cabin. He buttoned the door and put the table against it and, giving

the dog a kick to silence his whining when the foot throbbed, he climbed into bed. He did not put out the

light, for fear of the ghost, but, worn out with the sorrows of the day, was soon asleep himself.

About four o'clock Waldo, lying between the seats of the horsewagon, was awakened by a gentle touch on

Sitting up, he espied Bonaparte looking through one of the windows with a lighted candle in his hand.

"I'm about to depart, my dear boy, before my enemies arise, and I could not leave without coming to bid you

"I shall always think of you with affection" said Bonaparte. "And there's that old hat of yours, if you could let

"I thought you would say so, so I brought it with me," said Bonaparte, putting it on. "The Lord bless you, my

"May the blessing of my God rest upon you, my dear child," said Bonaparte; "may He guide and bless you.

"Farewell, adieu!" said Bonaparte. "May the blessing of my God and my father's God rest on you, now and

With these words the head and nose withdrew themselves, and the light vanished from the window.

After a few moments the boy, lying in the wagon, heard stealthy footsteps as they passed the wagonhouse

and made their way down the road. He listened as they grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away

altogether, and from that night the footstep of Bonaparte Blenkins was heard no more at the old farm.

Waldo lay on his stomach on the sand. Since he prayed and howled to his God in the fuelhouse three years

They say that in the world to come time is not measured out by months and years. Neither is it here. The

soul's life has seasons of its own; periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not

scan, but which are as deftly and sharply cut off from one another as the smoothlyarranged years which the

To stranger eyes these divisions are not evident; but each, looking back at the little track his consciousness

illuminates, sees it cut into distinct portions, whose boundaries are the termination of mental states.

As man differs from man, so differ these souls' years. The most material life is not devoid of them; the story

of the most spiritual is told in them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out after this

The year of infancy, where from the shadowy background of forgetfulness start out pictures of startling

clearness, disconnected, but brightly coloured, and indelibly printed in the mind. Much that follows fades, but

There rises, perhaps, a warm summer's evening; we are seated on the doorstep; we have yet the taste of the

Then there is a dark night, where, waking with a fear that there is some great being in the room, we run from

Then there is remembrance of the pride when, on some one's shoulder, with our arms around their head, we

ride to see the little pigs, the new little pigs with their curled tails and tiny snoutswhere do they come

Remembrance of delight in the feel and smell of the first orange we ever see; of sorrow which makes us put

up our lip, and cry hard, when one morning we run out to try and catch the dewdrops, and they melt and wet

our little fingers; of almighty and despairing sorrow when we are lost behind the kraals, and cannot see the

There has been a thunderstorm; the ground, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with white hail; the clouds

are gone, and overhead a deep blue sky is showing; far off a great rainbow rests on the white earth. We,

standing in a window to look, feel the cool, unspeakably sweet wind blowing in on us, and a feeling of

longing comes over usunutterable longing, we cannot tell for what. We are so small, our head only reaches

as high as the first three panes. We look at the white earth, and the rainbow, and the blue sky; and oh, we

want it, we wantwe do not know what. We cry as though our heart was broken. When one lifts our little

Now the pictures become continuous and connected. Material things still rule, but the spiritual and

In the dark night when we are afraid we pray and shut our eyes. We press our fingers very hard upon the lids,

and see dark spots moving round and round, and we know they are heads and wings of angels sent to take

care of us, seen dimly in the dark as they move round our bed. It is very consoling.

In the day we learn our letters, and are troubled because we cannot see why know should be know, and

psalm psalm. They tell us it is so because it is so. We are not satisfied; we hate to learn; we like better to

build little stone houses. We can build them as we please, and know the reason for them.

Other joys too we have incomparably greater then even the building of stone houses.

We are run through with a shudder of delight when in the red sand we come on one of those white wax

flowers that lie between their two green leaves flat on the sand. We hardly dare pick them, but we feel

compelled to do so; and we smell and smell till the delight becomes almost pain. Afterward we pull the green

Beyond the kopje grow some palegreen, hairyleaved bushes. We are so small, they meet over our head,

and we sit among them, and kiss them, and they love us back; it seems as though they were alive.

One day we sit there and look up at the blue sky, and down at our fat little knees; and suddenly it strikes us,

Who are we? This I, what is it? We try to look in upon ourselves, and ourself beats back upon ourself. Then

we get up in great fear and run home as hard as we can. We can't tell any one what frightened us. We never

And then a new time rises. We are seven years old. We can read nowread the Bible. Best of all we like the

One day, a notable one, we read on the kopje, and discover the fifth chapter of Matthew, and read it all

through. It is a new goldmine. Then we tuck the Bible under our arm and rushed home. They didn't know it

was wicked to take your things again if some one took them, wicked to go to law, wicked to! We are quite

breathless when we get to the house; we tell them we have discovered a chapter they never heard of; we tell

them what it says. The old wise people tell us they knew all about it. Our discovery is a mare'snest to them;

but to us it is very real. The ten commandments and the old "Thou shalt" we have heard about long enough

We will deny ourself. Our little wagon that we have made, we give to the little Kaffers. We keep quiet when

they throw sand at us (feeling, oh, so happy). We conscientiously put the cracked teacup for ourselves at

breakfast, and take the burnt roastercake. We save our money, and buy threepence of tobacco for the

Hottentot maid who calls us names. We are exotically virtuous. At night we are profoundly religious; even

the ticking watch says, "Eternity, eternity! hell, hell, hell!" and the silence talks of God, and the things that

Occasionally, also, unpleasantly shrewd questions begin to be asked by some one, we know not who, who

Now we carry the questions to the grownup people, and they give us answers. We are more or less satisfied

for the time. The grownup people are very wise, and they say it was kind of God to make hell, and very

loving of Him to send men there; and besides, he couldn't help Himself, and they are very wise, we think, so

Then a new time comes, of which the leading feature is, that the shrewd questions are asked louder. We carry

And now between us and the dear old world of the senses the spiritworld begins to peep in, and wholly

clouds it over. What are the flowers to us? They are fuel waiting for the great burning. We look at the walls

of the farmhouse and the matteroffact sheepkraals, with the merry sunshine playing over all; and do not

see it. But we see a great white throne, and him that sits on it. Around Him stand a great multitude that no

man can number, harpers harping with their harps, a thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of

thousands. How white are their robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb! And the music rises higher, and

rends the vault of heaven with its unutterable sweetness. And we, as we listen, ever and anon, as it sinks on

the sweetest, lowest note, hear a groan of the damned from below. We shudder in the sunlight.

"The torment," says Jeremy Taylor, whose sermons our father reads aloud in the evening, "comprises as

many torments as the body of man has joints, sinews, arteries, etc., being caused by that penetrating and real

fire of which this temporal fire is but a painted fire. What comparison will there be between burning for a

hundred years' space and to be burning without intermission as long as God is God!"

We remember the sermon there in the sunlight. One comes and asks why we sit there nodding so moodily.

"A moment's time, a narrow space, Divides me from that heavenly place, Or shuts me up in hell."

So says Wesley's hymn, which we sing evening by evening. What matter sunshine and walls, men and sheep?

"The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." They are real.

The Bible we bear always in our breast; its pages are our food; we learn to repeat it; we weep much, for in

sunshine and in shade, in the early morning or the late evening, in the field or in the house, the devil walks

with us. He comes to a real person, coppercoloured face, head a little on one side, forehead knit, asking

questions. Believe me, it were better to be followed by three deadly diseases than by him. He is never

silencedwithout mercy. Though the drops of blood stand out on your heart he will put his question. Softly

he comes up (we are only a wee bit child); "Is it good of God to make hell? Was it kind of Him to let no one

"Do you love Him?"waits a little. "Do you love Him? You will be lost if you don't."

It is nothing to him if we go quite mad with fear at our own wickedness. He asks on, the questioning devil; he

cares nothing what he says. We long to tell some one, that they may share our pain. We do not yet know that

the cup of affliction is made with such a narrow mouth that only one lip can drink at a time, and that each

One day we try to tell some one. Then a grave head is shaken solemnly at us. We are wicked, very wicked,

they say we ought not to have such thoughts. God is good, very good. We are wicked, very wicked. That is

the comfort we get. Wicked! Oh, Lord! do we not know it? Is it not the sense of our own exceeding

wickedness that is drying up our young heart, filling it with sand, making all life a dustbin for us?

Wicked? We know it! Too vile to live, too vile to die, too vile to creep over this, God's earth, and move

among His believing men. Hell is the one place for him who hates his master, and there we do not want to go.

And once again we try to seek for comfort. This time great eyes look at us wondering, and lovely little lips

"If it makes you so unhappy to think of these things, why do you not think of something else, and forget?"

Forget! We turn away and shrink into ourself. Forget, and think of other things! Oh, God! do they not

understand that the material world is but a film, through every pore of which God's awful spirit world is

One night, a rare clear moonlight night, we kneel in the window; every one else is asleep, but we kneel

reading by the moonlight. It is a chapter in the prophets, telling how the chosen people of God shall be

carried on the Gentiles' shoulders. Surely the devil might leave us alone; there is not much to handle for him

"Is it right there should be a chosen people? To Him, who is father to all, should not all be dear?"

How can we answer him? We were feeling so good till he came. We put our head down on the Bible and

blister it with tears. Then we fold our hands over our head and pray, till our teeth grind together. Oh, that

from that spiritworld, so real and yet so silent, that surrounds us, one word would come to guide us! We are

left alone with this devil; and God does not whisper to us. Suddenly we seize the Bible, turning it round and

We turn the book, put our finger down on a page, and bend to read by the moonlight. It is God's answer. We

"Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also."

For an instant our imagination seizes it; we are twisting, twirling, trying to make an allegory. The fourteen

years are fourteen months; we are Paul and the devil is Barnabas, Titus is Then a sudden loathing comes to

us: we are liars and hypocrites, we are trying to deceive ourselves. What is Paul to usand Jerusalem? We

are Barnabas and Titus? We know not the men. Before we know we seize the book, swing it round our head,

and fling it with all our might to the further end of the room. We put down our head again and weep.

Youth and ignorance; is there anything else that can weep so? It is as though the tears were drops of blood

congealed beneath the eyelids; nothing else is like those tears. After a long time we are weak with crying, and

lie silent, and by chance we knock against the wood that stops the broken pane. It falls. Upon our hot stiff

face a sweet breath of wind blows. We raise our head, and with our swollen eyes look out at the beautiful still

world, and the sweet nightwind blows in upon us, holy and gentle, like a loving breath from the lips of God.

Over us a deep peace comes, a calm, still joy; the tears now flow readily and softly. Oh, the unutterable

gladness! At last, at last we have found it! "The peace with God." "The sense of sins forgiven." All doubt

vanished, God's voice in the soul, the Holy Spirit filling us! We feel Him! We feel Him! Oh, Jesus Christ,

through you, through you this joy! We press our hands upon our breast and look upward with adoring

gladness. Soft waves of bliss break through us. "The peace with God." "The sense of sins forgiven."

Methodists and revivalists say the words, and the mocking world shoots out its lip, and walks by

There are more fools and fewer hypocrites than the wise world dreams of. The hypocrite is rare as icebergs in

the tropics; the fool common as buttercups beside a waterfurrow: whether you go this way or that you tread

on him; you dare not look at your own reflection in the water but you see one. There is no cant phrase, rotten

with age, but it was the dress of a living body; none but at heart it signifies a real bodily or mental condition

After hours and nights of frenzied fear of the supernatural desire to appease the power above, a fierce

quivering excitement in every inch of nerve and blood vessel, there comes a time when nature cannot endure

longer, and the spring long bent recoils. We sink down emasculated. Up creeps the deadly delicious calm.

"I have blotted out as a cloud thy sins, and as a thick cloud thy trespasses, and will remember them no more

A few experience this; many imagine they experience it, one here and there lies about it. In the main, "The

peace with God; a sense of sins forgiven," stands for a certain mental and physical reaction. Its reality those

And we, on that moonlight night, put down our head on the window, "Oh, God! we are happy, happy; thy

Next morning the Bible we kiss. We are God's forever. We go out to work, and it goes happily all day,

happily all night; but hardly so happily, not happily at all, the next day; and the next night the devil asks us,

So month by month, summer and winter, the old life goes onreading, praying, weeping, praying. They tell

us we become utterly stupid. We know it. Even the multiplication table we learnt with so much care we

forgot. The physical world recedes further and further from us. Truly we love not the world, neither the things

that are in it. Across the bounds of sleep our grief follows us. When we wake in the night we are sitting up in

bed weeping bitterly, or find ourself outside in the moonlight, dressed, and walking up and down, and

wringing our hands, and we cannot tell how we came there. So pass two years, as men reckon them.

All things take rest in sleep; the beasts, birds, the very flowers close their eyes, and the streams are still in

winter; all things take rest; then why not the human reason also? So the questioning devil in us drops asleep,

and in that sleep a beautiful dream rises for us. Though you hear all the dreams of men, you will hardly find a

In the centre of all things is a mighty Heart, which, having begotten all things, loves them; and, having born

them into life, beats with great throbs of love towards them. No death for His dear insects, no hell for His

dear men, no burning up for His dear worldHis own, own world that he has made. In the end all will be

beautiful. Do not ask us how we make our dream tally with facts; the glory of a dream is thisthat it

despises facts, and makes its own. Our dream saves us from going mad; that is enough.

Its peculiar point of sweetness lay here. When the Mighty Heart's yearning of love became too great for other

Jesus! you Jesus of our dream! how we loved you; no Bible tells of you as we knew you. Your sweet hands

held ours fast; your sweet voice said always, "I am here, my loved one, not far off; put your arms about me,

We find Him in everything in those days. When the little weary lamb we drive home drags its feet, we seize

on it, and carry it with its head against our face. His little lamb! We feel we have got Him.

When the drunken Kaffer lies by the road in the sun we draw his blanket over his head, and put green

In the evening, when the clouds lift themselves like gates, and the red lights shine through them, we cry; for

in such glory He will come, and the hands that ache to touch Him will hold him, and we shall see the

beautiful hair and eyes of our God. "Lift up your heads, O, ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors,

The purple flowers, the little purple flowers, are His eyes, looking at us. We kiss them, and kneel alone on the

flat, rejoicing over them. And the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for Him, and the desert shall

If ever, in our tearful, joyful ecstasy, the poor, sleepy, halfdead devil should raise his head, we laugh at him.

"If there should be a hell, after all!" he mutters. "If your God should be cruel! If there should be no God! If

We laugh at him. When a man sits in the warm sunshine, do you ask him for proof of it? He feelsthat is all.

We do not believe in our God because the Bible tells us of Him. We believe in the Bible because He tells us

of it. We feel Him, we feel Him, we feel that is all! And the poor, halfswamped devil mutters:

"It will never comenever," and the poor devil slinks to sleep again, with his tail between his legs. Fierce

assertion many times repeated is hard to stand against; only time separates the truth from the lie. So we dream

One day we go with our father to town, to church. The townspeople rustle in their silks, and the men in their

sleek cloth, and settle themselves in their pews, and the light shines in through the windows on the artificial

flowers in the women's bonnets. We have the same miserable feeling that we have in a shop where all the

clerks are very smart. We wish our father hadn't brought us to town, and we were out on the karoo. Then the

man in the pulpit begins to preach. His text is "He that believeth not shall be damned."

The day before the magistrate's clerk, who was an atheist, has died in the street struck by lightning.

The man in the pulpit mentions no name; but he talks of "The hand of God made visible amongst us." He tells

us how, when the white stroke fell, quivering and naked, the soul fled, robbed of his earthly filament, and lay

at the footstool of God; how over its head has been poured out the wrath of the Mighty One, whose existence

it has denied; and, quivering and terrified, it has fled to the everlasting shade.

We, as we listen, half start up; every drop of blood in our body has rushed to our head. He lies! he lies! he

lies! That man in the pulpit lies! Will no one stop him? Have none of them hearddo none of them know,

that when the poor, dark soul shut its eyes on earth it opened them in the still light of heaven? that there is no

wrath where God's face is? that if one could once creep to the footstool of God, there is everlasting peace

there, like the fresh stillness of the early morning? While the atheist lay wondering and afraid, God bent

down and said: "My child, here I amI, whom you have not known; I, whom you have not believed in; I am

here. I sent My messenger, the white sheetlightning, to call you home. I am here."

"For a little moment have I hidden my face from thee; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon

We mutter on to ourselves, till some one pulls us violently by the arm to remind us we are in church. We see

Presently every one turns to pray. There are six hundred souls lifting themselves to the Everlasting light.

Behind us sit two pretty ladies; one hands her scentbottle softly to the other, and a mother pulls down her

little girl's frock. One lady drops her handkerchief; a gentleman picks it up; she blushes. The women in the

choir turn softly the leaves of their tunebooks, to be ready when the praying is done. It is as though they

thought more of the singing than the Everlasting Father. Oh, would it not be more worship of Him to sit alone

in the karoo and kiss one little purple flower that he had made? Is it not mockery? Then the thought comes,

"What doest thou here, Elijah?" We who judge, what are we better than they?rather worse. Is it any excuse

to say, "I am but a child and must come?" Does God allow any soul to step in between the spirit he made and

himself? What do we there in that place, where all the words are lies against the All Father? Filled with

horror, we turn and flee out of the place. On the pavement we smite our foot, and swear in our child's soul

never again to enter those places where men come to sing and pray. We are questioned afterward. Why was it

How can we explain?we stand silent. Then we are pressed further, and we try to tell. Then a head is shaken

solemnly at us. No one can think it wrong to go to the house of the Lord; it is the idle excuse of a wicked boy.

When will we think seriously of our souls, and love going to church? We are wicked, very wicked. And

wewe slink away and go alone to cry. Will it be always so? Whether we hate and doubt, or whether we

We do not yet know that in the soul's search for truth the bitterness lies here, the striving cannot always hide

itself among the thoughts; sooner or later it will clothe itself in outward action; then it steps in and divides

between the soul and what it loves. All things on earth have their price; and for truth we pay the dearest. We

barter it for love and sympathy. The road to honour is paved with thorns; but on the path to truth, at every

Then at last a new timethe time of waking; short, sharp, and not pleasant, as wakings often are.

And now life takes us up between her finger and thumb, shakes us furiously, till our poor nodding head is

wellnigh rolled from our shoulders, and she sets us down a little hard on the bare earth, bruised and sore, but

We have said in our days of dreaming, "Injustice and wrong are a seeming; pain is a shadow. Our God, He is

Now life takes us by the neck and shows us a few other things,newmade graves with the red sand flying

about them; eyes that we love with the worms eating them; evil men walking sleek and fat, the whole terrible

hurlyburly of the thing called life,and she says, "What do you think of these?" We dare not say

"Nothing." We feel them; they are very real. But we try to lay our hands about and feel that other thing we

felt before. In the dark night in the fuelroom we cry to our Beautiful dreamgod: "Oh, let us come near you,

and lay our head against your feet. Now in our hour of need be near us." But He is not there; He is gone

We must have been awakened sooner or later. The imagination cannot always triumph over reality, the desire

over truth. We must have been awakened. If it was done a little sharply, what matter? It was done thoroughly,

And a new life begins for usa new time, a life as cold as that of a man who sits on the pinnacle of an

iceberg and sees the glittering crystals all about him. The old looks indeed like a long hot delirium, peopled

Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and

never liked: the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and

we see what he was made ofthe shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned. Now we have no God.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." It may be so. Most things said or written have been the

This thing is certainhe is a fool who says, "No man hath said in his heart, There is no God."

It has been said many thousand times in hearts with profound bitterness of earnest faith.

We do not cry and weep: we sit down with cold eyes and look at the world. We are not miserable. Why

should we be? We eat and drink, and sleep all night; but the dead are not colder.

And we say it slowly, but without sighing, "Yes, we see it now; there is no God."

And, we add, growing a little colder yet. "There is no justice. The ox dies in the yoke, beneath its master's

whip; it turns its anguishfilled eyes on the sunlight, but there is no sign of recompense to be made it. The

black man is shot like a dog, and it goes well with the shooter. The innocent are accused and the accuser

triumphs. If you will take the trouble to scratch the surface anywhere, you will see under the skin a sentient

And, we say further, and our heart is as the heart of the dead for coldness, "There is no order: all things are

What a soul drinks in with its mother's milk will not leave it in a day. From our earliest hour we have been

taught that the thought of the heart, the shaping of the raincloud, the amount of wool that grows on a sheep's

back, the length of a drought, and the growing of the corn, depend on nothing that moves immutable, at the

heart of all things; but on the changeable will of a changeable being, whom our prayers can alter. To us, from

the beginning, nature has been but a poor plastic thing, to be toyed with this way or that, as man happens to

please his deity or not; to go to church or not; to say his prayers right or not; to travel on a Sunday or not.

Was it possible for us in an instant to see Nature as she isthe flowing vestment of an unchanging reality?

When the soul breaks free from the arms of a superstition, bits of the claws and talons break themselves off in

And so, for us, the humanlike driver and guide being gone, all existence, as we look out at it with our

chilled, wondering eyes, is an aimless rise and swell of shifting waters. In all that weltering chaos we can see

Whether a man believes in a humanlike God or no is a small thing. Whether he looks into the mental and

physical world and sees no relation between cause and effect, no order, but a blind chance sporting, this is the

mightiest fact that can be recorded in any spiritual existence. It were almost a mercy to cut his throat, if

We, however, do not cut our throats. To do so would imply some desire and feeling, and we have no desire

and no feeling; we are only cold. We do not wish to live, and we do not wish to die. One day a snake curls

itself round the waist of a Kaffer woman. We take it in our hand, swing it round and round, and fling it on the

grounddead. Every one looks at us with eyes of admiration. We almost laugh. Is it wonderful to risk that

In truth, nothing matters. This dirty little world full of confusion, and the blue rag, stretched overhead for a

Existence is a great pot, and the old Fate who stirs it round cares nothing what rises to the top and what goes

down, and laughs when the bubbles burst. And we do not care. Let it boil about. Why should we trouble

ourselves? Nevertheless the physical sensations are real. Hunger hurts, and thirst, therefore we eat and drink:

inaction pains us, therefore we work like galleyslaves. No one demands it, but we set ourselves to build a

great dam in red sand beyond the graves. In the grey dawn before the sheep are let out we work at it. All day,

while the young ostriches we tend feed about us, we work on through the fiercest heat. The people wonder

what new spirit has seized us now. They do not know we are working for life. We bear the greatest stones,

and feel a satisfaction when we stagger under them, and are hurt by a pang that shoots through our chest.

While we eat our dinner we carry on baskets full of earth, as though the devil drove us. The Kaffer servants

have a story that at night a witch and two white oxen come to help us. No wall, they say, could grow so

At night, alone in our cabin, we sit no more brooding over the fire. What should we think of now? All is

emptiness. So we take the old arithmetic; and the multiplication table, which with so much pains we learnt

long ago and forgot directly, we learn now in a few hours, and never forget again. We take a strange

satisfaction in working arithmetical problems. We pause in our building to cover the stones with figures and

calculations. We save money for a Latin Grammar and Algebra, and carry them about in our pockets, poring

over them as over our Bible of old. We have thought we were utterly stupid, incapable of remembering

anything, of learning anything. Now we find that all is easy. Has a new soul crept into this old body, that

even our intellectual faculties are changed? We marvel; not perceiving that what a man expends in prayer and

ecstasy he cannot have over for acquiring knowledge. You never shed a tear, or create a beautiful image, or

quiver with emotion, but you pay for it at the practical, calculating end of your nature. You have just so much

And now we turn to Nature. All these years we have lived beside her, and we have never seen her; and now

The rocks have been to us a blur of brown: we bend over them, and the disorganised masses dissolve into a

manycoloured, manyshaped, carefully arranged form of existence. Here masses of rainbowtinted

crystals, half fused together; there bands of smooth grey and red methodically overlying each other. This

rock here is covered with a delicate silver tracery, in some mineral, resembling leaves and branches; there on

the flat stone, on which we so often have sat to weep and pray, we look down, and see it covered with the

fossil footprints of great birds, and the beautiful skeleton of a fish. We have often tried to picture in our mind

what the fossiled remains of creatures must be like, and all the while we sat on them, we have been so blinded

The flat plain has been to us a reach of monotonous red. We look at it, and every handful of sand starts into

life. That wonderful people, the ants, we learn to know; see them make war and peace, play and work, and

build their huge palaces. And that smaller people we make acquaintance with, who live in the flowers. The

bitto flower has been for us a mere blur of yellow; we find its heart composed of a hundred perfect flowers,

the homes of the tiny black people with red stripes, who move in and out in that little yellow city. Every

bluebell has its inhabitant. Every day the karoo shows us a new wonder sleeping in its teeming bosom.

On our way back to work we pause and stand to see the groundspider make its trap, bury itself in the sand,

Further on walks a horned beetle, and near him starts open the door of a spider, who peeps out carefully, and

quickly pulls it down again. On a karoobush a green fly is laying her silver eggs. We carry them home, and

see the shells pierced, the spotted grub come out, turn to a green fly, and flit away. We are not satisfied with

what Nature shows us, and we see something for ourselves. Under the white hen we put a dozen eggs, and

break one daily, to see the white spot wax into the chicken. We are not excited or enthusiastic about it; but a

man is not to lay his throat open, he must think of something. So we plant seeds in rows on our damwall,

and pull one up daily to see how it goes with them. Alladeen buried her wonderful stone, and a golden palace

sprung up at her feet. We do far more. We put a brown seed in the earth, and a living thing starts out starts

upwardwhy, no more than Alladeen can we saystarts upward, and does not desist till it is higher than

our heads, sparkling with dew in the early morning, glittering with yellow blossoms, shaking brown seeds

with little embryo souls on to the ground. We look at it solemnly, from the time it consists of two leaves

peeping above the ground and a soft white root, till we have to raise our faces to look at it; but we find no

We look into dead ducks and lambs. In the evening we carry them home, spread newspapers on the floor, and

lie working with them till midnight. With a started feeling near akin to ecstasy we open the lump of flesh

called a heart, and find little doors and strings inside. We feel them, and put the heart away; but every now

and then return to look, and to feel them again. Why we like them so we can hardly tell.

A gander drowns itself in our dam. We take it out, and open it on the bank, and kneel looking at it. Above are

the organs divided by delicate tissues; below are the intestines artistically curved in a spiral form, and each

tier covered by a delicate network of bloodvessels standing out red against the faint blue background. Each

branch of the bloodvessels is comprised of a trunk, bifurcating and rebifurcating into the most delicate,

hairlike threads, symmetrically arranged. We are struck with its singular beauty. And, moreoverand here

we drop from our kneeling into a sitting posturethis also we remark: of that same exact shape and outline

is our thorntree seen against the sky in midwinter: of that shape also is delicate metallic tracery between

our rocks; in that exact path does our water flow when without a furrow we lead it from the dam; so shaped

are the antlers of the horned beetle. How are these things related that such deep union should exist between

them all? Is it chance? Or, are they not all the fine branches of one trunk, whose sap flows through us all?

This thing we call existence; is it not a something which has its roots far down below in the dark, and its

branches stretching out into the immensity above, which we among the branches cannot see? Not a chance

jungle; a living thing, a One. The thought gives us intense satisfaction, we cannot tell why.

We nod over the gander; then start up suddenly, look into the blue sky, throw the dead gander and the refuse

And so, it comes to pass in time, that the earth ceases for us to be a weltering chaos. We walk in the great hall

of life, looking up and round reverentially. Nothing is despicableall is meaningfull; nothing is smallall

is part of a whole, whose beginning and end we know not. The life that throbs in us is a beginning and end we

know not. The life that throbs in us is a pulsation from it; too mighty for our comprehension, not too small.

And so, it comes to pass at last, that whereas the sky was at first a small blue rag stretched out over us, and so

low that our hands might touch it, pressing down on us, it raises itself into an immeasurable blue arch over

Waldo lay on his stomach on the red sand. The small ostriches he herded wandered about him, pecking at the

food he had cut, or at pebbles and dry sticks. On his right lay the graves; to his left the dam; in his hand was a

large wooden post covered with carvings, at which he worked. Doss lay before him basking in the winter

sunshine, and now and again casting an expectant glance at the corner of the nearest ostrich camp. The

scrubby thorntrees under which they lay yielded no shade, but none was needed in that glorious June

weather, when in the hottest part of the afternoon the sun was but pleasantly warm; and the boy carved on,

not looking up, yet conscious of the brown serene earth about him and the intensely blue sky above.

Presently, at the corner of the camp, Em appeared, bearing a covered saucer in one hand and in the other a

jug, with a cup in the top. She was grown into a premature little old woman of sixteen, ridiculously fat. The

jug and saucer she put down on the ground before the dog and his master and dropped down beside them

"Waldo, as I came up the camps I met some one on horseback, and I do believe it must be the new man that is

"He is quite young," said Em, holding her side, "and he has brown hair, and beard curling close to his face,

and such dark blue eyes. And, Waldo, I was so ashamed! I was just looking back to see, you know, and he

happened just to be looking back too, and we looked right into each other's faces; and he got red, and I got so

"I must go now. Perhaps he has brought us letters from the post from Lyndall. You know she can't stay at

school much longer, she must come back soon. And the new man will have to stay with us till his house is

She tripped off again, and Waldo carved on at his post. Doss lay with his nose close to the covered saucer,

and smelt that some one had made nice little fat cakes that afternoon. Both were so intent on their occupation

that not till a horse's hoofs beat beside them in the sand did they look up to see a rider drawing in his steed.

He was certainly not the stranger whom Em had described. A dark, somewhat Frenchlooking little man of

eightandtwenty, rather stout, with heavy, cloudy eyes and pointed moustaches. His horse was a fiery

creature, well caparisoned; a highlyfinished saddlebag hung from the saddle; the man's hands were gloved,

and he presented the appearancean appearance rare on that farmof a welldressed gentleman.

In an uncommonly melodious voice he inquired whether he might be allowed to remain there for an hour.

Waldo directed him to the farmhouse, but the stranger declined. He would merely rest under the trees and

give his horse water. He removed the saddle and Waldo led the animal away to the dam. When he returned,

the stranger had settled himself under the trees, with his back against the saddle. The boy offered him of the

cakes. He declined, but took a draught from the jug; and Waldo lay down not far off and fell to work again. It

mattered nothing if cold eyes saw it. It was not his sheepshearing machine. With material loves, as with

human, we go mad once, love out, and have done. We never get up the true enthusiasm a second time. This

was but a thing he had made, laboured over, loved and likednothing morenot his machine.

The stranger forced himself lower down in the saddle and yawned. It was a drowsy afternoon, and he

objected to travel in these outoftheworld parts. He liked better civilised life, where at every hour of the

day a man may look for his glass of wine, and his easychair, and paper; where at night he may lock himself

into his room with his books and a bottle of brandy, and taste joys mental and physical. The world said of

himthe allknowing, omnipotent world, whom no locks can bar, who has the catlike propensity of seeing

best in the darkthe world said, that better than the books he loved the brandy, and better than books or

brandy that which it had been better had he loved less. But for the world he cared nothing; he smiled blandly

in its teeth. All life is a dream; if wine and philosophy and women keep the dream from becoming a

nightmare, so much the better. It is all they are fit for, all they can be used for. There was another side to his

life and thought; but of that the world knew nothing, and said nothing, as the way of the wise world is.

The stranger looked from beneath his sleepy eyelids at the brown earth that stretched away, beautiful in spite

of itself in that June sunshine; looked at the graves, the gables of the farmhouse showing over the stone walls

of the camps, at the clownish fellow at his feet, and yawned. But he had drunk of the hind's tea, and must say

The stranger looked at him. It seemed that as the fellow's dark eyes looked across the brown earth they

What had that creature, so coarseclad and clownish, to do with the subtle joys of the weather? Himself,

whitehanded and delicate, he might hear the music with shimmering sunshine and solitude play on the

finelystrung chords of nature; but that fellow! Was not the ear in that great body too gross for such delicate

The fellow handed his wooden post. It was by no means lovely. The men and birds were almost grotesque in

their laboured resemblance to nature, and bore signs of patient thought. The stranger turned the thing over on

The questioner looked down at himthe huge, unwieldy figure, in size a man's, in right of his childlike

features and curling hair a child's; and it hurt himit attracted him and it hurt him. It was something between

From his pocket the stranger drew his pocketbook, and took something from it. He could fasten the post to

The man silently returned the note to his pocketbook, and gave the carving to the boy; and, drawing his hat

over his eyes, composed himself to sleep. Not being able to do so, after a while he glanced over the fellow's

"If," said the stranger, with his melodious voice, rich with a sweetness that never showed itself in the clouded

eyesfor sweetness will linger on in the voice long after it has died out in the eyes"if for such a purpose,

The boy glanced round at him, but made no answer. He had almost forgotten his presence.

"You surely believe," said the stranger, "that some day, sooner or later, these graves will open, and those

Boeruncles with their wives walk about here in the red sand, with the very fleshly legs with which they went

to sleep? Then why say, 'He sleeps forever?' You believe he will stand up again?"

"Do you?" asked the boy, lifting for an instant his heavy eyes to the stranger's face.

Half taken aback the stranger laughed. It was as though a curious little tadpole which he held under his glass

"I?no." He laughed his short thick laugh. "I am a man who believes nothing, hopes nothing, fears nothing,

feels nothing. I am beyond the pale of humanity; no criterion of what you should be who live here among

The next moment the stranger was surprised by a sudden movement on the part of the fellow, which brought

him close to the stranger's feet. Soon after he raised his carving and laid it across the man's knee.

He put his finger on the grotesque little mannikin at the bottom (ah! that man who believed nothing, hoped

nothing, felt nothing; how he loved him!), and with eager finger the fellow moved upward, explaining over

fantastic figures and mountains, to the crowning bird from whose wing dropped a feather. At the end he

spoke with broken breathshort words, like one who utters things of mighty import.

The stranger watched more the face than the carving; and there was now and then a show of white teeth

"I think," he said blandly, when the boy had done, "that I partly understand you. It is something after this

fashion, is it not?" (He smiled.) "In certain valleys there was a hunter." (He touched the grotesque little figure

at the bottom.) "Day by day he went to hunt for wildfowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on

the shores of a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes for the coming of the birds, a great shadow

fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection. He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a

burning desire came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day he watched and

waited; but night came and it had not returned. Then he went home with his empty bag, moody and silent.

His comrades came questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he sat alone

"'I have seen today,' he said, 'that which I never saw beforea vast white bird, with silver wings

outstretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. It

was but a sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more on earth than to hold

"'It was but a beam playing on the water, or the shadow of your own head. Tomorrow you will forget her,' he

"But tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow the hunter walked alone. He sought in the forest and in the

woods, by the lakes and among the rushes, but he could not find her. He shot no more wild fowl; what were

"'No; but he is worse,' said another; 'he would see that which none of us have seen, and make himself a

"One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, an old man stood before him, grander

"'I am Wisdom,' answered the old man; 'but some men call me Knowledge. All my life I have grown in these

valleys; but no man sees me till he has sorrowed much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to behold

"'Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wild bird I have seen sailing in the blue?

"'Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Till death he desires her.'

"Then the hunter took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination, and wound on it the thread of his Wishes;

"In the morning he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of credulity,

which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breastpocket. They were like white puffballs, and

when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came

into the net was a snowwhite bird, with dove's eyes, and he sang a beautiful song'A humanGod! a

humanGod! a humanGod!' it sang. The second that came was black and mystical, with dark, lovely eyes,

"Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a shrill voice, like one crying in the

"And others came, brightly coloured, singing pleasant songs, till all the grains were finished. And the hunter

gathered all his birds together, and built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.

"'Oh, happy hunter!' they cried. 'Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightful birds! Oh, lovely songs!'

"No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had been caught; but they danced and sang

"'Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and I shall see her snowwhite form.'

"But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter's heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of

old, to weep; the terrible desire had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it

"'Many men,' he said, 'have spread that net for Truth; but they have never found her. On the grains of

credulity she will not feed; in the net of wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not

breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. Lovely and beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows

"'Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell you what I know. He who sets out to

search for Truth must leave these valleys of superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that has

belonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of Absolute Negation and Denial; he must

abide there; he must resist temptation; when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of

dry sunshine. The mountains of stern reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond them lies

"'There is this,' said Wisdom: 'Some men have climbed on those mountains; circle above circle of bare rock

they have scaled; and, wandering there, in those high regions, some have chanced to pick up on the ground

one white silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come to pass,' said the old man, raising

himself prophetically and pointing with his finger to the sky, 'it shall come to pass, that when enough of those

silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and shall have been woven into a cord, and the

cord into a net, that in that net Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can hold Truth.'

"'Mark you wellwho leaves these valleys never returns to them. Though he should weep tears of blood

seven days and nights upon the confines, he can never put his foot across them. Leftthey are left forever.

Upon the road which you would travel there is no reward offered. Who goes, goes freelyfor the great love

"'I go' said the hunter; 'but upon the mountains, tell me, which path shall I take?'

"'I am the child of TheAccumulatedKnowledgeofAges,' said the man; 'I can walk only where many men

have trodden. On these mountains few feet have passed; each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at

his own peril: my voice he hears no more. I may follow after him, but cannot go before him.'

"And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and with his hands broke down the bars, and the jagged iron tore

"One by one he took his plumed birds and let them fly. But when he came to his darkplumed bird he held it,

and looked into its beautiful eyes, and the bird uttered its low, deep cry'Immortality!'

"And he said quickly: 'I cannot part with it. It is not heavy; it eats no food. I will hide it in my breast; I will

"But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier, heaviertill it lay on his breast like lead. He could not

move with it. He could not leave those valleys with it. Then again he took it out and looked at it.

"'Go!' he said. 'It may happen that in Truth's song one note is like yours; but I shall never hear it.'

"Then from the shuttle of imagination he took the thread of his wishes, and threw it on the ground; and the

empty shuttle he put into his breast, for the thread was made in those valleys, but the shuttle came from an

"'Fool, hound, demented lunatic!' they cried. 'How dared you break your cage and let the birds fly?'

"'Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were real: all

could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile reptile! atheist!' they cried, 'you pollute the air.'

"'What affair is it of ours?' said others. 'Let the idiot go,' and went away. But the rest gathered up stones and

mud and threw at him. At last, when he was bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods. And it

At every word the stranger spoke the fellow's eyes flashed back on him yes, and yes, and yes! The stranger

smiled. It was almost worth the trouble of exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win those passionate

"He wandered on and on," said the stranger, "and the shade grew deeper. He was on the borders now of the

land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it, and there was no light there. With his hands he groped;

but each branch as he touched it broke off, and the earth was covered with cinders. At every step his foot sank

in, and a fine cloud of impalpable ashes flew up into his face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone

and buried his face in his hands, to wait in the Land of Negation and Denial till the light came.

"Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists arose and closed about him. A fine, imperceptible rain

fell in the dark, and great drops gathered on his hair and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbness crept

through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry wisp lights came dancing. He lifted his head to look at

them. Nearer, nearer they came. So warm, so bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stood before him at

last. From the centre of the radiating flame in one looked out a woman's face, laughing, dimpled, with

streaming yellow hair. In the centre of the other were merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles on a glass of

"'Who are you,' asked the hunter, 'who alone come to me in my solitude and darkness?'

"'We are the twins Sensuality,' they cried. 'Our father's name is Human Nature, and our mother's name is

Excess. We are as old as the hills and rivers, as old as the first man; but we never die,' they laughed.

"'Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!; cried the first; 'they are soft and warm. Your heart is frozen now, but I

"'I will pour my hot life into you,' said the second; 'your brain is numb, and your limbs are dead now; but they

"'Oh, follow us,' they cried, 'and live with us. Nobler hearts than yours have sat here in this darkness to wait,

and they have come to us and we to them; and they have never left us, never. All else is a delusion, but we are

real, we are real, we are real. Truth is a shadow; the valleys of superstition are a farce: the earth is of ashes,

the trees all rotten; but wefeel uswe live! You cannot doubt us. Feel us how warm we are! Oh, come to

"Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and the cold drops melted on his forehead. The bright light

shot into his eyes, dazzling him, and the frozen blood began to run. And he said:

"'Yes, why should I die here in this awful darkness? They are warm, they melt my frozen blood!' and he

"Then in a moment there arose before him the image of the thing he had loved, and his hand dropped to his

"'You dazzle my eyes,' he cried, 'you make my heart warm; but you cannot give me what I desire. I will wait

"He covered his face with his hands and would not listen; and when he looked up again they were two

"All who leave the valley of superstition pass through that dark land; but some go through it in a few days,

The boy had crept closer; his hot breath almost touched the stranger's hand; a mystic wonder filled his eyes.

"At last for the hunter a faint light played along the horizon, and he rose to follow it; and he reached that light

at last, and stepped into the broad sunshine. Then before him rose the almighty mountains of Dryfacts and

Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the tops were lost in the clouds. At the foot many paths ran

up. An exultant cry burst from the hunter. He chose the straightest and began to climb; and the rocks and

ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated; after all, it was not so high, nor was the road so steep!

A few days, a few weeks, a few months at most, and then the top! Not one feather only would he pick up; he

would gather all that other men had foundweave the netcapture Truth hold her fasttouch her with

"He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near. Nevertheless, after a while the path

grew steeper. He needed all his breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left rose

huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lavalike earth chasms yawned. Here and there he saw a

sheen of white bones. Now too the path began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace, with

a footmark here and there; then it ceased altogether. He sang no more, but struck forth a path for himself,

until it reached a mighty wall of rock, smooth and without break, stretching as far as the eye could see. 'I will

rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed, I shall be almost there,' he said bravely; and worked. With

his shuttle of imagination he dug out stones; but half of them would not fit, and half a month's work would

roll down because those below were ill chosen. But the hunter worked on, saying always to himself, 'Once

"At last he came out upon the top, and he looked about him. Far below rolled the white mist over the valleys

of superstition, and above him towered the mountains. They had seemed low before; they were of an

immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded by walls of rock, that rose tier above tier in

mighty circles. Upon them played the eternal sunshine. He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to the

earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute silence he walked on. He was very silent now. In

those high regions the rarefied air is hard to breathe by those born in the valleys; every breath he drew hurt

him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers. Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The

height of this seemed infinite, and he said nothing. The sound of his tool rang night and day upon the iron

rocks into which he cut steps. Years passed over him, yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always

above him to heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring up on those bare walls to

"And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cuta few for a yearonly a few. He sang no

more; he said no more, 'I will do this or that'he only worked. And at night, when the twilight settled down,

there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks strange wild faces.

"'My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you would creep down upon me,' he replied.

"'Look down into the crevice at your feet,' they said. 'See what lie therewhite bones! As brave and strong a

man as you climbed to these rocks.' And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving; he would never

hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep

forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do

"'Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest; have I wandered alone in the land of night; have I resisted

temptation; have I dwelt where the voice of my kind is never heard, and laboured alone, to lie down and be

"He laughed fiercely; and the Echoes of Despair slunk away, for the laugh of a brave, strong heart is as a

"'Do you know that your hair is white?' they said, 'that your hands begin to tremble like a child's? Do you see

that the point of your shuttle is gone?it is cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,' they said, 'it

"The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for the fingers were stiff and bent. The beauty and the

"At last, an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It saw the eternal mountains rise with

"The old hunter folded his tired hands and lay down by the precipice where he had worked away his life. It

was the sleeping time at last. Below him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and

through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their childhood. From afar seemed

borne to him the cry of his own wild birds, and he heard the noise of people singing as they danced. And he

thought he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and he saw far off the sunlight shine on his

"'I have sought,' he said, 'for long years I have laboured; but I have not found her. I have not rested, I have not

repined, and I have not seen her; now my strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand,

young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount.

They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the

stones roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will climb, and by my stair! They

will find her, and through me! And no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.'

"The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids. If Truth had appeared above him in the clouds now he

"'My soul hears their glad step coming,' he said; 'and they shall mount! they shall mount!' He raised his

"Then slowly from the white sky above, through the still air, came something falling, falling, falling. Softly it

fluttered down, and dropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather. He

The boy had shaded his eyes with his hand. On the wood of the carving great drops fell. The stranger must

"How did you know it?" the boy whispered at last. "It is not written therenot on that wood. How did you

"Certainly," said the stranger, "the whole of the story is not written here, but it is suggested. And the attribute

of all true art, the highest and the lowest, is thisthat it rays more than it says, and takes you away from

itself. It is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please. Men, thinking to

detract, say: 'People read more in this or that work of genius than was ever written in it,' not perceiving that

they pay the highest compliment. If we pick up the finger and nail of a real man, we can decipher a whole

storycould almost reconstruct the creature again, from head to foot. But half the body of a

Mumboojumbow idol leaves us utterly in the dark as to what the rest was like. We see what we see, but

nothing more. There is nothing so universally intelligible as truth. It has a thousand meanings, and suggests a

"Though a man should carve it into matter with the least possible manipulative skill, it will yet find

interpreters. It is the soul that looks out with burning eyes through the most gross fleshly filament.

Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a little flowerits birth, sucking in of nourishment,

reproduction of its kind, withering and vanishingwould have shaped a symbol of all existence. All true

facts of nature or the mind are related. Your little carving represents some mental facts as they really are,

therefore fifty different true stories might be read from it. What your work wants is not truth, but beauty of

external form, the other half of art." He leaned almost gently toward the boy. "Skill may come in time, but

you will have to work hard. The love of beauty and the desire for it must be born in a man; the skill to

The stranger broke off the end of his cigar, and lit it. The boy lifted the heavy wood from the stranger's knee

and drew yet nearer him. In the doglike manner of his drawing near there was something superbly

ridiculous, unless one chanced to view it in another light. Presently the stranger said, whiffing, "Do

"No; stay where you are. I don't want you to go anyowhere; I want you to talk to me. Tell me what you have

The boy slunk down again. Would that the man had asked him to root up bushes with his hands for his horse

to feed on; or to run to the far end of the plain for the fossils that lay there, or to gather the flowers that grew

on the hills at the edge of the plain; he would have run and been back quicklybut now!

"Then tell me of that nothing. I like to know what other folks have been doing whose word I can believe. It is

The boy waited to remember, then began hesitatingly, but soon the words flowed. In the smallest past we find

A confused, disordered storythe little made large and the large small, and nothing showing its inward

meaning. It is not till the past has receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into coordinate

pictures. It is not till the I we tell of has ceased to exist that it takes its place among other objective realities,

and finds its true niche in the picture. The present and the near past is a confusion, whose meaning flashes on

The stranger lit one cigar from the end of another, and puffed and listened with halfclosed eyes.

He spoke with that extreme gravity common to all very young things who feel deeply. It is not till twenty that

we learn to be in deadly earnest and to laugh. The stranger nodded, while the fellow sought for something

more to relate. He would tell all to this man of hisall that he knew, all that he had felt, his inmost sorest

Waldo looked at him. Was his delightful one ridiculing him? Here, with this brown earth and these low hills,

"Yes," he said; "here with the karoobushes and red sand. Do you wonder what I mean? To all who have

been born in the old faith there comes a time of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet

planted our feet on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still small voice of

reason is not yet heard. We have proved the religion our mothers fed us on to be a delusion; in our

bewilderment we see no rule by which to guide our steps day by day; and yet every day we must step

The stranger leaned forward and spoke more quickly. "We have never once been taught by word or act to

distinguish between religion and the moral laws on which it has artfully fastened itself, and from which it has

sucked its vitality. When we have dragged down the weeds and creepers that covered the solid wall and have

found them to be rotten wood, we imagine the wall itself to be rotten wood too. We find it is solid and

standing only when we fall headlong against it. We have been taught that all right and wrong originate in the

will of an irresponsible being. It is some time before we see how the inexorable 'Thou shalt and shalt not,' are

"In the end experience will inevitably teach us that the laws for a wise and noble life have a foundation

infinitely deeper than the fiat of any being, God or man, even in the groundwork of human nature.

"She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man his blood be not shed, though no man

avenge and no hell await, yet every drop shall blister on his soul and eat in the name of the dead. She will

teach that whoso takes a love not lawfully his own, gathers a flower with a poison on its petals; that whoso

revenges, strikes with a sword that has two edges one for his adversary, one for himself; that who lives to

himself is dead, though the ground is not yet on him; that who wrongs another clouds his own sun; and that

who sins in secret stands accursed and condemned before the one Judge who deals eternal justicehis own

"Experience will teach us this, and reason will show us why it must be so; but at first the world swings before

our eyes, and no voice cries out, 'This is the way, walk ye in it!' You are happy to be here, boy! When the

suspense fills you with pain you build stone walls and dig earth for relief. Others have stood where you stand

today, and have felt as you feel; and another relief has been offered them, and they have taken it.

"When the day has come when they have seen the path in which they might walk, they have not the strength

to follow it. Habits have fastened on them from which nothing but death can free them; which cling closer

than his sacerdotal sanctimony to a priest; which feed on the intellect like a worm, sapping energy, hope,

creative power, all that makes a man higher than a beastleaving only the power to yearn, to regret, and to

"Boy," he said, and the listener was not more unsmiling now than the speaker, "you are happy to be here!

Stay where you are. If you ever pray, let it be only the one old prayer'Lead us not into temptation.' Live on

here quietly. The time may yet come when you will be that which other men have hoped to be and never will

The stranger rose, shook the dust from his sleeve, and ashamed at his own earnestness, looked across the

"We should have been on our way already," he said. "We shall have a long ride in the dark tonight."

Waldo hastened to fetch the animal; but he returned leading it slowly. The sooner it came the sooner would

The stranger was opening his saddlebag, in which were a bright French novel and an old brown volume. He

"It may be of some help to you," he said, carelessly. "It was a gospel to me when I first fell on it. You must

not expect too much; but it may give you a centre round which to hang your ideas, instead of letting them lie

about in a confusion that makes the head ache. We of this generation are not destined to eat and be satisfied

He smiled his automaton smile, and rebuttoned the bag. Waldo thrust the book into his breast, and while he

saddled the horse the stranger made inquiries as to the nature of the road and the distance to the next farm.

When the bags were fixed, Waldo took up his wooden post and began to fasten it on to the saddle, tying it

with the little blue cotton handkerchief from his neck. The stranger looked on in silence. When it was done

"What is your name?" he inquired, ungloving his right hand when he was in the saddle.

He shook hands with the ungloved hand; then drew on the glove, and touched his horse, and rode slowly

"Poor devil," he said, smiling and stroking his moustache. Then he looked to see if the little blue

And Waldo waited till the moving speck had disappeared on the horizon; then he stooped and kissed

passionately a hoofmark in the sand. Then he called his young birds together, and put his book under his

arm, and walked home along the stone wall. There was a rare beauty to him in the sunshine that evening.

The new man, Gregory Rose, sat at the door of his dwelling, his arms folded, his legs crossed, and a profound

melancholy seeming to rest over his soul. His house was a little square daubandwattle building, far out in

the karoo, two miles from the homestead. It was covered outside with a sombre coating of brown mud, two

little panes being let into the walls for windows. Behind it were the sheepkraals, and to the right a large

dam, now principally containing baked mud. Far off the little kopje concealed the homestead, and was not

itself an object conspicuous enough to relieve the dreary monotony of the landscape.

Before the door sat Gregory Rose in his shirtsleeves, on a campstool, and ever and anon he sighed deeply.

There was that in his countenance for which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and

again he looked at the little kopje, at the milkpail at his side, and at the brown pony, who a short way off

Presently he rose and went into his house. It was one tiny room, the whitewashed walls profusely covered

with prints cut from the "Illustrated London News", and in which there was a noticeable preponderance of

female faces and figures. A stretcher filled one end of the hut, and a rack for a gun and a little hanging

lookingglass diversified the gable opposite, while in the centre stood a chair and table. All was scrupulously

neat and clean, for Gregory kept a little duster folded in the corner of his table drawer, just as he had seen

his mother do, and every morning before he went out he said his prayers, and made his bed, and dusted the

table and the legs of the chairs, and even the pictures on the wall and the gunrack.

On this hot afternoon he took from beneath his pillow a watchbag made by his sister Jemima, and took out

the watch. Only half past four! With a suppressed groan he dropped it back and sat down beside the table.

Half past four! Presently he roused himself. He would write to his sister Jemima. He always wrote to her

when he was miserable. She was his safety valve. He forgot her when he was happy; but he used her when

He took out ink and paper. There was a family crest and motto on the latter, for the Roses since coming to the

colony had discovered that they were of distinguished lineage. Old Rose himself, an honest English farmer,

knew nothing of his noble descent; but his wife and daughter knew especially his daughter. There were

Roses in England who kept a park and dated from the Conquest. So the colonial "Rose Farm" became "Rose

Manor" in remembrance of the ancestral domain, and the claim of the Roses to noble blood was

Gregory took up one of the white, crested sheets; but on deeper reflection he determined to take a pink one,

Then he looked up into the little glass opposite. It was a youthful face reflected there, with curling brown

beard and hair; but in the dark blue eyes there was a look of languid longing that touched him. He redipped

"When I look up into the little glass that hangs opposite me, I wonder if that changed and sad face"

Here he sat still and reflected. It sounded almost as if he might be conceited or unmanly to be looking at his

own face in the glass. No, that would not do. So he looked for another pink sheet and began again.

"Dear Sister,It is hardly six months since I left you to come to this spot, yet could you now see me I know

what you would say, I know what mother would say'Can that be our Gregthat thing with the strange

"Yes, Jemima, it is your Greg, and the change has been coming over me ever since I came here; but it is

greatest since yesterday. You know what sorrows I have passed through, Jemima; how unjustly I was always

treated at school, the masters keeping me back and calling me a blockhead, though, as they themselves

allowed, I had the best memory of any boy in the school, and could repeat whole books from beginning to

end. You know how cruelly father always used me, calling me a noodle and a milksop, just because he

couldn't understand my fine nature. You know how he has made a farmer of me instead of a minister, as I

ought to have been; you know it all, Jemima; and how I have borne it all, not as a woman, who whines for

"But there are things, there is a thing, which the soul longs to pour forth into a kindred ear.

"Dear sister, have you ever known what it is to keep wanting and wanting and wanting to kiss some one's

mouth, and you may not; to touch some one's hand, and you cannot? I am in love, Jemima.

"The old Dutchwoman from whom I hire this place has a little stepdaughter, and her name begins with 'E'.

"She is English. I do not know how her father came to marry a Boerwoman. It makes me feel so strange to

put down that letter, that I can hardly go on writing 'E'. I've loved her ever since I came here. For weeks I

have not been able to eat or drink; my very tobacco when I smoke has no taste; and I can remain for no more

than five minutes in one place, and sometimes feel as though I were really going mad.

"Every evening I go there to fetch my milk. Yesterday she gave me some coffee. The spoon fell on the

ground. She picked it up; when she gave it me her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know if I fancied

itI shivered hot, and she shivered too! I thought, 'It is all right; she will be mine; she loves me!' Just then,

Jemima, in came a fellow, a great, coarse fellow, a Germana ridiculous fellow, with curls right down to his

shoulders; it makes one sick to look at him. He's only a servant of the Boerwoman's, and a low, vulgar,

uneducated thing; that's never been to boardingschool in his life. He had been to the next farm seeking

sheep. When he came in she said, 'Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!' AND SHE KISSED HIM.

"All last night I heard nothing else but 'Have some coffee; have some coffee.' If I went to sleep for a moment

I dreamed that her finger was pressing mine; but when I woke with a start I heard her say, 'Good evening,

"I have not eaten a mouthful today. This evening I go and propose to her. If she refuses me I shall go and kill

myself tomorrow. There is a dam of water close by. The sheep have drunk most of it up, but there is still

"It is a choice between death and madness. I can endure no more. If this should be the last letter you ever get

from me, think of me tenderly, and forgive me. Without her, life would be a howling wilderness, a long

tribulation. She is my affinity; the one love of my life, of my youth, of my manhood; my sunshine; my

"'They never loved who dreamed that they loved once, And who saith, 'I loved once'? Not angels, whose

"Your disconsolate brother, on what is, in all probability, the last and distracted night of his life.

"P.S.Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the washhandstand drawer. Don't let the

"P.P.S.I shall take this letter with me to the farm. If I turn down one corner you may know I have been

Gregory having finished this letter, read it over with much approval, put it in an envelope, addressed it, and

The evening turned out chilly and very windy after the day's heat. From afar off, as Gregory neared the

homestead on the brown pony, he could distinguish a little figure in a little red cloak at the door of the cow

kraal. Em leaned over the poles that barred the gate, and watched the frothing milk run through the black

fingers of the herdsman, while the unwilling cows stood with tethered heads by the milking poles. She had

thrown the red cloak over her own head, and held it under her chin with a little hand, to keep from her ears

the wind, that playfully shook it, and tossed the little fringe of yellow hair into her eyes.

"Is it not too cold for you to be standing here?" said Gregory, coming softly close to her.

"Oh, no; it is so nice. I always come to watch the milking. That red cow with the short horns is bringing up

the calf of the white cow that died. She loves it sojust as if it were her own. It is so nice to see her lick its

"Yes," answered Em, looking up as well as she could for the little yellow fringe.

"But I'm sure you must be cold," said Gregory, and put his hand under the cloak, and found there a small fist

"Oh, Em, I love you better than all the world besides! Tell me, do you love me a little?"

"Better than everything; better than all the world, darling?" he asked, bending down so low that the yellow

"I don't know," said Em, gravely. "I do love you very much; but I love my cousin who is at school, and

"Oh, Em, do not talk to me so coldly!" Gregory cried, seizing the little arm that rested on the gate, and

pressing it till she was half afraid. The herdsman had moved away to the other end of the kraal now, and the

cows, busy with their calves, took no notice of the little human farce. "Em, if you talk so to me I will go mad!

You must love me, love me better than all! You must give yourself to me. I have loved you since that first

moment when I saw you walking by the stone wall with the jug in your hands. You were made for me,

created for me! I will love you till I die! Oh, Em, do not be so cold, so cruel to me!"

He held her arm so tightly that her fingers relaxed their hold, and the cloak fluttered down on to the ground,

"I do love you very much," she said; "but I do not know if I want to marry you. I love you better than Waldo,

but I can't tell if I love you better than Lyndall. If you would let me wait for a week I think perhaps I could

"If you could but love me as I love you," he said; "but no woman can love as a man can. I will wait till

Saturday. I will not once come near you till then. Goodbye! Oh, Em," he said, turning again, and twining his

arm about her, and kissing her surprised little mouth, "if you are not my wife I cannot live. I have never loved

Late that night, when every one else had gone to bed, the yellowhaired little woman stood alone in the

kitchen. She had come to fill the kettle for the next morning's coffee, and now stood before the fire. The

warm reflection lit the grave oldwomanish little face, that was so unusually thoughtful this evening.

"Better than all the world; better than everything; he loves me better than everything!" She said the words

aloud, as if they were more easy to believe if she spoke them so. She had given out so much love in her little

life, and had got none of it back with interest. Now one said, "I love you better than all the world." One loved

her better than she loved him. How suddenly rich she was. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. So a

beggar feels who falls asleep on the pavement wet and hungry, and who wakes in a palacehall with servants

and lights, and a feast before him. Of course the beggar's is only a dream, and he wakes from it; and this was

Gregory had said to her, "I will love you as long as I live." She said the words over and over to herself like a

"I will send for him tomorrow, and I will tell him how I love him back," she said.

But Em needed not to send for him. Gregory discovered on reaching home that Jemima's letter was still in his

pocket. And, therefore, much as he disliked the appearance of vacillation and weakness, he was obliged to be

"If I see her," Gregory said, "I shall only bow to her. She shall see that I am a man, one who keeps his word."

As to Jemima's letter, he had turned down one corner of the page, and then turned it back, leaving a deep

crease. That would show that he was neither accepted nor rejected, but that matters were in an intermediate

Gregory was barely in time with his letter, for Waldo was starting when he reached the homestead, and Em

was on the doorstep to see him off. When he had given the letter, and Waldo had gone, Gregory bowed stiffly

and prepared to remount his own pony, but somewhat slowly. It was still early; none of the servants were

about. Em came up close to him and put her little hand softly on his arm as he stood by his horse.

"I do love you best of all," she said. She was not frightened now, however much he kissed her. "I wish I was

beautiful and nice," she added, looking up into his eyes as he held her against his breast.

"My darling, to me you are more beautiful than all the women in the world; dearer to me than everything it

holds. If you were in hell I would go after you to find you there! If you were dead, though my body moved,

my soul would be under the ground with you. All life as I pass with you in my arms will be perfect to me. It

Em thought how beautiful and grand his face was as she looked up into it. She raised her hand gently and put

"Then, my own precious one, promise never to kiss that fellow again. I cannot bear that you should love any

one but me. You must not! I will not have it! If every relation I had in the world were to die tomorrow, I

would be quite happy if I still only had you! My darling, my love, why are you so cold? Promise me not to

love him any more. If you asked me to do anything for you, I would do it, though it cost my life."

"I will never kiss him," she said, "and I will try not to love any one else. But I do not know if I will be able."

"Oh, my darling, I think of you all night, all day. I think of nothing else, love, nothing else," he said, folding

Em was a little conscience stricken; even that morning she had found time to remember that in six months her

cousin would come back from school, and she had thought to remind Waldo of the lozenges for his cough,

"I do not know how it is," she said humbly, nestling to him, "but I cannot love you so much as you love me.

Now the Kaffer maids were coming from the huts. He kissed her again, eyes and mouth and hands, and left

Tant Sannie was well satisfied when told of the betrothment. She herself contemplated marriage within the

year with one or other of her numerous vrijers, and she suggested that the weddings might take place

Em set to work busily to prepare her own household linen and wedding garments. Gregory was with her

daily, almost hourly, and the six months which elapsed before Lyndall's return passed, as he felicitously

Late one evening, Gregory sat by his little love, turning the handle of her machine as she drew her work

through it, and they talked of the changes they would make when the Boerwoman was gone, and the farm

belonged to them alone. There should be a new room here, and a kraal there. So they chatted on. Suddenly

Gregory dropped the handle, and impressed a fervent kiss on the fat hand that guided the linen.

"You are so beautiful, Em," said the lover. "It comes over me in a flood suddenly how I love you."

"Tant Sannie says when I am her age no one will look at me; and it is true. My hands are as short and broad

as a duck's foot, and my forehead is so low, and I haven't any nose. I can't be pretty."

"When my cousin comes tomorrow you will see a beautiful woman, Gregory," she added presently. "She is

like a little queen: her shoulders are so upright, and her head looks as though it ought to have a little crown

upon it. You must come to see her tomorrow as soon as she comes. I am sure you will love her."

"Of course I shall come to see her, since she is your cousin; but do you think I could ever think any woman as

"You could not help seeing that she is prettier," said Em, slipping her right hand into his; "but you will never

Afterward, when she wished her lover good night, she stood upon the doorstep to call a greeting after him;

and she waited, as she always did, till the brown pony's hoofs became inaudible behind the kopje.

Then she passed through the room where Tant Sannie lay snoring, and through the little room that was all

She went to the chest of drawers to put away the work she had finished, and sat down on the floor before the

lowest drawer. In it were the things she was preparing for her marriage. Piles of white linen, and some aprons

and quilts; and in a little box in the corner a spray of orangeblossom which she had bought from a smouse.

There, too, was a ring Gregory had given her, and a veil his sister had sent, and there was a little roll of fine

embroidered work which Trana had given her. It was too fine and good even for Gregory's wifejust right

for something very small and soft. She would keep it. And she touched it gently with her forefinger, smiling;

and then she blushed and hid it far behind the other things. She knew so well all that was in that drawer, and

yet she turned them all over as though she saw them for the first time, packed them all out, and packed them

Tomorrow evening when Lyndall came she would bring her here, and show it her all. Lyndall would so like

to see itthe little wreath, and the ring, and the white veil! It would be so nice! Then Em fell to seeing

Every day when Gregory came home, tired from his work, he would look about and say, "Where is my wife?

Em's little face grew very grave at last, and she knelt up and extended her hands over the drawer of linen.

"Oh, God!" she said, "I am so glad! I do not know what I have done that I should be so glad. Thank you!"

She was more like a princess, yes, far more like a princess, than the lady who still hung on the wall in Tant

Sannie's bedroom. So Em thought. She leaned back in the little armchair; she wore a grey dressinggown,

and her long hair was combed out and hung to the ground. Em, sitting before her, looked up with mingled

Lyndall was tired after her long journey, and had come to her room early. Her eyes ran over the familiar

objects. Strange to go away for four years, and come back, and find that the candle standing on the

dressingtable still cast the shadow of an old crone's head in the corner beyond the clotheshorse. Strange

that even a shadow should last longer than a man! She looked about among the old familiar objects; all was

"Nothing and everything. I thought the windows were higher. If I were you, when I get this place I should

"Gregory is going to make many alterations," said Em; and drawing nearer to the grey dressinggown

"He must have been a fine baby," said Lyndall, looking at the white dimity curtain that hung above the

"There are some men," said Lyndall, "whom you never can believe were babies at all; and others you never

see without thinking how very nice they must have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes."

Em remained silent; then she said with a little dignity, "When you know him you will love him as I do. When

I compare other people with him, they seem so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold, our loves are mixed up

with so many other things. But heno one is worthy of his love. I am not. It is so great and pure."

"You need not make yourself unhappy on that pointyour poor return for his love, my dear," said Lyndall.

"A man's love is a fire of olivewood. It leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red

flames; it threatens to wrap you round and devour youyou who stand by like an icicle in the glow of its

fierce warmth. You are selfreproached at your own chilliness and want of reciprocity. The next day, when

you go to warm your hands a little, you find a few ashes! 'Tis a long love and cool against a short love and

"You speak so because you do not know men," said Em, instantly assuming the dignity of superior

knowledge so universally affected by affianced and married women in discussing man's nature with their

"You will know them too some day, and then you will think differently," said Em, with the condescending

Lyndall's little lip quivered in a manner indicative of intense amusement. She twirled a massive ring upon her

forefingera ring more suitable for the hand of a man, and noticeable in designa diamond cross let into

"Ah, Lyndall," Em cried, "perhaps you are engaged yourselfthat is why you smile. Yes; I am sure you are.

"I am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man's foot; and I do not so greatly admire the crying

of babies," she said, as she closed her eyes half wearily and leaned back in the chair. "There are other women

Em felt rebuked and ashamed. How could she take Lyndall and show her the white linen and the wreath, and

the embroidery? She was quiet for a little while, and then began to talk about Trana and the old

farmservants, till she saw her companion was weary; then she rose and left her for the night. But after Em

was gone Lyndall sat on, watching the old crone's face in the corner, and with a weary look, as though the

The next morning, Waldo, starting off before breakfast with a bag of mealies slung over his shoulder to feed

"Wait for me; I am coming with you," said Lyndall, adding as she came up to him, "if I had not gone to look

for you yesterday you would not have come to greet me till now. Do you not like me any longer, Waldo?"

"You like the pinafores better?" she said quickly. She wore a dress of a simple cotton fabric, but very

fashionably made, and on her head was a broad white hat. To Waldo she seemed superbly attired. She saw it.

"My dress has changed a little," she said, "and I also; but not to you. Hang the bag over your other shoulder,

that I may see your face. You say so little that if one does not look at you you are an uncomprehended cipher.

Waldo changed the bag, and they walked on side by side. "You have improved," she said. "Do you know that

I have sometimes wished to see you while I was away; not often, but still sometimes."

They were at the gate of the first camp now. Waldo threw over a bag of mealies, and they walked on over the

"Have you learnt much?" he asked her simply, remembering how she had once said, "When I come back

"Are you thinking of my old boast? Yes; I have learnt something, though hardly what I expected, and not

quite so much. In the first place, I have learnt that one of my ancestors must have been a very great fool; for

they say nothing comes out in a man but one of his forefathers possessed it before him. In the second place, I

have discovered that of all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few

grains of knowledge, a girls' boardingschool is the worst. They are called finishing schools, and the name

tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they cultivate.

They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, 'Into how little space a human soul can

be crushed?' I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and

found room to move therewide room. A woman who has been for many years in one of those places

carries the mark of the beast on her till she dies, though she may expand a little afterward, when she breathes

"I?no. I am never miserable and never happy. I wish I were. But I should have run away from the place on

the fourth day, and hired myself to the first Boerwoman whose farm I came to, to make fire under her

soappot, if I had to live as the rest of the drove did. Can you form an idea, Waldo, of what it must be to be

shut up with cackling old women, who are without knowledge of life, without love of the beautiful, without

strength, to have your soul cultured by them? It is suffocation only to breathe the air they breathe; but I made

them give me room. I told them I should leave, and they knew I came there on my own account; so they gave

me a bedroom without the companionship of one of those things that were having their brains slowly diluted

and squeezed out of them. I did not learn music, because I had no talent; and when the drove made cushions,

and hideous flowers that the roses laugh at, and a footstool in six weeks that a machine would have made

better in five minutes, I went to my room. With the money saved from such work I bought books and

newspapers, and at night I sat up. I read, and epitomized what I read; and I found time to write some plays,

and find out how hard it is to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paint them with

ink and paper. In the holidays I learnt a great deal more. I made acquaintances, saw a few places and many

people, and some different ways of living, which is more than any books can show one. On the whole, I am

not dissatisfied with my four years. I have not learnt what I expected; but I have learnt something else. What

They still stepped on side by side over the dewy bushes. Then suddenly she turned on him.

"I thought not. Even you are too worldlywise for that. I never met a man who did. This is a pretty ring," she

said, holding out her little hand, that the morning sun might make the diamonds sparkle. "Worth fifty pounds

at least. I will give it to the first man who tells me he would like to be a woman. There might be one on

Robbin Island (lunatics at the Cape are sent to Robbin Island) who would win it perhaps, but I doubt it even

there. It is delightful to be a woman; but every man thanks the Lord devoutly that he isn't one."

She drew her hat to one side to keep the sun out of her eyes as she walked. Waldo looked at her so intently

that he stumbled over the bushes. Yes, this was his little Lyndall who had worn the check pinafores; he saw it

"Let us wait at this camp and watch the birds," she said, as an ostrich hen came bounding toward them with

velvety wings outstretched, while far away over the bushes the head of the cock was visible as he sat

Lyndall folded her arms on the gate bar, and Waldo threw his empty bag on the wall and leaned beside her.

"I like these birds," she said; "they share each other's work, and are companions. Do you take an interest in

"I thought not. No one does, unless they are in need of a subject upon which to show their wit. And as for

you, from of old you can see nothing that is not separated from you by a few millions of miles, and strewed

over with mystery. If women were the inhabitants of Jupiter, of whom you had happened to hear something,

you would pore over us and our condition night and day; but because we are before your eyes you never look

at us. You care nothing that this is ragged and ugly," she said, putting her little finger on his sleeve; "but you

strive mightily to make an imaginary leaf on an old stick beautiful. I'm sorry you don't care for the position of

women; I should have liked us to be friends; and it is the only thing about which I think much or feel

muchif, indeed, I have any feeling about anything," she added, flippantly, readjusting her dainty little

arms. "When I was a baby, I fancy my parents left me out in the frost one night, and I got nipped

"I have only a few old thoughts," he said, "and I think them over and over again; always beginning where I

"Like an old hen that sits on its eggs month after month and they never come out?" she said quickly. "I am so

pressed in upon by new things that, lest they should trip one another up, I have to keep forcing them back.

My head swings sometimes. But this one thought stands, never goesif I might but be one of these born in

"I know it is foolish. Wisdom never kicks at the iron walls it can't bring down," she said. "But we are cursed.

Waldo, born cursed from the time our mothers bring us into the world till the shrouds are put on us. Do not

look at me as though I were talking nonsense. Everything has two sides the outside that is ridiculous, and

"It is not what is done to us, but what is made of us," she said at last, "that wrongs us. No man can be really

injured but by what modifies himself. We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force,

perhaps, but for the restblank; and the world tells us what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets

before us. To you it says"Work;" and to us it says"Seem!" To you it saysAs you approximate to

man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your knowledge great, and the power to labour is with

you, so you shall gain all that human heart desires. To us it saysStrength shall not help you, nor

knowledge, nor labour. You shall gain what men gain, but by other means. And so the world makes men and

"Look at this little chin of mine, Waldo, with the dimple in it. It is but a small part of my person; but though I

had a knowledge of all things under the sun, and the wisdom to use it, and the deep loving heart of an angel,

it would not stead me through life like this little chin. I can win money with it, I can win love; I can win

power with it, I can win fame. What would knowledge help me? The less a woman has in her head the lighter

she is for climbing. I once heard an old man say, that he never saw intellect help a woman so much as a pretty

ankle; and it was the truth. They begin to shape us to our cursed end," she said, with her lips drawn in to look

as though they smiled, "when we are tiny things in shoes and socks. We sit with our little feet drawn up under

us in the window, and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving hand is laid on

us: 'Little one, you cannot go,' they say, 'your little face will burn, and your nice white dress be spoiled.' We

feel it must be for our good, it is so lovingly said: but we cannot understand; and we kneel still with one little

cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterwards we go and thread blue beads, and make a string for our

neck; and we go and stand before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil, and the white frock,

and we look into our own great eyes. Then the curse begins to act on us. It finishes its work when we are

grown women, who no more look out wistfully at a more healthy life; we are contented. We fit our sphere as

a Chinese woman's foot fits her shoe, exactly, as though God had made bothand yet he knows nothing of

either. In some of us the shaping of our end has been quite completed. The parts we are not to use have been

quite atrophied, and have even dropped off; but in others, and we are not less to be pitied, they have been

weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but our limbs have not grown to them; we know that we are

"But what does it help? A little bitterness, a little longing when we are young, a little futile searching for

work, a little passionate striving for room for the exercise of our powers,and then we go with the drove. A

woman must march with her regiment. In the end she must be trodden down or go with it; and if she is wise

"I see in your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing at him; "I always know what the person I

am talking to is thinking of. How is this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I? I will show you by

a very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, both poor, both young, both friendless; there is

not much to choose between us. Let us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. This evening you

will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come alone on foot, will give you a pipe of tobacco and

a cup of coffee and a bed. If he has no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can go on your way,

with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to the same place tonight, will have strange questions asked

me, strange glances cast on me. The Boerwife will shake her head and give me food to eat with the Kaffers,

and a right to sleep with the dogs. That would be the first step in our progressa very little one, but every

step to the end would repeat it. We were equals once when we lay newborn babes on our nurses' knees. We

Waldo looked in wonder at the little quivering face; it was a glimpse into a world of passion and feeling

"Mark you," she said, "we have always this advantage over youwe can at any time step into ease and

competence, where you must labour patiently for it. A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little

selfdegradation, a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say: "Come, be my wife!"

With good looks and youth marriage is easy to attain. There are men enough; but a woman who has sold

herself, even for a ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both earn

their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the beautifulest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage

without it is the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world." She ran her little finger savagely along the

topmost bar, shaking off the dozen little dewdrops that still hung there. "And they tell us we have men's

chivalrous attention!" she cried. "When we ask to be doctors, lawyers, lawmakers, anything but illpaid

drudges, they sayNo; but you have men's chivalrous attention; now think of that and be satisfied! What

The bitter little silvery laugh, so seldom heard, rang out across the bushes. She bit her little teeth together.

"I was coming up in Cobb Co.'s the other day. At a little wayside hotel we had to change the large coach for a

small one. We were ten passengers, eight men and two women. As I sat in the house the gentlemen came and

whispered to me, 'There is not room for all in the new coach, take your seat quickly.' We hurried out, and

they gave me the best seat, and covered me with rugs, because it was drizzling. Then the last passenger came

running up to the coachan old woman with a wonderful bonnet, and a black shawl pinned with a yellow

"'There is no room,' they said; 'you must wait till next week's coach takes you up;' but she climbed on to the

"'My good woman,' said one, 'I am really exceedingly sorry that your son inlaw is ill; but there is

"'I will rather kneel,' said one, and he crouched down at my feet; so the woman came in.

"There were nine of us in that coach, and only one showed chivalrous attentionand that was a woman to a

"I shall be old and ugly, too, one day, and I shall look for men's chivalrous help, but I shall not find it.

"The bees are very attentive to the flowers till their honey is done, and then they fly over them. I don't know

"But some women," said Waldo, speaking as though the words forced themselves from him at that moment,

"Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in

them. You may dam up the fountain of water, and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and do

its work; but you cannot say whether it shall be there; it is there. And it will act, if not openly for good, then

covertly for evil; but it will act. If Goethe had been stolen away a child, and reared in a robber horde in the

depths of a German forest, do you think the world would have had "Faust" and "Iphegenie?" But he would

have been Goethe stillstronger, wiser than his fellows. At night, round their watchfire, he would have

chanted wild songs of rapine and murder, till the dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs

would have echoed on from father to son, and nerved the heart and armfor evil. Do you think if Napoleon

had been born a woman that he would have been contented to give small teaparties and talk small scandal?

He would have risen; but the world would not have heard of him as it hears of him nowa man great and

kingly with all his sins; he would have left one of those names that stain the leaf of every history the

names of women, who, having power, but being denied the right to exercise it openly, rule in the dark,

covertly, and by stealth, through the men whose passions they feed on and by whom they climb.

"Power!" she said, suddenly, smiting her little hand upon the rail. "Yes, we have power; and since we are not

to expend it in tunnelling mountains, nor healing diseases, nor making laws, nor money, nor on any

extraneous object, we expend it on you. You are our goods, our merchandise, our material for operating on;

we buy you, we sell you, we make fools of you, we act the wily old Jew with you, we keep six of you

crawling to our little feet, and praying only for a touch of our little hand; and they say truly, there was never

an ache or pain or broken heart but a woman was at the bottom of it. We are not to study law, nor science, nor

art, so we study you. There is never a nerve or fibre in a man's nature but we know it. We keep six of you

dancing in the palm of one little hand," she said, balancing her outstretched arm gracefully, as though tiny

beings disported themselves in its palm. "There, we throw you away, and you sink to the devil," she said,

folding her arms composedly. "There was never a man who said one word for woman but he said two for

She watched the bird pecking up the last yellow grains; but Waldo looked only at her.

"They bring weighty arguments against us when we ask for the perfect freedom of women," she said; "but,

when you come to the objections, they are like pumpkin devils with candles inside, hollow, and can't bite.

They say that women do not wish for the sphere and freedom we ask for them, and would not use it!

"If the bird does like its cage, and does like its sugar and will not leave it, why keep the door so very carefully

shut? Why not open it, only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against the

bars, but would fly if the doors were open?" She knit her forehead and leaned further over the bars.

"Then they say, 'If the women have the liberty you ask for, they will be found in positions for which they are

not fitted!' If two men climb one ladder, did you ever see the weakest anywhere but at the foot? The surest

sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but where there is handicapping. Nature, left to herself,

will as beautifully apportion a man's work to his capacities as long ages ago she graduated the colours on the

bird's breast. If we are not fit, you give us, to no purpose, the right to labour; the work will fall out of our

She talked more rapidly as she went on, as one talks of that over which they have brooded long, and which

"They say women have one great and noble work left them, and they do it ill. That is true; they do it

execrably. It is the work that demands the broadest culture, and they have not even the narrowest. The lawyer

may see no deeper than his lawbooks, and the chemist see no further than the windows of his laboratory,

and they may do their work well. But the woman who does woman's work needs a manysided, multiform

culture; the heights and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of her vision; she must have

knowledge of men and things in many states, a wide catholicity of sympathy, the strength that springs from

knowledge, and the magnanimity which springs from strength. We bear the world, and we make it. The souls

of little children are marvellously delicate and tender things, and keep forever the shadow that first falls on

them, and that is the mother's or at best a woman's. There was never a great man who had not a great

motherit is hardly an exaggeration. The first six years of our life make us; all that is added later is veneer;

and yet some say, if a woman can cook a dinner or dress herself well she has culture enough.

"The mightiest and noblest of human work is given to us, and we do it ill. Send a navvie to work into an

artist's studio, and see what you will find there! And yet, thank God, we have this work," she added,

quickly"it is the one window through which we see into the great world of earnest labour. The meanest girl

who dances and dresses becomes something higher when her children look up into her face and ask her

questions. It is the only education we have and which they cannot take from us."

She smiled slightly. "They say that we complain of woman's being compelled to look upon marriage as a

"Yesand a cat set afloat in a pond is free to sit in the tub till it dies there, it is under no obligation to wet its

feet; and a drowning man may catch at a straw or not, just as he likesit is a glorious liberty! Let any man

think for five minutes of what old maidenhood means to a womanand then let him be silent. Is it easy to

bear through life a name that in itself signifies defeat? to dwell, as nine out of ten unmarried women must,

under the finger of another woman? Is it easy to look forward to an old age without honour, without the

reward of useful labour, without love? I wonder how many men there are who would give up everything that

"And then, when they have no other argument against us, they say, 'Go on; but when you have made woman

what you wish, and her children inherit her culture, you will defeat yourself. Man will gradually become

extinct from excess of intellect, the passions which replenish the race will die.' Fools!" she said, curling her

pretty lip. "A Hottentot sits at the roadside and feeds on a rotten bone he has found there, and takes out his

bottle of Capesmoke and swills at it, and grunts with satisfaction; and the cultured child of the nineteenth

century sits in his armchair, and sips choice wines with the lip of a connoisseur, and tastes delicate dishes

with a delicate palate, and with a satisfaction of which the Hottentot knows nothing. Heavy jaw and sloping

foreheadall have gone with increasing intellect; but the animal appetites are there stillrefined,

discriminative, but immeasurably intensified. Fools! Before men forgave or worshipped, while they were

weak on their hind legs, did they not eat and drink, and fight for wives? When all the latter additions to

humanity have vanished, will not the foundation on which they are built remain?"

She was silent then for a while, and said somewhat dreamily, more as though speaking to herself than to him,

"They ask, What will you gain, even if man does not become extinct?you will have brought justice and

equality on to the earth, and sent love from it. When men and women are equals they will love no more. Your

"Do they see nothing, understand nothing? It is Tant Sannie who buries husbands one after another, and folds

her hands resignedly,'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the

Lord,' and she looks for another. It is the hardheaded, deep thinker who, when the wife who has thought

and worked with him goes, can find no rest, and lingers near her till he finds sleep beside her.

"A great soul draws and is drawn with a more fierce intensity than any small one. By every inch we grow in

intellectual height our love strikes down its roots deeper, and spreads out its arms wider. It is for love's sake

She had leaned her head against the stones, and watched with her sad, soft eyes the retreating bird. "Then

when that time comes," she said lowly, "when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means of

making bread, when each woman's life is filled with earnest, independent labour, then love will come to her,

a strange, sudden sweetness breaking in upon her earnest work; not sought for, but found. Then, but not

Waldo waited for her to finish the sentence, but she seemed to have forgotten him.

"Lyndall," he said, putting his hand upon hershe started"if you think that that new time will be so great,

"Speak! speak!" she said, "the difficulty is not to speak; the difficulty is to keep silence."

"But why do you not try to bring that time?" he said with pitiful simplicity. "When you speak I believe all

Then over the small face came the weary look it had worn last night as it watched the shadow in the corner,

"I, Waldo, I?" she said. "I will do nothing good for myself, nothing for the world, till some one wakes me. I

am asleep, swathed, shut up in self; till I have been delivered I will deliver no one."

"To see the good and the beautiful," she said, "and to have no strength to live it, is only to be Moses on the

mountain of Nebo, with the land at your feet and no power to enter. It would be better not to see it. Come,"

she said, looking up into his face, and seeing its uncomprehending expression, "let us go, it is getting late.

Doss is anxious for his breakfast also," she added, wheeling round and calling to the dog, who was

endeavouring to unearth a mole, an occupation to which he had been zealously addicted from the third month,

Waldo shouldered his bag, and Lyndall walked on before in silence, with the dog close to her side. Perhaps

she thought of the narrowness of the limits within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its

nearest of mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience, in which no

fellow footfall is ever heard. Whatever her thoughts may have been, she was soon interrupted. Waldo came

close to her, and standing still, produced with awkwardness from his breastpocket a small carved box.

The workmanship was better than that of the gravepost. The flowers that covered it were delicate, and here

and there small conical protuberances were let in among them. She turned it round critically. Waldo bent over

"There is one strange thing about it," he said earnestly, putting a finger on one little pyramid. "I made it

without these, and I felt something was wrong; I tried many changes, and at last I let these in, and then it was

"The sky is monotonous," he said, "when it is blue, and yet it is beautiful. I have thought of that often; but it

is not monotony, and it is not variety makes beauty. What is it? The sky, and your face, and this boxthe

same thing is in them all, only more in the sky and in your face. But what is it?"

"So you are at your old work still. Why, why, why? What is the reason? It is enough for me," she said, "if I

find out what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is real and what is not. Why it is there, and over the final

cause of things in general, I don't trouble myself; there must be one, but what is it to me? If I howl to all

eternity I shall never get hold of it; and if I did I might be no better off. But you Germans are born with an

aptitude for borrowing; you can't help yourselves. You must sniff after reasons, just as that dog must after a

mole. He knows perfectly well he will never catch it, but he's under the imperative necessity of digging for

"Might!but he never has and never will. Life is too short to run after mights; we must have certainties."

She tucked the box under her arm and was about to walk on, when Gregory Rose, with shining spurs, an

ostrich feather in his hat, and a silver headed whip, careered past. He bowed gallantly as he went by. They

"There," said Lyndall, "goes a true womanone born for the sphere that some women have to fill without

being born for it. How happy he would be sewing frills into his little girl's frocks, and how pretty he would

look sitting in a parlour, with a rough man making love to him! Don't you think so?"

"I shall not stay here when he is master," Waldo answered, not able to connect any kind of beauty with

"I should imagine not. The rule of a woman is tyranny; but the rule of a manwoman grinds fine. Where are

"Yes; and you will be more so. I want things that men and the world give, you do not. If you have a few yards

of earth to stand on, and a bit of blue over you, and something that you cannot see to dream about, you have

all that you need, all that you know how to use. But I like to see real men. Let them be as disagreeable as they

please, they are more interesting to me than flowers, or trees, or stars, or any other thing under the sun.

Sometimes," she added, walking on, and shaking the dust daintily from her skirts, "when I am not too busy

trying to find a new way of doing my hair that will show my little neck to better advantage, or over other

work of that kind, sometimes it amuses me intensely to trace out the resemblance between one man and

another: to see how Tant Sannie and I, you and Bonaparte, St. Simon on his pillow, and the emperor dining

off larks' tongues, are one and the same compound, merely mixed in different proportions.

"What is microscopic in one is largely developed in another; what is a rudimentary in one man is an active

organ in another; but all things are in all men, and one soul is the model of all. We shall find nothing new in

human nature after we have once carefully dissected and analyzed the one being we ever shall truly

knowourself. The Kaffer girl threw some coffee on my arm in bed this morning; I felt displeased, but said

nothing. Tant Sannie would have thrown the saucer at her and sworn for an hour; but the feeling would be the

same irritated displeasure. If a huge animated stomach like Bonaparte were put under a glass by a skilful

mental microscopist, even he would be found to have an embryonic doubling somewhere indicative of a

heart, and rudimentary buddings that might have become conscience and sincerity. Let me take your arm

"How full you are of mealie dust. No, never mind. It will brush off. And sometimes what is more amusing

still than tracing the likeness between man and man, is to trace the analogy there always is between the

progress and development of one individual and of a whole nation; or, again, between a single nation and the

entire human race. It is pleasant when it dawns on you that the one is just the other written out in large letters;

and very odd to find all the little follies and virtues, and developments and retrogressions, written out in the

big world's book that you find in your little internal self. It is the most amusing thing I know of; but of course,

being a woman, I have not often time for such amusements. Professional duties always first, you know. It

takes a great deal of time and thought always to look perfectly exquisite, even for a pretty woman. Is the old

"Well, I wish you would mend it. You must teach me to drive. I must learn something while I am here. I got

the Hottentot girl to show me how to make sarsarties this morning; and Tant Sannie is going to teach me to

make kapjes. I will come and sit with you this afternoon while you mend the harness."

"No, don't thank me; I come for my own pleasure. I never find any one I can talk to. Women bore me, and

men, I talk so to'Going to the ball this evening? Nice little dog that of yours. Pretty little ears. So fond of

pointer pups!' And they think me fascinating, charming! Men are like the earth, and we are the moon; we turn

always one side to them, and they think there is no other, because they don't see itbut there is."

Waldo stood to look after her, and Doss stood at his side, a look of painful uncertainty depicted on his small

countenance, and one little foot poised in the air. Should he stay with his master or go? He looked at the

figure with the wide straw hat moving toward the house, and he looked up at his master; then he put down the

little paw and went. Waldo watched them both in at the door and then walked away alone. He was satisfied

It was just after sunset, and Lyndall had not yet returned from her first drivinglesson, when the lean

coloured woman standing at the corner of the house to enjoy the evening breeze, saw coming along the road a

strange horseman. Very narrowly she surveyed him, as slowly he approached. He was attired in the deepest

mourning, the black crepe round his tall hat totally concealing the black felt, and nothing but a dazzling

shirtfront relieving the funereal tone of his attire. He rode much forward in his saddle, with his chin resting

on the uppermost of his shirtstuds, and there was an air of meek subjection to the will of Heaven, and to

what might be in store for him, that bespoke itself even in the way in which he gently urged his steed. He was

evidently in no hurry to reach his destination, for the nearer he approached to it the slacker did his bridle

"Good Lord!" said Tant Sannie; "it's the seventh I've had this month; but the men know where sheep and

good looks and money in the bank are to be found," she added, winking knowingly. "How does he look?"

"Then it's he! then it's he!" said Tant Sannie triumphantly; "little Piet Vander Walt, whose wife died last

monthtwo farms, twelve thousand sheep. I've not seen him, but my sisterinlaw told me about him, and I

Here Piet's black hat appeared in the doorway, and the Boerwoman drew herself up in dignified silence,

extended the tips of her fingers, and motioned solemnly to a chair. The young man seated himself, sticking

"I told you so! I knew it!" said Tant Sannie. "The dear Lord doesn't send dreams for nothing. Didn't I tell you

this morning that I dreamed of a great beast like a sheep, with red eyes, and I killed it? Wasn't the white wool

his hair, and the red eyes his weak eyes, and my killing him meant marriage? Get supper ready quickly; the

To young Piet Vander Walt that supper was a period of intense torture. There was something overawing in

that assembly of English people, with their incomprehensible speech; and moreover, it was his first courtship;

his first wife had courted him, and ten months of severe domestic rule had not raised his spirit nor courage.

He ate little, and when he raised a morsel to his lips glanced guiltily round to see if he were not observed. He

had put three rings on his little finger, with the intention of sticking it out stiffly when he raised a coffeecup;

now the little finger was curled miserably among its fellows. It was small relief when the meal was over, and

Tant Sannie and he repaired to the front room. Once seated there, he set his knees close together, stood his

black hat upon them, and wretchedly turned the brim up and down. But supper had cheered Tant Sannie, who

found it impossible longer to maintain that decorous silence, and whose heart yearned over the youth.

"I was related to your aunt Selena who died," said Tant Sannie. "My mother's stepbrother's child was married

"It was her cousin," said Tant Sannie, now fairly on the flow, "who had the cancer cut out of her breast by the

other doctor, who was not the right doctor they sent for, but who did it quite as well."

"I've heard about it often," said Tant Sannie. "And he was the son of the old doctor that they say died on

Christmasday, but I don't know if that's true. People do tell such awful lies. Why should he die on

"Well, they say that doctornot the son of the old doctor that died on Christmasday, the other that didn't

come when he was sent forhe gave such good stuff for the toothache that if you opened the bottle in the

room where any one was bad they got better directly. You could see it was good stuff," said Tant Sannie; "it

tasted horrid. That was a real doctor! He used to give a bottle so high," said the Boerwoman, raising her

hand a foot from the table, "you could drink at it for a month and it wouldn't get done, and the same medicine

was good for all sorts of sicknessescroup, measles, jaundice, dropsy. Now you have to buy a new kind for

"No, aunt," said the young man, who was trying to gain courage to stick out his legs and clink his spurs

Tant Sannie had noticed the spurs before; but she thought it showed a nice manly spirit, and her heart warmed

"Strange," said Tant Sannie; "I had convulsions too. Wonderful that we should be so much alike!"

Tant Sannie hung her head and half closed her eyes; but finding that her little wiles were thrown away, the

young man staring fixedly at his hat, she simpered, "Yes," and went away to fetch candles.

In the dining room Em worked at her machine, and Gregory sat close beside her, his great blue eyes turned to

Tant Sannie took two candles out of the cupboard and held them up triumphantly, winking all round the

"Does he want them for his horse's rubbed back?" asked Gregory, new to up country life.

"No," said Tant Sannie, indignantly; "we're going to sit up!" and she walked off in triumph with the candles.

Nevertheless, when all the rest of the house had retired, when the long candle was lighted, when the

coffeekettle was filled, when she sat in the elbowchair, with her lover on a chair close beside her, and

when the vigil of the night was fairly begun, she began to find it wearisome. The young man looked chilly,

At last Tant Sannie, afraid of going to sleep, tapped a strong cup of coffee for herself and handed another to

"It's very hard when we must give our husbands and wives to the Lord," said Tant Sannie.

"She was such a good wife, aunt: I've known her break a churnstick over a maid's head for only letting dust

Tant Sannie felt a twinge of jealousy. She had never broken a churnstick on a maid's head.

"Oh, beautiful, aunt: she said up a psalm and two hymns and a half before she died."

"No," said the young man; "but the night before she died I was lying at the foot of her bed; I felt her foot kick

"'My little baby that died yesterday has been here, and it stood over the wagonbox,' she said.

"'The little baby has been here again, and it says you must marry a woman over thirty, and who's had two

"I didn't go to sleep after that for a long time, aunt; but when I did she woke me.

"'The baby has been here again,' she said, 'and it says you mustn't marry a woman with a mole.' I told her I

The young man nodded his head mournfully. He thought of a younger sister of his wife's who was not fat,

and who had a mole, and of whom his wife had always been jealous, and he wished the little baby had liked

"Yes, aunt. And pa said I ought to get married before shearingtime. It is bad if there's no one to see after

"Next month, aunt," said the young man in a tone of hopeless resignation. "May I kiss you, aunt?"

"Fie! fie!" said Tant Sannie, and then gave him a resounding kiss. Come, draw your chair a little closer," she

The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant Sannie's bedroom, she found the Boerwoman pulling

"Just gone," said Tant Sannie; "and I am going to marry him this day four weeks. I am dead sleepy," she

added; "the stupid thing doesn't know how to talk lovetalk at all," and she climbed into the fourposter,

On the day preceding Tant Sannie's wedding, Gregory Rose sat in the blazing sun on the stone wall behind

his daubandwattle house. It was warm, but he was intently watching a small buggy that was being

recklessly driven over the bushes in the direction of the farmhouse. Gregory never stirred till it had vanished;

then, finding the stones hot, he slipped down and walked into the house. He kicked the little pail that lay in

the doorway, and sent it into one corner; that did him good. Then he sat down on the box, and began cutting

letters out of a piece of newspaper. Finding that the snippings littered the floor, he picked them up and began

scribbling on his blottingpaper. He tried the effect of different initials before the name Rose: G. Rose, E.

Rose, L. Rose, Rose, L.L., L.L. Rose. When he had covered the sheet, he looked at it discontentedly a little

"It is a long while since I last wrote to you, but I have had no time. This is the first morning I have been at

home since I don't know when. Em always expects me to go down to the farmhouse in the morning; but I

"Tant Sannie, Em's Boer stepmother, is to be married tomorrow. She is gone to town today, and the wedding

feast is to be at her brother's farm. Em and I are going to ride over on horseback, but her cousin is going to

ride in the buggy with that German. I don't think I've written to you since she came back from school. I don't

think you would like her at all, Jemima; there's something so proud about her. She thinks just because she's

handsome there's nobody good enough to talk to her, and just as if there had nobody else but her been to

"They are going to have a grand affair tomorrow; all the Boers about are coming, and they are going to dance

all night; but I don't think I shall dance at all; for, as Em's cousin says, these Boer dances are low things. I am

sure I only danced at the last to please Em. I don't know why she is fond of dancing. Em talked of our being

married on the same day as Tant Sannie; but I said it would be nicer for her if she waited till the shearing was

over, and I took her down to see you. I suppose she will have to live with us (Em's cousin, I mean), as she has

not anything in the world but a poor fifty pounds. I don't like her at all, Jemima, and I don't think you would.

She's got such queer ways; she's always driving about in a gig with that low German; and I don't think it's at

all the thing for a woman to be going about with a man she's not engaged to. Do you? If it was me now, of

course, who am a kind of connection, it would be different. The way she treats me, considering that I am so

soon to be her cousin, is not at all nice. I took down my album the other day with your likenesses in it, and I

told her she could look at it, and put it down close to her; but she just said, Thank you, and never even

"She gets the wildest horses in that buggy, and a horrid snappish little cur belonging to the German sitting in

front, and then she drives out alone. I don't think it's at all proper for a woman to drive out alone; I wouldn't

allow it if she was my sister. The other morning, I don't know how it happened, I was going in the way from

which she was coming, and that little beastthey call him Dossbegan to bark when he saw mehe

always does, the little wretchand the horses began to spring, and kicked the splashboard all to pieces. It

was a sight to see Jemima! She has got the littlest hands I ever sawI could hold them both in one of mine,

and not know that I'd got anything except that they were so soft; but she held those horses in as though they

were made of iron. When I wanted to help her she said, 'No thank you: I can manage them myself. I've got a

pair of bits that would break their jaws if I used them well,' and she laughed and drove away. It's so

"Tell father my hire of the ground will not be out for six months, and before that Em and I will be married.

My pair of birds is breeding now, but I haven't been down to see them for three days. I don't seem to care

about anything any more. I don't know what it is; I'm not well. If I go into town on Saturday I will let the

doctor examine me; but perhaps she'll go in herself. It's a very strange thing, Jemima, but she never will send

her letters to post by me. If I ask her she has none, and the very next day she goes in and posts them herself.

You mustn't say anything about it, Jemima, but twice I've brought her letters from the post in a gentleman's

hand, and I'm sure they were both from the same person, because I noticed every little mark, even the dotting

"Of course it's nothing to me; but for Em's sake I can't help feeling an interest in her, however much I may

dislike her myself; and I hope she's up to nothing. I pity the man who marries her; I wouldn't be him for

anything. If I had a wife with pride I'd make her give it up, sharp. I don't believe in a man who can't make a

woman obey him. Now EmI'm very fond of her, as you knowbut if I tell her to put on a certain dress,

that dress she puts on; and if I tell her to sit on a certain seat, on that seat she sits; and if I tell her not to speak

to a certain individual, she does not speak to them. If a man lets a woman do what he doesn't like he's a muff.

"Give my love to mother and the children. The veld here is looking pretty good, and the sheep are better since

"Em sends her love to you. She is making me some woollen shirts; but they don't fit me so nicely as those

"P.S.She drove past just now; I was sitting on the kraal wall right before her eyes, and she never even

"I didn't know before you were so fond of riding hard," said Gregory to his little betrothed.

They were cantering slowly on the road to Oom Muller's on the morning of the wedding.

"Of course I do! It's enough to break the horses' necks, and knock one up for the whole day besides," he

added testily; then twisted his head to look at the buggy that came on behind. "I thought Waldo was such a

mad driver; they are taking it easily enough today," said Gregory. "One would think the black stallions were

"I suppose they want to keep out of our dust," said Em. "See, they stand still as soon as we do."

"It's all that horse of yours: she kicks up such a confounded dust, I can't stand it myself," he said.

"Take the reins," said Lyndall, and "and make them walk. I want to rest and watch their hoofs todaynot to

She leaned back in her corner, and Waldo drove on slowly in the grey dawn light along the level road. They

passed the very milkbush behind which so many years before the old German had found the Kaffer woman.

But their thoughts were not with him that morning: they were the thoughts of the young, that run out to meet

"I feared you had gone to sleep and might be jolted out," he said; "you sat so quietly."

"No; do not talk to me; I am not asleep;" but after a time she said suddenly: "It must be a terrible thing to

Waldo looked round; she sat drawn into the corner, her blue cloud wound tightly about her, and she still

watched the horses' feet. Having no comment to offer on her somewhat unexpected remark, he merely

"I have no conscience, none," she added; "but I would not like to bring a soul into this world. When it sinned

and when it suffered something like a dead hand would fall on me'You did it, you, for your own pleasure

you created this thing! See your work!' If it lived to be eighty it would always hang like a millstone round my

neck, have the right to demand good from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is only like to Godif

his work turns out bad, so much the worse for him; he dare not wash his hands of it. Time and years can

never bring the day when you can say to your child: 'Soul, what have I to do with you?'"

She heard the words as she heard the beating of the horses' hoofs; her thoughts ran on in their own line.

"They say, 'God sends the little babies.' Of all the dastardly revolting lies men tell to suit themselves, I hate

that most. I suppose my father said so when he knew he was dying of consumption, and my mother when she

knew she had nothing to support me on, and they created me to feed like a dog from stranger hands. Men do

not say God sends the books, or the newspaper articles, or the machines they make; and then sigh, and shrug

their shoulders and say they can't help it. Why do they say so about other things? Liars! 'God sends the little

babies!'" She struck her foot fretfully against the splashboard. "The small children say so earnestly. They

touch the little stranger reverently who has just come from God's far country, and they peep about the room to

see if not one white feather has dropped from the wing of the angel that brought him. On their lips the phrase

means much; on all others it is a deliberate lie. Noticeable, too," she said, dropping in an instant from the

passionate into a low, mocking tone, "when people are married, though they should have sixty children, they

throw the whole onus on God. When they are not, we hear nothing about God's having sent them. When there

has been no legal contract between the parents, who sends the little children then? The devil perhaps!" She

laughed her little silvery, mocking laugh. "Odd that some men should come from hell and some from heaven,

Waldo wondered at her. He had not the key to her thoughts, and did not see the string on which they were

"It must be very nice to believe in the devil," she said; "I wish I did. If it would be of any use I would pray

three hours night and morning on my bare knees, 'God, let me believe in Satan.' He is so useful to those

people who do. They may be as selfish and as sensual as they please, and, between God's will and the devil's

action, always have some one to throw their sin on. But we, wretched unbelievers, we bear our own burdens:

we must say, 'I myself did it, I. Not God, not Satan; I myself!' That is the sting that strikes deep. Waldo," she

said gently, with a sudden and complete change of manner, "I like you so much, I love you." She rested her

cheek softly against his shoulder. "When I am with you I never know that I am a woman and you are a man; I

only know that we are both things that think. Other men when I am with them, whether I love them or not,

they are mere bodies to me; but you are a spirit; I like you. Look," she said quickly, sinking back into her

corner, "what a pretty pinkness there is on all the hilltops! The sun will rise in a moment."

Waldo lifted his eyes to look round over the circle of golden hills; and the horses, as the first sunbeams

touched them, shook their heads and champed their bright bits, till the brass settings in their harness glittered

It was eight o'clock when they neared the farmhouse: a redbrick building, with kraals to the right and a

small orchard to the left. Already there were signs of unusual life and bustle: one cart, a wagon, and a couple

of saddles against the wall betokened the arrival of a few early guests, whose numbers would soon be largely

increased. To a Dutch country wedding guests start up in numbers astonishing to one who has merely ridden

As the morning advances, riders on many shades of steeds appear from all directions, and add their saddles to

the long rows against the walls, shake hands, drink coffee, and stand about outside in groups to watch the

arriving carts and oxwagons, as they are unburdened of their heavy freight of massive Tantes and comely

daughters, followed by swarms of children of all sizes, dressed in all manner of print and moleskin, who are

taken care of by Hottentot, Kaffer, and halfcaste nurses, whose manyshaded complexions, ranging from

Everywhere is excitement and bustle, which gradually increases as the time for the return of the

weddingparty approaches. Preparations for the feast are actively advancing in the kitchen; coffee is liberally

handed round, and amid a profound sensation, and the firing of guns, the horsewagon draws up, and the

weddingparty alight. Bride and bridegroom, with their attendants, march solemnly to the

marriagechamber, where bed and box are decked out in white, with ends of ribbon and artificial flowers,

and where on a row of chairs the party solemnly seat themselves. After a time bridesmaid and best man rise,

and conduct in with ceremony each individual guest, to wish success and to kiss bride and bridegroom.

Then the feast is set on the table, and it is almost sunset before the dishes are cleared away, and the pleasure

of the day begins. Everything is removed from the great front room, and the mud floor, well rubbed with

bullock's blood, glistens like polished mahogany. The female portion of the assembly flock into the

siderooms to attire themselves for the evening; and reissue clad in white muslin, and gay with bright

ribbons and brass jewelry. The dancing begins as the first tallow candles are stuck up about the walls, the

music coming from a couple of fiddlers in a corner of the room. Bride and bridegroom open the ball, and the

floor is soon covered with whirling couples, and every one's spirits rise. The bridal pair mingle freely in the

throng, and here and there a musical man sings vigorously as he drags his partner through the Blue Water or

John Speriwig; boys shout and applaud, and the enjoyment and confusion are intense, till eleven o'clock

comes. By this time the children who swarm in the side rooms are not to be kept quiet longer, even by

hunches of bread and cake; there is a general howl and wail, that rises yet higher than the scraping of fiddles,

and mothers rush from their partners to knock small heads together, and cuff little nursemaids, and force the

wailers down into unoccupied corners of beds, under tables and behind boxes. In half an hour every variety of

childish snore is heard on all sides, and it has become perilous to raise or set down a foot in any of the

Now too the busy feet have broken the solid coating of the floor, and a cloud of fine dust arises, that makes a

yellow halo round the candles, and sets asthmatic people coughing, and grows denser, till to recognise any

one on the opposite side of the room becomes impossible, and a partner's face is seen through a yellow mist.

At twelve o'clock the bride is led to the marriagechamber and undressed; the lights are blown out, and the

bridegroom is brought to the door by the best man, who gives him the key; then the door is shut and locked,

and the revels rise higher than ever. There is no thought of sleep till morning, and no unoccupied spot where

It was at this stage of the proceedings on the night of Tant Sannie's wedding that Lyndall sat near the

doorway in one of the siderooms, to watch the dancers as they appeared and disappeared in the yellow cloud

of dust. Gregory sat moodily in a corner of the large dancingroom. His little betrothed touched his arm.

"I wish you would go and ask Lyndall to dance with you," she said; "she must be so tired; she has sat still the

"I have asked her three times," replied her lover shortly. "I'm not going to be her dog, and creep to her feet,

just to give her the pleasure of kicking menot for you, Em, nor for anybody else."

"Oh, I didn't know you had asked her, Greg," said his little betrothed, humbly; and she went away to pour out

Nevertheless, some time after Gregory found he had shifted so far round the room as to be close to the door

where Lyndall sat. After standing for some time he inquired whether he might not bring her a cup of coffee.

She declined; but still he stood on (why should he not stand there as well as anywhere else?), and then he

"There is a draught from that broken window: shall I stuff something in the pane?"

Gregory looked round, but nothing else suggesting itself, he sat down on a box on the opposite side of the

door. Lyndall sat before him, her chin resting in her hand; her eyes, steelgrey by day, but black by night,

looked through the doorway into the next room. After a time he thought she had entirely forgotten his

proximity, and he dared to inspect the little hands and neck as he never dared when he was in momentary

She was dressed in black, which seemed to take her yet further from the whiteclad, gewgawed women about

her; and the little hands were white, and the diamond ring glittered. Where had she got that ring? He bent

forward a little and tried to decipher the letters, but the candlelight was too faint. When he looked up her

eyes were fixed on him. She was looking at himnot, Gregory felt, as she had ever looked at him before; not

as though he were a stump or a stone that chance had thrown in her way. Tonight, whether it were critically,

or kindly, or unkindly, he could not tell, but she looked at him, at the man, Gregory Rose, with attention. A

vague elation filled him. He clinched his fist tight to think of some good idea he might express to her; but of

all those profound things he had pictured himself as saying to her, when he sat alone in the daubandwattle

"These Boer dances are very low things;" and then, as soon as it had gone from him, he thought it was not a

"Oh, come," she said; "they are going to have the cushiondance. I do not want to kiss any of these fellows.

"I am tired," she said. "I wonder where Waldo is; he must take me home. These people will not leave off till

She made her way past the fiddlers, and a bench full of tired dancers, and passed out at the front door. On the

stoep a group of men and boys were smoking, peeping in at the windows, and cracking coarse jokes. Waldo

was certainly not among them, and she made her way to the carts and wagons drawn up at some distance

"Waldo," she said, peering into a large cart, "is that you? I am so dazed with the tallow candles, I see

He had made himself a place between the two seats. She climbed up and sat on the sloping floor in front.

"I thought I should find you here," she said, drawing her skirt up about her shoulders. "You must take me

She leaned her head on the seat near to his, and they listened in silence to the fitful twanging of the fiddles as

the nightwind bore it from the farmhouse, and to the ceaseless thud of the dancers, and the peals of gross

"It is so nice to lie here and hear that noise," she said. "I like to feel that strange life beating up against me. I

like to realise forms of life utterly unlike mine." She drew a long breath. "When my own life feels small, and

I am oppressed with it, I like to crush together, and see it in a picture, in an instant, a multitude of

disconnected unlike phases of human lifea mediaeval monk with his string of beads pacing the quiet

orchard, and looking up from the grass at his feet to the heavy fruit trees; little Malay boys playing naked on

a shining seabeach; a Hindoo philosopher alone under his banyan tree, thinking, thinking, thinking, so that

in the thought of God he may lose himself; a troop of Bacchanalians dressed in white, with crowns of

vineleaves, dancing along the Roman streets; a martyr on the night of his death looking through the narrow

window to the sky, and feeling that already he has the wings that shall bear him up" (she moved her hand

dreamily over her face); "an epicurean discoursing at a Roman bath to a knot of his disciples on the nature of

happiness; a Kaffer witchdoctor seeking for herbs by moonlight, while from the huts on the hillside come the

sound of dogs barking, and the voices of women and children; a mother giving breadandmilk to her

children in little wooden basins and singing the evening song. I like to see it all; I feel it run through

methat life belongs to me; it makes my little life larger, it breaks down the narrow walls that shut me in."

"Yes," he said, the words coming in jets, with pauses between; "I will take the grey mareI will travel

"That is no plan; travelsee the worldfind work! If you go into the world aimless, without a definite

object, dreamingdreaming, you will be definitely defeated, bamboozled, knocked this way and that. In the

end you will stand with your beautiful life all spent, and nothing to show. They talk of geniusit is nothing

but this, that a man knows what he can do best, and does it, and nothing else. Waldo," she said, knitting her

little fingers closer among his, "I wish I could help you; I wish I could make you see that you must decide

what you will be and do. It does not matter what you choosebe a farmer, businessman, artist, what you

willbut know your aim, and live for that one thing. We have only one life. The secret of success is

concentration; wherever there has been a great life, or a great work, that has gone before. Taste everything a

little, look at everything a little; but live for one thing. Anything is possible to a man who knows his end and

moves straight for it, and for it alone. I will show you what I mean," she said, concisely; "words are gas till

"Suppose a woman, young, friendless as I am, the weakest thing on God's earth. But she must make her way

through life. What she would be she cannot be because she is a woman; so she looks carefully at herself and

"There is no one to help her; she must help herself. She looks. These things she hasa sweet voice, rich in

subtile intonations; a fair, very fair face, with a power of concentrating in itself, and giving expression to,

feelings that otherwise must have been dissipated in words; a rare power of entering into other lives unlike

her own, and intuitively reading them aright. These qualities she has. How shall she use them? A poet, a

writer, needs only the mental; what use has he for a beautiful body that registers clearly mental emotions?

And the painter wants an eye for form and colour, and the musician an ear for time and tune, and the mere

"But there is one art in which all she has would be used, for which they are all necessarythe delicate

expressive body, the rich voice, the power of mental transposition. The actor, who absorbs and then reflects

from himself other human lives, needs them all, but needs not much more. This is her end; but how to reach

it? Before her are endless difficulties: seas must be crossed, poverty must be endured, loneliness, want. She

must be content to wait long before she can even get her feet upon the path. If she has made blunders in the

past, if she has weighted herself with a burden which she must bear to the end, she must but bear the burden

bravely, and labour on. There is no use in wailing and repentance here: the next world is the place for that;

this life is too short. By our errors we see deeper into life. They help us." She waited for a while. "If she does

all thisif she waits patiently, if she is never cast down, never despairs, never forgets her end, moves

straight toward it, bending men and things most unlikely to her purposeshe must succeed at last. Men and

things are plastic; they part to the right and left when one comes among them moving in a straight line to one

end. I know it by my own little experience," she said. "Long years ago I resolved to be sent to school. It

seemed a thing utterly out of my power; but I waited, I watched, I collected clothes, I wrote, took my place at

the school; when all was ready I bore with my full force on the Boerwoman, and she sent me at last. It was a

small thing; but life is made up of small things, as a body is built up of cells. What has been done in small

Waldo listened. To him the words were no confession, no glimpse into the strong, proud, restless heart of the

woman. They were general words with a general application. He looked up into the sparkling sky with dull

"Yes," he said; "but when we lie and think, and think, we see that there is nothing worth doing. The universe

"But we must not think so far; it is madness, it is a disease. We know that no man's work is great, and stands

forever. Moses is dead, and the prophets and the books that our grandmothers fed on the mould is eating.

Your poet and painter and actor,before the shouts that applaud them have died their names grow strange,

they are milestones that the world has passed. Men have set their mark on mankind forever, as they thought;

but time has washed it out as it has washed out mountains and continents." She raised herself on her elbow.

"And what if we could help mankind, and leave the traces of our work upon it to the end? Mankind is only an

ephemeral blossom on the tree of time; there were others before it opened; there will be others after it has

fallen. Where was man in the time of the dicynodont, and when hoary monsters wallowed in the mud? Will

he be found in the aeons that are to come? We are sparks, we are shadows, we are pollen, which the next

"I know that thought. When the fever of living is on us, when the desire to become, to know, to do, is driving

us mad, we can use it as an anodyne, to still the fever and cool our beating pulses. But it is a poison, not a

food. If we live on it it will turn our blood to ice; we might as well be dead. We must not, Waldo; I want your

life to be beautiful, to end in something. You are nobler and stronger than I," she said; "and as much better as

one of God's great angels is better than a sinning man. Your life must go for something."

She moved closer to him and lay still, his black curls touching her smooth little head.

Doss, who had lain at his master's side, climbed over the bench, and curled himself up in her lap. She drew

"Theythe stars!" she said, softly. "Do you not see? There is a little white, mocking finger pointing down at

us from each one of them! We are talking of tomorrow and tomorrow, and our hearts are so strong; we are

not thinking of something that can touch us softly in the dark and make us still forever. They are laughing at

"I never do; but I might when I look up there. I will tell you," he added, in a still lower voice, "where I could

pray. If there were a wall of rock on the edge of a world, and one rock stretched out far, far into space, and I

stood alone upon it, alone, with stars above me, and stars below me,I would not say anything; but the

There was an end to their conversation after that, and Doss fell asleep on her knee. At last the nightwind

"Ah," she said, shivering, and drawing the skirt about her shoulders, "I am cold. Spanin the horses, and call

She slipped down and walked toward the house, Doss stiffly following her, not pleased at being roused. At

"Waldo drives me," she replied, passing on; and it appeared to Gregory that she looked at him in the old way,

without seeing him. But before she had reached the door an idea had occurred to her, for she turned.

Gregory went to look for Em, whom he found pouring out coffee in the back room. He put his hand quickly

"But I can't come just now, Greg; I promised Tant Annie Muller to look after the things while she went to rest

"Well, you can come presently, can't you? I didn't say you were to come now. I'm sick of this thing," said

Gregory, turning sharply on his heel. "Why must I sit up the whole night because your stepmother chooses to

An hour after Waldo came in to look for her, and found her still busy at the table.

"The horses are ready," he said; "but if you would like to have one dance more I will wait."

And soon they were on the sandy road the buggy had travelled an hour before. Their horses, with heads close

together, nodding sleepily as they walked in the starlight, you might have counted the rise and fall of their

feet in the sand; and Waldo in his saddle nodded drowsily also. Only Em was awake, and watched the starlit

"I wonder if all people feel so old, so very old, when they get to be seventeen?"

"I wish I could have been a little child always. You are good then. You are never selfish; you like every one

to have everything; but when you are grown up there are some things you like to have all to yourself, you

When they reached the farmhouse all was dark, for Lyndall had retired as soon as they got home.

Waldo lifted Em from her saddle, and for a moment she leaned her head on his shoulder and clung to him.

"You are very tired," he said, as he walked with her to the door; "let me go in and light a candle for you."

Chapter 2.VII. Waldo Goes Out to Taste Life, and Em Stays At Home and Tastes It.

At nine o'clock in the evening, packing his bundles for the next morning's start, Waldo looked up, and was

surprised to see Em's yellow head peeping in at his door. It was many a month since she had been there. She

said she had made him sandwiches for his journey, and she stayed a while to help him put his goods into the

"You can leave the old things lying about," she said; "I will lock the room, and keep it waiting for you to

To come back some day! Would the bird ever return to its cage? But he thanked her. When she went away he

stood on the doorstep holding the candle till she had almost reached the house. But Em was that evening in

no hurry to enter, and, instead of going in at the back door, walked with lagging footsteps round the low brick

wall that ran before the house. Opposite the open window of the parlour she stopped. The little room, kept

carefully closed in Tant Sannie's time, was well lighted by a paraffin lamp; books and work lay strewn about

it, and it wore a bright, habitable aspect. Beside the lamp at the table in the corner sat Lyndall, the open letters

and papers of the day's post lying scattered before her, while she perused the columns of a newspaper. At the

centre table, with his arms folded on an open paper, which there was not light enough to read, sat Gregory.

He was looking at her. The light from the open window fell on Em's little face under its white kapje as she

Gregory went out to find it; when he put it down at her side she merely moved her head in recognition, and he

went back to his seat and his old occupation. Then Em moved slowly away from the window, and through it

came in spotted, hardwinged insects, to play round the lamp, till, one by one, they stuck to its glass, and fell

Ten o'clock struck. Then Lyndall rose, gathered up her papers and letters, and wished Gregory good night.

Some time after Em entered; she had been sitting all the while on the loft ladder, and had drawn her kapje

"I thought you were never coming," he said, turning round quickly, and throwing the fragments onto the

"I'm sorry. I did not think you would be going so soon," she said in a low voice.

"Well, make haste," he said pettishly. "I'm awfully tired. I've been sitting here all the evening. Why couldn't

"I will not keep you long," she answered very steadily now. "I think, Gregory, it would be better if you and I

"Good Heaven! Em, what do you mean? I thought you were so fond of me? You always professed to be.

"I think it would be better," she said, folding her hands over each other, very much as though she were

"Better, Em! What do you mean? Even a woman can't take a freak all about nothing! You must have some

reason for it, and I'm sure I've done nothing to offend you. I wrote only today to my sister to tell her to come

up next month to our wedding, and I've been as affectionate and happy as possible. Comewhat's the

"Oh, well," he said, drawing himself up, "if you won't enter into explanations you won't; and I'm not the man

to beg and praynot to any woman, and you know that! If you don't want to marry me I can't oblige you to,

"You women never do know your own minds for two days together; and of course you know the state of your

own feelings best; but it's very strange. Have you really made up your mind, Em?"

"Well, I'm very sorry. I'm sure I've not been in anything to blame. A man can't always be billing and cooing;

but, as you say, if your feeling for me has changed, it's much better you shouldn't marry me. There's nothing

so foolish as to marry some one you don't love; and I only wish for your happiness, I'm sure. I daresay you'll

find some one can make you much happier than I could; the first person we love is seldom the right one. You

"Things often seem hard at the time, but Providence makes them turn out for the best in the end," said

Gregory. "You'll let me kiss you, Em, just for old friendship's sake." He stooped down. "You must look upon

me as a dear brother, as a cousin at least; as long as I am on the farm I shall always be glad to help you, Em."

Soon after the brown pony was cantering along the footpath to the dauband wattle house, and his master as

The sun had not yet touched the outstretched arms of the prickly pear upon the kopje, and the early cocks and

hens still strutted about stiffly after the night's roost, when Waldo stood before the wagonhouse saddling the

grey mare. Every now and then he glanced up at the old familiar objects: they had a new aspect that morning.

Even the cocks, seen in the light of parting, had a peculiar interest, and he listened with conscious attention

while one crowed clear and loud as it stood on the pigsty wall. He wished good morning softly to the Kaffer

woman who was coming up from the huts to light the fire. He was leaving them all to that old life, and from

his height he looked down on them pityingly. So they would keep on crowing, and coming to light fires,

He went into the house to say goodbye to Em, and then he walked to the door of Lyndall's room to wake

Waldo looked at her with sudden heaviness; the exhilaration died out of his heart. Her grey dressinggown

hung close about her, and below its edge the little bare feet were resting on the threshold.

"Yes; and if I should not, you can still remember, wherever you are, that you are not alone."

"Goodbye!" she said, putting her little hand in his, and he turned away; but when he reached the door she

called to him: "Come back, I want to kiss you." She drew his face down to hers, and held it with both hands,

When he looked back the little figure with its beautiful eyes was standing in the doorway still.

Em, who was in the storeroom measuring the Kaffer's rations, looked up and saw her former lover standing

betwixt her and the sunshine. For some days after that evening on which he had ridden home whistling he had

shunned her. She might wish to enter into explanations, and he, Gregory Rose, was not the man for that kind

of thing. If a woman had once thrown him overboard she must take the consequences, and stand by them.

When, however, she showed no inclination to revert to the past, and shunned him more than he shunned her,

"You must let me call you Em still, and be like a brother to you till I go," he said; and Em thanked him so

humbly that he wished she hadn't. It wasn't so easy after that to think himself an injured man.

On that morning he stood some time in the doorway switching his whip, and moving rather restlessly from

"I think I'll just take a walk up to the camps and see how your birds are getting on. Now Waldo's gone you've

no one to see after things. Nice morning, isn't it?" Then he added suddenly, "I'll just go round to the house

and get a drink of water first;" and somewhat awkwardly walked off. He might have found water in the

kitchen, but he never glanced toward the buckets. In the front room a monkey and two tumblers stood on the

centre table; but he merely looked round, peeped into the parlour, looked round again, and then walked out

at the front door, and found himself again at the storeroom without having satisfied his thirst. "Awfully nice

morning this," he said, trying to pose himself in a graceful and indifferent attitude against the door. "It isn't

"Your cousin, now," said Gregory in an aimless sort of way"I suppose she's shut up in her room writing

"No." After a little silence Em added, "I saw her go by the kraals to the kopje."

"Well, I think I'll just go and have a look about," he said, "and see how things are getting on before I go to the

Em left for a while the bags she was folding and went to the window, the same through which, years before,

Bonaparte had watched the slouching figure cross the yard. Gregory walked to the pigsty first, and

contemplated the pigs for a few seconds; then turned round, and stood looking fixedly at the wall of the

fuelhouse as though he thought it wanted repairing; then he started off suddenly with the evident intention

of going to the ostrichcamps; then paused, hesitated, and finally walked off in the direction of the kopje.

On the other side of the kopje Gregory caught sight of a white tail waving among the stones, and a succession

of short, frantic barks told where Doss was engaged in howling imploringly to a lizard who had crept between

two stones, and who had not the slightest intention of resunning himself at that particular moment.

The dog's mistress sat higher up, under the shelving rock, her face bent over a volume of plays upon her knee.

As Gregory mounted the stones she started violently and looked up; then resumed her book.

"I hope I am not troubling you," said Gregory as he reached her side. "If I am I will go away. I just"

"Yes; your step was firmer than it generally is. I thought it was that of some one else."

"Who could it be but me?" asked Gregory, seating himself on a stone at her feet.

"Do you suppose you are the only man who would find anything to attract him to this kopje?"

He was not going to argue that point with her, nor any other; but no old Boer was likely to take the trouble of

"Yes; but you ask me questions about sheep and oxen. I don't call that talking. You used to talk to Waldo,

now," he said, in an aggrieved tone of voice. "I've heard you when I came in, and then you've just left off.

You treated me like that from the first day; and you couldn't tell from just looking at me that I couldn't talk

about the things you like. I'm sure I know as much about such things as Waldo does," said Gregory, in

"I do not know which things you refer to. If you will enlighten me I am quite prepared to speak of them," she

"Oh, you never used to ask Waldo like that," said Gregory, in a more sorely aggrieved tone than ever. "You

"Well, let me see," she said, closing her book and folding her hands on it. "There at the foot of the kopje goes

a Kaffer; he has nothing on but a blanket; he is a splendid fellowsix feet high, with a magnificent pair of

legs. In his leather bag he is going to fetch his rations, and I suppose to kick his wife with his beautiful legs

when he gets home. He has a right to; he bought her for two oxen. There is a lean dog going after him, to

whom I suppose he never gives more than a bone from which he has sucked the marrow; but his dog loves

him, as his wife does. There is something of the master about him in spite of his blackness and wool. See how

"Oh, but aren't you making fun?" said Gregory, looking doubtfully from her to the Kaffer herd, who rounded

"No; I am very serious. He is the most interesting and intelligent thing I can see just now, except, perhaps,

Doss. He is profoundly suggestive. Will his race melt away in the heat of a collision with a higher? Are the

men of the future to see his bones only in museumsa vestige of one link that spanned between the dog and

the white man? He wakes thoughts that run far out into the future and back into the past."

Gregory was not quite sure how to take these remarks. Being about a Kaffer, they appeared to be of the

nature of a joke; but, being seriously spoken, they appeared earnest; so he half laughed and half not, to be on

"I've often thought so myself. It's funny we should both think the same; I knew we should if once we talked.

But there are other thingslove, now," he added. "I wonder if we would think alike about that. I wrote an

essay on love once; the master said it was the best I ever wrote, and I can remember the first sentence

"No," said Gregory, regretfully; "I've forgotten the rest. But tell me what do you think about love?"

"I don't know much about love," she said, "and I do not like to talk of things I do not understand; but I have

heard two opinions. Some say the devil carried the seed from hell and planted it on the earth to plague men

and make them sin; and some say, that when all the plants in the garden of Eden were pulled up by the roots,

one bush that the angels planted was left growing, and it spread its seed over the whole earth, and its name is

love. I do not know which is rightperhaps both. There are different species that go under the same name.

There is a love that begins in the head, and goes down to the heart, and grows slowly; but it lasts till death,

and asks less than it gives. There is another love, that blots out wisdom, that is sweet with the sweetness of

life and bitter with the bitterness of death, lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that

hour. I cannot tell, perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to root love out; perhaps the poets are

right when they try to water it. It is a bloodred flower, with the colour of sin; but there is always the scent of

"There are as many kinds of loves as there are flowers; everlastings that never wither; speedwells that wait

for the wind to fan them out of life; bloodred mountainlilies that pour their voluptuous sweetness out for

one day, and lie in the dust at night. There is no flower has the charm of allthe speedwell's purity, the

everlasting's strength, the mountain lily's warmth; but who knows whether there is no love that holds all

"Such a love," she said, in her sweetest voice, "will fall on the surface of strong, cold, selfish life as the

sunlight falls on a torpid winter world; there, where the trees are bare, and the ground frozen, till it rings to

the step like iron, and the water is solid, and the air is sharp as a twoedged knife that cuts the unwary.

"But when its sun shines on it, through its whole dead crust a throbbing yearning wakes: the trees feel him,

and every knot and bud swell, aching to open to him. The brown seeds, who have slept deep under the

ground, feel him, and he gives them strength, till they break through the frozen earth, and lift two tiny,

trembling green hands in love to him. And he touches the water, till down to its depths it feels him and melts,

and it flows, and the things, strange sweet things that were locked up in it, it sings as it runs, for love of him.

Each plant tries to bear at least one fragrant little flower for him; and the world that was dead lives, and the

heart that was dead and selfcentred throbs, with an upward, outward yearning, and it has become that which

it seemed impossible ever to become. There, does that satisfy you?" she asked, looking down at Gregory. "Is

"Oh, yes," said Gregory, "that is what I have already thought. We have the same thoughts about everything.

"Very," said Lyndall, working with her little toe at a stone in the ground before her.

Gregory felt he must sustain the conversation. The only thing he could think of was to recite a piece of

poetry. He knew he had learnt many about love; but the only thing that would come into his mind now was

the "Battle of Hohenlinden," and "Not a drum was heard," neither of which seemed to bear directly on the

But unexpected relief came to him from Doss, who, too deeply lost in contemplation of his crevice, was

surprised by the sudden descent of the stone Lyndall's foot had loosened, which, rolling against his little front

paw, carried away a piece of whiteskin. Doss stood on three legs, holding up the paw with an expression of

extreme selfcommiseration; he then proceeded to hop slowly upward in search of sympathy.

"Have I?" she replied indifferently, and reopened the book, as though to resume her study of the play.

"He's a nasty, snappish little cur!" said Gregory, calculating from her manner that the remark would be

endorsed. "He snapped at my horse's tail yesterday, and nearly made it throw me. I wonder his master didn't

"Do you think now, Miss Lyndall, that he'll ever have anything in the worldthat German. I meanmoney

enough to support a wife on, and all that sort of thing? I don't. He's what I call soft."

She was spreading her skirt out softly with her left hand for the dog to lie down on it.

"I think I should be rather astonished if he ever became a respectable member of society," she said. I don't

expect to see him the possessor of bankshares, the chairman of a divisional council, and the father of a large

family; wearing a black hat, and going to church twice on a Sunday. He would rather astonish me if he came

"Well, I don't know," said Lyndall; "there are some small things I rather look to him for. If he were to invent

wings, or carve a statue that one might look at for half an hour without wanting to look at something else, I

should not be surprised. He may do some little thing of that kind perhaps, when he has done fermenting and

"Well, I don't know," he said sulkily; "to me he looks like a fool. To walk about always in that

deadandalive sort of way, muttering to himself like an old Kaffer witchdoctor! He works hard enough, but

it's always as though he didn't know what he was doing. You don't know how he looks to a person who sees

Lyndall was softly touching the little sore foot as she read, and Doss, to show he liked it, licked her hand.

"I think," said Lyndall, "that he is like a thorntree, which grows up very quietly, without any one's caring for

"Like a little tin duck floating on a dish of water, that comes after a piece of bread stuck on a needle, and the

"Oh, you are making fun of me now, you really are!" said Gregory feeling wretched. "You are making fun,

"Yes; but you don't compare me to anything nice, and you do other people. What is Em like, now?"

"The accompaniment of a song. She fills up the gaps in other people's lives, and is always number two; but I

think she is like many accompanimentsa great deal better than the song she is to accompany."

"She is not half so good as you are!" said Gregory, with a burst of uncontrollable ardour.

"She is so much better than I, that her little finger has more goodness in it than my whole body. I hope you

"You are the one being that I love!" said Gregory quivering. "I thought I loved before, but I know now! Do

not be angry with me. I know you could never like me; but, if I might but always be near you to serve you, I

would be utterly, utterly happy. I would ask nothing in return! If you could only take everything I have and

"How do you know," she said slowly, "that you could not do something to serve me? You could serve me by

"No, I am not, Gregory. What I am saying is plain, matteroffact business. If you are willing to give me

your name within three weeks' time, I am willing to marry you, if not, well. I want nothing more than your

He looked up. Was it contempt, loathing, pity, that moved in the eyes above! He could not tell; but he

"Yes. You wish to serve me, and to have nothing in return!you shall have what you wish." She held out her

fingers for Doss to lick. "Do you see this dog? He licks my hand because I love him; and I allow him to.

Where I do not love I do not allow it. I believe you love me; I too could love so, that to lie under the foot of

the thing I loved would be more heaven than to lie in the breast of another. Come! let us go. Carry the dog,"

she added; "he will not bite you if I put him in your arms. Sodo not let his foot hang down."

"I may yet change my mind about marrying you before the time comes. It is very likely. Mark you!" she said,

turning round on him; "I remember your words: You will give everything, and expect nothing. The

knowledge that you are serving me is to be your reward; and you will have that. You will serve me, and

greatly. The reasons I have for marrying you I need not inform you of now; you will probably discover some

It seemed to Gregory that there were pulses in the soles of his feet, and the ground shimmered as on a

summer's day. They walked round the foot of the kopje and past the Kaffer huts. An old Kaffer maid knelt at

the door of one grinding mealies. That she should see him walking so made his heart beat so fast, that the

Just then Em looked out again at the back window and saw them coming. She cried bitterly all the while she

But that night when Lyndall had blown her candle out, and half turned round to sleep, the door of Em's

"I want to say good night to you, Lyndall," she said, coming to the bedside and kneeling down.

"Yes, I have been asleep; but I had such a vivid dream," she said, holding the other's hands, "and that woke

"It seemed I was a little girl again, and I came somewhere into a large room. On a bed in the corner there was

something lying dressed in white, and its little eyes were shut, and its little face was like wax. I thought it was

a doll, and I ran forward to take it; but some one held up her finger and said: 'Hush! it is a little dead baby.'

"And they put their faces close down to my ear and whispered: 'It is Lyndall's baby.'

"And I said: 'She cannot be grown up yet; she is only a little girl! Where is she?' And I went to look for you,

"And when I came to some people who were dressed in black, I asked them where you were, and they looked

down at their black clothes, and shook their heads, and said nothing; and I could not find you anywhere. And

"Lyndall," she said, putting her face down upon the hands she held, "it made me think about that time when

we were little girls and used to play together, when I loved you better than anything else in the world. It isn't

any one's fault that they love you; they can't help it. And it isn't your fault; you don't make them love you. I

"Thank you, dear," Lyndall said. "It is nice to be loved, but it would be better to be good."

Then they wished good night, and Em went back to her room. Long after Lyndall lay in the dark thinking,

A fire is burning in the unused hearth of the cabin. The fuel blazes up, and lights the black rafters, and warms

the faded red lions on the quilt, and fills the little room with a glow of warmth and light made brighter by

Before the open fireplace sits a stranger, his tall, slight figure reposing in the broken armchair, his keen blue

eyes studying the fire from beneath delicately pencilled, drooping eyelids. One white hand plays thoughtfully

with a heavy flaxen moustache; yet, once he starts, and for an instant the languid lids raise themselves; there

is a keen, intent look upon the face as he listens for something. Then he leans back in his chair, fills his glass

Presently the door opens noiselessly. It is Lyndall, followed by Doss. Quietly as she enters, he hears her, and

She removed the shawl that enveloped her, and the stranger rose to offer her his chair; but she took her seat

"I hardly see why I should be outlawed after this fashion," he said, reseating himself and drawing his chair a

little nearer to her; "these are hardly the quarters one expects to find after travelling a hundred miles in

"I could not take you to the house. Questions would be asked which I could not answer without

"Your conscience is growing to have a certain virgin tenderness," he said, in a low, melodious voice.

"I have no conscience. I spoke one deliberate lie this evening. I said the man who had come looked rough, we

had best not have him in the house; therefore I brought him here. It was a deliberate lie, and I hate lies. I tell

"Well, you do not tell lies to yourself, at all events. You are candid, so far."

"Yes; that is why I come. You sent a very foolish reply; you must take it back. Who is this fellow you talk of

"That is a novel reason for refusing to marry a man," he said, leaning his elbow on the table and watching her

"It is a wise one," she said shortly. "If I marry him I shall shake him off my hand when it suits me. If I

remained with him for twelve months he would never have dared to kiss my hand. As far as I wish he should

come, he comes, and no further. Would you ask me what you might and what you might not do?"

Her companion raised the moustache with a caressing movement from his lip and smiled. It was not a

"Because there is only one point on which I have a conscience. I have told you so."

"Because if once you have me you would hold me fast. I shall never be free again." She drew a long, low

"Sometimes I wear it; then I take it off and wish to throw it into the fire; the next day I put it on again, and

"If you were not something more to me than any other man in the world, do you think" She paused. "I love

"Then I fear I must be singularly invisible at the present moment," he said. Possibly if you were to look less

He moved his chair slightly, so as to come between her and the firelight. She raised her eyes to his face.

"Because, if I had been married to you for a year I should have come to my senses and seen that your hands

and your voice are like the hands and the voice of any other man. I cannot quite see that now. But it is all

madness. You call into activity one part of my nature; there is a higher part that you know nothing of, that

you never touch. If I married you, afterward it would arise and assert itself, and I should hate you always, as I

"I like you when you grow metaphysical and analytical," he said, leaning his face upon his hand. "Go a little

further in your analysis; say, 'I love you with the right ventricle of my heart, but not the left, and with the left

auricle of my heart, but not the right; and, this being the case, my affection for you is not of a duly elevated,

"You are acting foolishly, Lyndall," he said, suddenly changing his manner, and speaking earnestly, "most

foolishly. You are acting like a little child; I am surprised at you. It is all very well to have ideals and

theories; but you know as well as any one can that they must not be carried into the practical world. I love

you. I do not pretend that it is in any high, superhuman sense; I do not say that I should like you as well if

you were ugly and deformed, or that I should continue to prize you whatever your treatment of me might be,

or to love you though you were a spirit without any body at all. That is sentimentality for beardless boys.

Every one not a mere child (and you are not a child, except in years) knows what love between a man and a

woman means. I love you with that love. I should not have believed it possible that I could have brought

myself twice to ask of any woman to be my wife, more especially one without wealth, without position, and

"Yesgo on. Do not grow sorry for me. Say what you were going to'who has put herself into my power,

and who has lost the right of meeting me on equal terms.' Say what you think. At least we two may speak the

"I believe you do love me, as much as you possibly could love anything; and I believe that when you ask me

to marry you you are performing the most generous act you ever have performed in the course of your life, or

ever will; but, at the same time, if I had required your generosity, it would not have been shown me. If, when

I got your letter a month ago, hinting at your willingness to marry me, I had at once written, imploring you to

come, you would have read the letter. 'Poor little devil!' you would have said, and tore it up. The next week

you would have sailed for Europe, and have sent me a check for a hundred and fifty pounds (which I would

"But because I declined your proposal, and wrote that in three weeks I should be married to another, then

what you call love woke up. Your man's love is a child's love for butterflies. You follow till you have the

thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing, and the thing flies still, then you love it more than ever, and

follow till you break both; then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground."

"You are profoundly wise in the ways of the world; you have seen far into life," he said.

"I have seen enough to tell me that you love me because you cannot bear to be resisted, and want to master

me. You liked me at first because I treated you and all men with indifference. You resolved to have me

He felt a strong inclination to stoop down and kiss the little lips that defied him; but he restrained himself. He

"Because you are strong. You are the first man I ever was afraid of. And"a dreamy look came into her

"Well, since you will not marry me, may I inquire what your intentions are, the plan you wrote of. You asked

"I said, 'Come if you wish.' If you agree to it, well; if not, I marry on Monday."

"I cannot marry you," she said slowly, "because I cannot be tied; but if you wish, you may take me away with

you, and take care of me; then when we do not love any more we can say goodbye. I will not go down

country," she added; "I will not go to Europe. You must take me to the Transvaal. That is out of the world.

"Oh, my darling," he said, bending tenderly, and holding his hand out to her, "why will you not give yourself

"Tomorrow. I have told them that before daylight I go to the next farm. I will write from the town and tell

them the facts. I do not want them to trouble me; I want to shake myself free of these old surroundings; I

"It is better to have you on those conditions than not at all. If you will have it, let it be so."

He sat looking at her. On her face was the weary look that rested there so often now when she sat alone. Two

months had not passed since they parted; but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at her carefully,

from the brown, smooth head to the little crossed feet on the floor. A worn look had grown over the little

face, and it made its charm for him stronger. For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write a story on a

human face, have a strangely different effect on one face and another. The face that is only fair, even very

fair, they mar and flaw; but to the face whose beauty is the harmony between that which speaks from within

and the form through which it speaks, power is added by all that causes the outer man to bear more deeply the

impress of the inner. The pretty woman fades with the roses on her cheeks, and the girlhood that lasts an

hour; the beautiful woman finds her fullness of bloom only when a past has written itself on her, and her

From under their halfclosed lids the keen eyes looked down at her. Her shoulders were bent; for a moment

the little figure had forgotten its queenly bearing, and drooped wearily; the wide, dark eyes watched the fire

It certainly was not in her power to resist him, nor any strength in her that made his own at that moment grow

She looked into his eyes as a little child might whom a long day's play had saddened.

She turned her face to his shoulder, and buried it against his neck; he wound his strong arm about her, and

held her close to him. When she had sat for a long while, he drew with his hand the face down, and held it

They sat quite still, excepting that only sometimes he raised her fingers softly to his mouth.

Doss, who had been asleep in the corner, waking suddenly, planted himself before them, his wiry legs

moving nervously, his yellow eyes filled with anxiety. He was not at all sure that she was not being retained

in her present position against her will, and was not a little relieved when she sat up and held out her hand for

"Keep it close around your face, Lyndall; it is very damp outside. Shall I walk with you to the house?"

She lifted her face that he might kiss it, and, when he had kissed it once, she still held it that he might kiss it

again. Then he let her out. He had seated himself at the fireplace, when she reopened the door.

She gave one long, lingering look at the old room. When she was gone, and the door shut, the stranger filled

The night outside was misty and damp; the faint moonlight, trying to force its way through the thick air,

made darkly visible the outlines of the buildings. The stones and walls were moist, and now and then a drop,

slowly collecting, fell from the eaves to the ground. Doss, not liking the change from the cabin's warmth, ran

quickly to the kitchen doorstep; but his mistress walked slowly past him, and took her way up the winding

footpath that ran beside the stone wall of the camps. When she came to the end of the last camp, she threaded

her way among the stones and bushes till she reached the German's grave. Why she had come there she

hardly knew; she stood looking down. Suddenly she bent and put one hand on the face of a wet stone.

"Dear old man, good old man, I am so tired!" she said (for we will come to the dead to tell secrets we would

never have told to the living). I am so tired. There is light, there is warmth," she wailed; "why am I alone, so

hard, so cold? I am so weary of myself! It is eating my soul to its core self, self, self! I cannot bear this

life! I cannot breathe, I cannot live! Will nothing free me from myself?" She pressed her cheek against the

wooden post. "I want to love! I want something great and pure to lift me to itself! Dear old man, I cannot bear

The water gathered slowly on her shawl, and fell on to the wet stones; but she lay there crying bitterly. For so

the living soul will cry to the dead, and the creature to its God; and of all this crying there comes nothing. The

lifting up of the hands brings no salvation; redemption is from within, and neither from God nor man; it is

Doss, on the kitchen doorstep, shivered, and wondered where his mistress stayed so long; and once, sitting

sadly there in the damp, he had dropped asleep, and dreamed that old Otto gave him a piece of bread, and

patted him on the head, and when he woke his teeth chattered, and he moved to another stone to see if it was

drier. At last he heard his mistress' step, and they went into the house together. She lit a candle, and walked to

the Boerwoman's bedroom. On a nail under the lady in pink hung the key of the wardrobe. She took it down

and opened the great press. From a little drawer she took fifty pounds (all she had in the world), relocked the

door, and turned to hang up the key. The marks of tears were still on her face, but she smiled. Then she

"Fifty pounds for a lover! A noble reward!" she said, and opened the wardrobe and returned the notes to the

Once in her own room, she arranged the few articles she intended to take tomorrow, burnt her old letters, and

then went back to the front room to look at the time. There were two hours yet before she must call him. She

sat down at the dressingtable to wait, and leaned her elbows on it, and buried her face in her hands. The

glass reflected the little brown head with its even parting, and the tiny hands on which it rested. "One day I

will love something utterly, and then I will be better," she said once. Presently she looked up. The large, dark

"We are all alone, you and I," she whispered; "no one helps us, no one understands us; but we will help

ourselves." The eyes looked back at her. There was a world of assurance in their still depths. So they had

looked at her ever since she could remember, when it was but a small child's face above a blue pinafore. "We

shall never be quite alone, you and I," she said; "we shall always be together, as we were when we were

"We are not afraid; we will help ourselves!" she said. She stretched out her hand and pressed it over them on

the glass. "Dear eyes! we will never be quite alone till they part ustill then!"

Gregory Rose was in the loft putting it neat. Outside the rain poured; a six months' drought had broken, and

the thirsty plain was drenched with water. What it could not swallow ran off in mad rivulets to the great sloot,

that now foamed like an angry river across the flat. Even the little furrow between the farmhouse and the

kraals was now a stream, knee deep, which almost bore away the Kaffer women who crossed it. It had

rained for twentyfour hours, and still the rain poured on. The fowls had collecteda melancholy

crowdin and about the wagonhouse, and the solitary gander, who alone had survived the six months' want

of water, walked hither and thither, printing his webbed footmarks on the mud, to have them washed out the

next instant by the pelting rain, which at eleven o'clock still beat on the walls and roofs with unabated ardour.

Gregory, as he worked in the loft, took no notice of it beyond stuffing a sack into the broken pane to keep it

out; and, in spite of the pelt and patter, Em's clear voice might be heard through the open trapdoor from the

that quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness, and sad, vague yearning when sung

But Gregory heard neither that nor yet the loud laughter of the Kaffer maids, that every now and again broke

through from the kitchen, where they joked and worked. Of late Gregory had grown strangely impervious to

the sounds and sights about him. His lease had run out, but Em had said, "Do not renew it; I need one to help

me; just stay on." And, she had added, "You must not remain in your own little house; live with me; you can

And Gregory did not thank her. What difference did it make to him, paying rent or not, living there or not; it

was all one. But yet he came. Em wished that he would still sometimes talk of the strength of the master

She might do what she pleased, he would find no fault, had no word to say. He had forgotten that it is man's

right to rule. On that rainy morning he had lighted his pipe at the kitchen fire, and when breakfast was over

stood in the front door watching the water rush down the road till the pipe died out in his mouth. Em saw she

must do something for him, and found him a large calico duster. He had sometimes talked of putting the loft

neat, and today she could find nothing else for him to do. So she had the ladder put to the trapdoor that he

need not go out in the wet, and Gregory with the broom and duster mounted to the loft. Once at work he

worked hard. He dusted down the very rafters, and cleaned the broken candlemoulds and bent forks that had

stuck in the thatch for twenty years. He placed the black bottles neatly in rows on an old box in the corner,

and piled the skins on one another, and sorted the rubbish in all the boxes; and at eleven o'clock his work was

almost done. He seated himself on the packingcase which had once held Waldo's books, and proceeded to

examine the contents of another which he had not yet looked at. It was carelessly nailed down. He loosened

one plank, and began to lift out various articles of female attireoldfashioned caps, aprons, dresses with

long pointed bodies such as he remembered to have seen his mother wear when he was a little child.

He shook them out carefully to see there were no moths, and then sat down to fold them up again one by one.

They had belonged to Em's mother, and the box, as packed at her death, had stood untouched and forgotten

these long years. She must have been a tall woman, that mother of Em's, for when he stood up to shake out a

dress the neck was on a level with his, and the skirt touched the ground. Gregory laid a nightcap out on his

knee, and began rolling up the strings; but presently his fingers moved slower and slower, then his chin rested

on his breast, and finally the imploring blue eyes were fixed on the frill abstractedly. When Em's voice called

to him from the foot of the ladder he started, and threw the nightcap behind him.

She was only come to tell him that his cup of soup was ready; and, when he could hear that she was gone, he

picked up the nightcap again, and a great brown sunkapjejust such a kapje and such a dress as one of

those he remembered to have seen a sister of mercy wear. Gregory's mind was very full of thought. He took

down a fragment of an old lookingglass from behind a beam, and put the kapje on. His beard looked

somewhat grotesque under it; he put up his hand to hide itthat was better. The blue eyes looked out with

the mild gentleness that became eyes looking out from under a kapje. Next he took the brown dress, and,

looking round furtively, slipped it over his head. He had just got his arms in the sleeves, and was trying to

hook up the back, when an increase in the patter of the rain at the window made him drag it off hastily. When

he perceived there was no one coming he tumbled the things back into the box, and, covering it carefully,

Em was still at her work, trying to adjust a new needle in the machine. Gregory drank his soup, and then sat

"I'm almost afraid you won't be able to go," said Em, who was intent on her needle; "I don't think it is going

"But the sloots are as full as rivers; you cannot go. We can wait for the post," she said.

"Look here, Em," he said between his teeth, "I can't stand it any more. I am going to her."

Since that day, when he had come home and found Lyndall gone, he had never talked of her; but Em knew

"Yes, I do. She was in Bloemfontein when I heard last. I will go there, and I will find out where she went

Em turned the wheel quickly, and the illadjusted needle sprung into twenty fragments.

"Gregory," she said, "she does not want us; she told us so clearly in the letter she wrote." A flush rose on her

face as she spoke. "It will only be pain to you, Gregory: Will she like to have you near her?"

There was an answer he might have made, but it was his secret, and he did not choose to share it. He said

"I do not know; perhaps I shall never come back. Do what you please with my things. I cannot stay here!"

"People say, forget, forget!" he cried, pacing the room. They are mad! they are fools! Do they say so to men

who are dying of thirstforget, forget? Why is it only to us they say so! It is a lie to say that time makes it

"All these months," he cried bitterly, "I have lived here quietly, day after day, as if I cared for what I ate, and

what I drank, and what I did! I care for nothing! I cannot bear it! I will not! Forget! forget!" ejaculated

Gregory. "You can forget all the world, but you cannot forget yourself. When one thing is more to you than

"I read," he said"yes; and then I come to a word she used, and it is all back with me again! I go to count

my sheep, and I see her face before me, and I stand and let the sheep run by. I look at you, and in your smile,

a something at the corner of your lips, I see her. How can I forget her when, whenever I turn, she is there, and

"I know what you think," he said, turning upon her. "You think I am mad; you think I am going to see

whether she will not like me! I am not so foolish. I should have known at first she never could suffer me.

Who am I, what am I, that she should look at me? It was right that she left me; right that she should not look

at me. If any one says it is not, it is a lie! I am not going to speak to her," he added"only to see her; only to

Gregory Rose had been gone seven months. Em sat alone on a white sheepskin before the fire.

The August nightwind, weird and shrill, howled round the chimneys and through the crannies, and in walls

and doors, and uttered a long low cry as it forced its way among the clefts of the stones on the kopje. It was a

wild night. The pricklypear tree, stiff and upright as it held its arms, felt the wind's might, and knocked its

flat leaves heavily together, till great branches broke off. The Kaffers, as they slept in their straw huts,

whispered one to another that before morning there would not be an armful of thatch left on the roofs; and the

beams of the wagonhouse creaked and groaned as if it were heavy work to resist the importunity of the

Em had not gone to bed. Who could sleep on a night like this? So in the dining room she had lighted a fire,

and sat on the ground before it, turning the roastercakes that lay on the coals to bake. It would save work in

the morning; and she blew out the light because the wind through the windowchinks made it flicker and run;

and she sat singing to herself as she watched the cakes. They lay at one end of the wide hearth on a bed of

coals, and at the other end a fire burnt up steadily, casting its amber glow over Em's light hair and black

dress, with the ruffle of crepe about the neck, and over the white curls of the sheepskin on which she sat.

Louder and more fiercely yet howled the storm; but Em sang on, and heard nothing but the words of her

song, and heard them only faintly, as something restful. It was an old, childish song she had often heard her

Where the reeds dance by the river, Where the willow's song is said, On the face of the morning water, Is

Where the reeds shake by the river, Where the moonlight's sheen is shed, On the face of the sleeping water,

She echoed the refrain softly till it died away, and then repeated it. It was as if, unknown to herself, it

harmonized with the pictures and thoughts that sat with her there alone in the firelight. She turned the cakes

over, while the wind hurled down a row of bricks from the gable, and made the walls tremble.

Presently she paused and listened; there was a sound as of something knocking at the backdoorway. But the

wind had raised its level higher, and she went on with her work. At last the sound was repeated. Then she

rose, lit the candle and the fire, and went to see. Only to satisfy herself, she said, that nothing could be out on

She opened the door a little way, and held the light behind her to defend it from the wind. The figure of a tall

man stood there, and before she could speak he had pushed his way in, and was forcing the door to close

"You did not expect to see me," he answered, as he turned toward her; "I should have slept in the outhouse,

and not troubled you tonight; but through the shutter I saw glimmerings of a light."

"Come in to the fire," she said; "it is a terrific night for any creature to be out. Shall we not go and fetch your

"The cakes are almost ready," she said; "I will get you something to eat. Where have you been wandering all

"Up and down, up and down," he answered wearily; "and now the whim has seized me to come back here.

Em," he said, putting his hand on her arm as she passed him, "have you heard from Lyndall lately?"

"Where is she? I had one letter from her, but that is almost a year ago nowjust when she left. Where is

When food was on the table she knelt down before the fire, turning the cakes, babbling restlessly, eagerly,

now of this, now of that. She was glad to see himTant Sannie was coming soon to show her her new

babyhe must stay on the farm now, and help her. And Waldo himself was well content to eat his meal in

"Gregory is coming back next week," she said; "he will have been gone just a hundred and three days

"How the wind blows! One can hardly hear one's own voice," she said. "Take this warm cake; no one's cakes

He folded his arms, and rested his head against the fireplace, whilst she removed the dishes from the table.

On the mantelpiece stood an inkpot and some sheets of paper. Presently he took them down and turned up the

Em, as she shook out the tablecloth, watched him bending intently over his paper. He had changed much. His

face had grown thinner; his cheeks were almost hollow, though they were covered by a dark growth of beard.

She sat down on the skin beside him, and felt the little bundle on the bench; it was painfully small and soft.

Perhaps it held a shirt and a book, but nothing more. The old black hat had a piece of unhemmed muslin

twisted round it, and on his elbow was a large patch so fixed on with yellow thread that her heart ached. Only

his hair was not changed, and hung in silky beautiful waves almost to his shoulders.

Tomorrow she would take the ragged edge off his collar, and put a new band round his hat. She did not

interrupt him, but she wondered how it was that he sat to write so intently after his long weary walk. He was

not tired now; his pen hurried quickly and restlessly over the paper, and his eye was bright. Presently Em

raised her hand to her breast, where lay the letter yesterday had brought her. Soon she had forgotten him, as

entirely as he had forgotten her; each was in his own world with his own. He was writing to Lyndall. He

would tell her all he had seen, all he had done, though it were nothing worth relating. He seemed to have

"and then I got to the next town, and my horse was tired, so I could go no further, and looked for work. A

shopkeeper agreed to hire me as salesman. He made me sign a promise to remain six months, and he gave me

a little empty room at the back of the store to sleep in. I had still three pounds of my own, and when you just

"When I had been in the shop three days I wanted to go away again. A clerk in a shop has the lowest work to

do of all the people. It is much better to break stones; you have the blue sky above you, and only the stones to

bend to. I asked my master to let me go, and I offered to give him my two pounds, and the bag of mealies I

"I found out afterward he was only giving me half as much as he gave to the othersthat was why. I had fear

when I looked at the other clerks that I would at last become like them. All day they were bowing and

smirking to the women who came in; smiling, when all they wanted was to get their money from them. They

used to run and fetch the dresses and ribbons to show them, and they seemed to me like worms with oil on.

There was one respectable thing in that storeit was the Kaffer storeman. His work was to load and unload,

"The other clerks gave me the name of Old Salvation; but there was one person I liked very much. He was

clerk in another store. He often went past the door. He seemed to me not like othershis face was bright and

fresh like a little child's. When he came to the shop I felt I liked him. One day I saw a book in his pocket, and

that made me feel near him. I asked him if he was fond of reading, and he said, yes, when there was nothing

else to do. The next day he came to me, and asked me if I did not feel lonely; he never saw me going out with

"I was glad, and bought some meat and flour, because the grey mare and I always ate mealies; it is the

cheapest thing; when you boil it hard you can't eat much of it. I made some cakes, and I folded my great coat

"You see there was nothing in it but packingcases for furniture, and it was rather empty. While I was putting

the food on the box he looked at my books; he read their names out aloud. 'Elementary Physiology,' 'First

"'Golly!' he said; 'I've got a lot of dry stuff like that at home I got for Sundayschool prizes; but I only keep

them to light my pipe with now; they come in handy for that.' Then he asked me if I had ever read a book

called the 'Blackeyed Creole.' 'That is the style for me,' he said; 'there where the fellow takes the niggergirl

"But what he said after that I don't remember, only it made me feel as if I were having a bad dream, and I

"When he had finished eating he did not stay long; he had to go and see some girls home from a

prayermeeting; and he asked how it was he never saw me walking out with any on Sunday afternoons. He

said he had lots of sweethearts, and he was going to see one the next Wednesday on a farm, and he asked me

to lend my mare. I told him she was very old. But he said it didn't matter; he would come the next day to

"After he was gone my little room got back to its old look. I loved it so; I was so glad to get into it at night,

and it seemed to be reproaching me for bringing him there. The next day he took the grey mare. On Thursday

he did not bring her back, and on Friday I found the saddle and bridle standing at my door.

"In the afternoon he looked into the shop, and called out: 'Hope you got your saddle, Farber? Your

bagofbones kicked out six miles from here. I'll send you a couple of shillings tomorrow, though the old

"But I sprung over the counter, and got him by his throat. My father was so gentle with her; he never would

ride her up hill, and now this fellow had murdered her! I asked him where he had killed her, and I shook him

"'It didn't take much to kill that bagofbones, whose master sleeps in a packingcase, and waits till his

company's finished to eat on the plate. Shouldn't wonder if you fed her on sugarbags,' he said; 'and if you

think I've jumped her, you'd better go and look yourself. You'll find her along the road by the aasvogels that

"I caught him by his collar, and I lifted him from the ground, and I threw him out into the street, halfway

across it. I heard the bookkeeper say to the clerk that there was always the devil in those mum fellows; but

"I am writing to you of very small things, but there is nothing else to tell; it has been all small and you will

like it. Whenever anything has happened I have always thought I would tell it to you. The back thought in my

mind is always you. After that only one old man came to visit me. I had seen him in the streets often; he

always wore very dirty black clothes, and a hat with crepe round it, and he had one eye, so I noticed him. One

day he came to my room with a subscriptionlist for a minister's salary. When I said I had nothing to give he

"'Young man,' he said, 'how is it I never see you in the house of the Lord?' I thought he was trying to do good,

so I felt sorry for him, and I told him I never went to chapel. 'Young man,' he said, 'it grieves me to hear such

godless words from the lips of one so youngso far gone in the paths of destruction. Young man, if you

forget God, God will forget you. There is a seat on the righthand side as you go at the bottom door that you

may get. If you are given over to the enjoyment and frivolities of this world, what will become of your never

"He would not go till I gave him half a crown for the minister's salary. Afterward I heard he was the man who

collected the pew rents and got a percentage. I didn't get to know any one else.

"When my time in that shop was done I hired myself to drive one of a transportrider's wagons.

"That first morning, when I sat in the front and called to my oxen, and saw nothing about me but the hills,

with the blue coming down to them, and the karoo bushes, I was drunk; I laughed; my heart was beating till it

hurt me. I shut my eyes tight, that when I opened them I might see there were no shelves about me. There

must be a beauty in buying and selling, if there is beauty in everything: but it is very ugly to me. My life as

transport rider would have been the best life in the world if I had had only one wagon to drive. My master

told me he would drive one, I the other, and he would hire another person to drive the third. But the first day I

drove two to help him, and after that he let me drive all three. Whenever we came to an hotel he stopped

behind to get a drink, and when he rode up to the wagons he could never stand; the Hottentot and I used to lift

him up. We always travelled all night, and used to outspan for five or six hours in the heat of the day to rest. I

planned that I would lie under a wagon and read for an hour or two every day before I went to sleep, and I did

for the first two or three; but after that I only wanted to sleep, like the rest, and I packed my books away.

"When you have three wagons to look after all night, you are sometimes so tired you can hardly stand. At

first when I walked along driving my wagons in the night it was glorious; the stars had never looked so

beautiful to me; and on the dark nights when we rode through the bush there were will o'thewisps

dancing on each side of the road. I found out that even the damp and dark are beautiful. But I soon changed,

and saw nothing but the road and my oxen. I only wished for a smooth piece of road, so that I might sit at the

front and doze. At the places where we outspanned there were sometimes rare plants and flowers, the

festoons hanging from the bush trees, and nuts and insects, such as we never see here; but after a little while

"I ate as much as I could, and then lay down on my face under the wagon till the boy came to wake me to

inspan, and then we drove on again all night; so it went, so it went. I think sometimes when I walked by my

oxen I called to them in my sleep, for I know I thought of nothing; I was like an animal. My body was strong

and well to work, but my brain was dead. If you have not felt it, Lyndall, you cannot understand it. You may

work, and work, and work, till you are only a body, not a soul. Now, when I see one of those evillooking

men that come from Europenavvies, with the beast like, sunken face, different from any Kaffer'sI

know what brought that look into their eyes; and if I have only one inch of tobacco I give them half. It is

work, grinding, mechanical work, that they or their ancestors have done, that has made them into beasts. You

may work a man's body so that his soul dies. Work is good. I have worked at the old farm from the sun's

rising till its setting, but I have had time to think, and time to feel. You may work a man so that all but the

"You may work a man till he is a devil. I know it, because I have felt it. You will never understand the

change that came over me. No one but I will ever know how great it was. But I was never miserable; when I

could keep my oxen from sticking fast, and when I could find a place to lie down in, I had all I wanted. After

I had driven eight months a rainy season came. For eighteen hours out of the twentyfour we worked in the

wet. The mud went up to the axles sometimes, and we had to dig the wheels out, and we never went far in a

day. My master swore at me more than ever, but when he had done he always offered me his brandyflask.

When I first came he had offered it me, and I had always refused; but now I drank as my oxen did when I

gave them waterwithout thinking. At last I bought brandy for myself whenever we passed an hotel.

"One Sunday we outspanned on the banks of a swollen river to wait for its going down. It was drizzling still,

so I lay under the wagon on the mud. There was no dry place anywhere; and all the dung was wet, so there

was no fire to cook food. My little flask was filled with brandy, and I drank some and went to sleep. When I

woke it was drizzling still, so I drank some more. I was stiff and cold; and my master, who lay by me, offered

me his flask, because mine was empty. I drank some, and then I thought I would go and see if the river was

going down. I remember that I walked to the road, and it seemed to be going away from me. When I woke up

I was lying by a little bush on the bank of the river. It was afternoon; all the clouds had gone, and the sky was

deep blue. The Bushman boy was grilling ribs at the fire. He looked at me and grinned from ear to ear.

'Master was a little nice,' he said, 'and lay down in the road. Something might ride over master, so I carried

him there.' He grinned at me again. It was as though he said, 'You and I are comrades. I have lain in a road,

"When I turned my head from him I saw the earth, so pure after the rain, so green, so fresh, so blue; and I was

a drunken carrier, whom his leader had picked up in the mud, and laid at the roadside to sleep out his drink. I

remember my old life, and I remember you. I saw how, one day, you would read in the papers: 'A German

carrier, named Waldo Farber, was killed through falling from his wagon, being instantly crushed under the

wheel. Deceased was supposed to have been drunk at the time of the accident.' There are those notices in the

paper every month. I sat up, and I took the brandyflask out of my pocket, and I flung it as far as I could into

the dark water. The Hottentot boy ran down to see if he could catch it; it had sunk to the bottom. I never

drank again. But, Lyndall, sin looks much more terrible to those who look at it than to those who do it. A

convict, or a man who drinks, seems something so far off and horrible when we see him; but to himself he

seems quite near to us, and like us. We wonder what kind of a creature he is; but he is just we, ourselves. We

"I do not know why I kept on working so hard for that master. I think it was as the oxen come every day and

stand by the yokes; they do not know why. Perhaps I would have been with him still; but one day we started

with loads for the Diamond Fields. The oxen were very thin now, and they had been standing about in the

yoke all day without food, while the wagons were being loaded. Not far from the town was a hill. When we

came to the foot the first wagon stuck fast. I tried for a little while to urge the oxen, but I soon saw the one

span could never pull it up. I went to the other wagon to loosen that span to join them on in front, but the

"'They shall bring it up the hill; and if half of them die for it they shall do it alone,' he said.

"He was not drunk, but in bad temper, for he had been drunk the night before. He swore at me, and told me to

take the whip and help him. We tried for a little time, then I told him it was no use, they could never do it. He

swore louder and called to the leaders to come on with their whips, and together they lashed. There was one

ox, a black ox, so thin that the ridge of his backbone almost cut through his flesh.

"'It is you, devil, is it, that will not pull?' the transportrider said. 'I will show you something.' He looked like

"He told the boys to leave off flogging, and he held the ox by the horn, and took up a round stone and

knocked its nose with it till the blood came. When he had done they called to the oxen and took up their

whips again, and the oxen strained with their backs bent, but the wagon did not move an inch.

"He took out his claspknife, and ran it into the leg of the trembling ox three times, up to the hilt. Then he put

the knife in his pocket, and they took their whips. The oxen's flanks quivered, and they foamed at the mouth.

Straining, they moved the wagon a few feet forward, then stood with bent backs to keep it from sliding back.

From the black ox's nostrils foam and blood were streaming on to the ground. It turned its head in its anguish

and looked at me with its great starting eyes. It was praying for help in its agony and weakness, and they took

their whips again. The creature bellowed aloud. If there is a God, it was calling to its Maker for help. Then a

stream of clear blood burst from both nostrils; it fell on to the ground, and the wagon slipped back. The man

"'You are going to lie down, devil, are you? We'll see you don't take it too easy.'

"The thing was just dying. He opened his claspknife and stooped down over it. I do not know what I did

then. But afterward I know I had him on the stones, and I was kneeling on him. The boys dragged me off. I

wish they had not. I left him standing in the sand in the road, shaking himself, and I walked back to the town.

I took nothing from that accursed wagon, so I had only two shillings. But it did not matter. The next day I got

work at a wholesale store. My work was to pack and unpack goods, and to carry boxes, and I had to work

"I hired a little room, and subscribed to a library, so I had everything I needed; and in the week of Christmas

holidays I went to see the sea. I walked all night, Lyndall, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I got to

the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue, monotonous mountain. I walked looking at it, but I

was thinking of the sea I wanted to see. At last I wondered what that curious blue thing might be; then it

struck me it was the sea! I would have turned back again, only I was too tired. I wonder if all the things we

long to seethe churches, the pictures, the men in Europewill disappoint us so! You see I had dreamed of

it so long. When I was a little boy, minding sheep behind the kopje, I used to see the waves stretching out as

far as the eye could reach in the sunlight. My sea! Is the idea always more beautiful than the real?

"I got to the beach that afternoon, and I saw the water run up and down on the sand, and I saw the white foam

breakers; they were pretty, but I thought I would go back the next day. It was not my sea.

"But I began to like it when I sat by it that night in the moonlight; and the next day I liked it better; and

before I left I loved it. It was not like the sky and stars, that talk of what has no beginning and no end; but it is

so human. Of all the things I have ever seen, only the sea is like a human being; the sky is not, nor the earth.

But the sea is always moving, always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests. It is always

wanting, wanting, wanting. It hurries on; and then it creeps back slowly without having reached, moaning. It

is always asking a question, and it never gets the answer. I can hear it in the day and in the night; the white

foam breakers are saying that which I think. I walk alone with them when there is no one to see me, and I

sing with them. I lie down on the sand and watch them with my eyes half shut. The sky is better, but it is so

high above our heads. I love the sea. Sometimes we must look down too. After five days I went back to

"I had glorious books, and in the night I could sit in my little room and read them; but I was lonely. Books are

not the same things when you are living among people. I cannot tell why, but they are dead. On the farm they

would have been living beings to me; but here, where there were so many people about me, I wanted some

one to belong to me. I was lonely. I wanted something that was flesh and blood. Once on this farm there came

a stranger; I did not ask his name, but he sat among the karoo and talked with me. Now, wherever I have

travelled I have looked for himin hotels, in streets, in passenger wagons as they rushed in, through the

open windows of houses I have looked for him, but I have not found himnever heard a voice like his. One

day I went to the Botanic Gardens. It was a half holiday, and the band was to play. I stood in the long raised

avenue and looked down. There were many flowers, and ladies and children were walking about beautifully

"At first it was slow and even, like the everyday life, when we walk through it without thought or feeling;

then it grew faster, then it paused, hesitated, then it was quite still for an instant, and then it burst out.

Lyndall, they made heaven right when they made it all music. It takes you up and carries you away, away, till

you have the things you longed for, you are up close to them. You have got out into a large, free, open place.

I could not see anything while it was playing; I stood with my head against my tree; but, when it was done, I

saw that there were ladies sitting close to me on a wooden bench, and the stranger who had talked to me that

day in the karoo was sitting between them. The ladies were very pretty, and their dresses beautiful. I do not

think they had been listening to the music, for they were talking and laughing very softly. I heard all they

said, and could even smell the rose on the breast of one. I was afraid he would see me; so I went to the other

side of the tree, and soon they got up and began to pace up and down in the avenue.

"All the time the music played they chatted, and he carried on his arm the scarf of the prettiest lady. I did not

hear the music; I tried to catch the sound of his voice each time he went by. When I was listening to the

music I did not know I was badly dressed; now I felt so ashamed of myself. I never knew before what a low,

horrible thing I was, dressed in tancord. That day on the farm, when we sat on the ground under the

thorntrees, I thought he quite belonged to me; now, I saw he was not mine. But he was still as beautiful. His

"At last they turned to go, and I walked after them. When they got out of the gate he helped the ladies into a

phaeton, and stood for a moment with his foot on the step talking to them. He had a little cane in his hand,

and an Italian greyhound ran after him. Just when they drove away one of the ladies dropped her whip.

"'Pick it up, fellow,' she said; and when I brought it her she threw sixpence on the ground. I might have gone

back to the garden then; but I did not want music; I wanted clothes, and to be fashionable and fine. I felt that

"I stayed in my situation four months after that, but I was not happy. I had no rest. The people about me

pressed on me, and made me dissatisfied. I could not forget them. Even when I did not see them they pressed

on me, and made me miserable. I did not love books; I wanted people. When I walked home under the shady

trees in the street I could not be happy, for when I passed the houses I heard music, and saw faces between

the curtains. I did not want any of them, but I wanted some one for mine, for me. I could not help it. I wanted

"Only one day something made me happy. A nurse came to the store with a little girl belonging to one of our

clerks. While the maid went into the office to give a message to its father, the little child stood looking at me.

"She felt my hair all over, with her little hands. When I put out my arm she let me take her and sit her on my

knee. She kissed me with her soft mouth. We were happy till the nursegirl came and shook her, and asked

her if she was not ashamed to sit on the knee of that strange man. But I do not think my little one minded. She

"If the world was all children I could like it; but men and women draw me so strangely, and then press me

away, till I am in agony. I was not meant to live among people. Perhaps some day, when I am grown older, I

will be able to go and live among them and look at them as I look at the rocks, and bushes, without letting

them disturb me, and take myself from me; but not now. So I grew miserable; a kind of fever seemed to eat

me; I could not rest, or read, or think; so I came back here. I knew you were not here but it seemed as though

I should be nearer you; and it is you I wantyou that the other people suggest to me, but cannot give."

He had filled all the sheets he had taken, and now lifted down the last from the mantelpiece. Em had dropped

asleep, and lay slumbering peacefully on the skin before the fire. Out of doors the storm still raged; but in a

fitful manner, as though growing half weary of itself. He bent over his paper again, with eager flushed cheek,

"It has been a delightful journey, this journey home. I have walked on foot. The evening before last, when it

was just sunset, I was a little footsore and thirsty, and went out of the road to look for water. I went down into

a deep little kloof. Some trees ran along the bottom, and I thought I should find water there. The sun had

quite set when I got to the bottom of it. It was very stillnot a leaf was stirring anywhere. In the bed of the

mountain torrent I thought I might find water. I came to the bank, and leaped down into the dry bed. The

floor on which I stood was of fine white sand, and the banks rose on every side like the walls of a room.

"Above there was a precipice of rocks, and a tiny stream of water oozed from them and fell slowly on to the

flat stone below. Each drop you could hear fall like a little silver bell. There was one among the trees on the

bank that stood cut out against the white sky. All the other trees were silent; but this one shook and trembled

against the sky. Everything else was still; but those leaves were quivering, quivering. I stood on the sand; I

could not go away. When it was quite dark, and the stars had come, I crept out. Does it seem strange to you

that it should have made me so happy? It is because I cannot tell you how near I felt to things that we cannot

see but we always feel. Tonight has been a wild, stormy night. I have been walking across the plain for hours

in the dark. I have liked the wind, because I have seemed forcing my way through to you. I knew you were

not here, but I would hear of you. When I used to sit on the transport wagon halfsleeping, I used to start

awake because your hands were on me. In my lodgings, many nights I have blown the light out, and sat in the

dark, that I might see your face start out more distinctly. Sometimes it was the little girl's face who used to

come to me behind the kopje when I minded sheep, and sit by me in her blue pinafore; sometimes it was

older. I love both. I am very helpless; I shall never do anything; but you will work, and I will take your work

for mine. Sometimes such a sudden gladness seizes me when I remember that somewhere in the world you

are living and working. You are my very own; nothing else is my own so. When I have finished I am going to

He wrote; and the wind, which had spent its fury, moaned round and round the house, most like a tired child

Em woke up, and sat before the fire, rubbing her eyes, and listening, as it sobbed about the gables, and

"How quiet it has grown now," she said, and sighed herself, partly from weariness and partly from sympathy

She turned away, and stood long before the fire looking into it. If you have a deadly fruit to give, it will not

Slowly over the flat came a cart. On the back seat sat Gregory, his arms folded, his hat drawn over his eyes.

A Kaffer boy sat on the front seat driving, and at his feet sat Doss, who, now and again, lifted his nose and

eyes above the level of the splashboard, to look at the surrounding country; and then, with an exceedingly

knowing wink of his left eye, turned to his companions, thereby intimating that he clearly perceived his

whereabouts. No one noticed the cart coming. Waldo, who was at work at his carpenter's table in the

wagonhouse, saw nothing, till chancing to look down he perceived Doss standing before him, the legs

trembling, the little nose wrinkled, and a series of short suffocating barks giving utterance to his joy at

Em, whose eyes had ached with looking out across the plain, was now at work in a back room, and knew

nothing till, looking up, she saw Gregory, with his straw hat and blue eyes, standing in the doorway. He

greeted her quietly, hung his hat up in its old place behind the door, and for any change in his manner or

appearance he might have been gone only the day before to fetch letters from the town. Only his beard was

gone, and his face was grown thinner. He took off his leather gaiters, said the afternoon was hot and the roads

dusty, and asked for some tea. They talked of wool, and the cattle, and the sheep, and Em gave him the pile of

letters that had come for him during the months of absence, but of the thing that lay at their hearts neither said

anything. Then he went out to look at the kraals, and at supper Em gave him hot cakes and coffee. They

talked about the servants, and then ate their meal in quiet. She asked no questions. When it was ended

"No," he answered; then presently called to her, "Come and sit here; I want to talk to you."

"What difference does it make to me?" he said. "If I talk or am silent, is there any change?"

Yet he lay quiet for a long time. The light through the open door showed him to her, where he lay, with his

arm thrown across his eyes. At last he spoke. Perhaps it was a relief to him to speak.

To Bloemfontein in the Free State, to which through an agent he had traced them, Gregory had gone. At the

hotel where Lyndall and her stranger had stayed he put up; he was shown the very room in which they had

slept. The coloured boy who had driven them to the next town told him in which house they had boarded, and

Gregory went on. In that town he found they had left the cart, and bought a spider and four greys, and

Gregory's heart rejoiced. Now indeed it would be easy to trace their course. And he turned his steps

At the farmhouses where he stopped the ooms and tantes remembered clearly the spider with its four grey

horses. At one place the Boerwife told how the tall, blueeyed Englishman had bought milk, and asked the

way to the next farm. At the next farm the Englishman had bought a bunch of flowers, and given half a crown

for them to the little girl. It was quite true; the Boermother made her get it out of the box and show it. At the

next place they had slept. Here they told him that the great bulldog, who hated all strangers, had walked in in

the evening and laid its head in the lady's lap. So at every place he heard something, and traced them step by

At one desolate farm the Boer had a good deal to tell. The lady had said she liked a wagon that stood before

the door. Without asking the price the Englishman had offered a hundred and fifty pounds for the old thing,

and bought oxen worth ten pounds for sixteen. The Dutchman chuckled, for he had the Saltriem's money in

the box under his bed. Gregory laughed too, in silence; he could not lose sight of them now, so slowly they

would have to move with that cumbrous oxwagon. Yet, when that evening came, and he reached a little

The master, a surly creature, half stupid with Boerbrandy, sat on the bench before the door smoking.

Gregory sat beside him, questioning, but he smoked on. He remembered nothing of such strangers. How

should he know who had been there months and months before? He smoked on. Gregory, very weary, tried to

wake his memory, said that the lady he was seeking for was very beautiful, had a little mouth, and tiny, very

tiny, feet. The man only smoked on as sullenly as at first. What were little, very little, mouths and feet to him.

But his daughter leaned out in the window above. She was dirty and lazy, and liked to loll there when

travellers came, to hear the men talk, but she had a soft heart. Presently a hand came out of the window, and a

pair of velvet slippers touched his shoulder, tiny slippers with black flowers. He pulled them out of her hand.

"Left here last summer by a lady," said the girl; "might be the one you are looking for. Never saw any feet so

They might have come in a wagon and spider, she could not tell. But the gentleman was very handsome, tall,

lovely figure, blue eyes, wore gloves always when he went out. An English officer, perhaps; no Africander,

The lady? Well, she was pretty, rather, the girl said; very cold, dull air, silent. They stayed for, it might be,

five days; slept in the wing over against the stoep; quarrelled sometimes, she thoughtthe lady. She had

seen everything when she went in to wait. One day the gentleman touched her hair; she drew back from him

as though his fingers poisoned her. Went to the other end of the room if he came to sit near her. Walked out

alone. Cold wife for such a handsome husband, the girl thought; she evidently pitied him, he was such a

beautiful man. They went away early one morning, how, or in which way, the girl could not tell.

Gregory inquired of the servants, but nothing more was to be learnt; so the next morning he saddled his horse

and went on. At the farms he came to the good old ooms and tantes asked him to have coffee, and the little

shoeless children peeped out at the stranger from behind ovens and gables; but no one had seen what he asked

for. This way and that he rode to pick up the thread he had dropped, but the spider and the wagon, the little

lady and the handsome gentleman, no one had seen. In the towns he fared yet worse.

Once indeed hope came to him. On the stoep of an hotel at which he stayed the night in a certain little village,

there walked a gentleman, grave and kindlylooking. It was not hard to open conversation with him about the

weather, and thenHad he ever seen such and such people, a gentleman and a lady, a spider and wagon,

arrive at that place? The kindly gentleman shook his head. What was the lady like, he inquired.

Gregory painted. Hair like silken floss, small mouth, underlip very full and pink, upper lip pink but very thin

and curled; there were four white spots on the nail of her right hand forefinger, and her eyebrows were very

"Yes; and a rosebud tinge in the cheeks; hands like lilies, and perfectly seraphic smile."

Who else could it be? He asked where she had gone to. The gentleman most thoughtfully stroked his beard.

He would try to remember. Were not her ears. Here such a violent fit of coughing seized him that he ran

away into the house. An illfed clerk and a dirty barman standing in the doorway laughed aloud. Gregory

wondered if they could be laughing at the gentleman's cough, and then he heard some one laughing in the

room into which the gentleman had gone. He must follow him and try to learn more; but he soon found that

Backward and forward, backward and forward, from the dirty little hotel where he had dropped the thread, to

this farm and to that, rode Gregory, till his heart was sick and tired. That from that spot the wagon might have

gone its own way and the spider another was an idea that did not occur to him. At last he saw it was no use

One day coming to a little town, his horses knocked up, and he resolved to rest them there. The little hotel of

the town was a bright and sunny place, like the jovial face of the clean little woman who kept it, and who

trotted about talking alwaystalking to the customers in the taproom, and to the maids in the kitchen, and to

the passersby when she could hail them from the windows; talking, as goodnatured women with large

There was a little front parlour in the hotel, kept for strangers who wanted to be alone. Gregory sat there to

eat his breakfast, and the landlady dusted the room and talked of the great finds at the Diamond Fields, and

the badness of maidservants, and the shameful conduct of the Dutch parson in that town to the English

inhabitants. Gregory ate his breakfast and listened to nothing. He had asked his one question, and had had his

Presently a door in the corner opened and a woman came outa Mozambiquer, with a red handkerchief

twisted round her head. She carried in her hand a tray, with a slice of toast crumbled fine, and a halffilled

cup of coffee, and an egg broken open, but not eaten. Her ebony face grinned complacently as she shut the

"You are not going to leave her really, Ayah, are you?" she said. "The maids say so; but I'm sure you

"But she hasn't got any one else, and won't have any one else. Come, now," said the landlady, "I've no time to

The Mozambiquer only showed her white teeth goodnaturedly for answer, and went out, and the landlady

Gregory, glad to be alone, watched the sunshine as it came over the fuchsias in the window, and ran up and

down on the panelled door in the corner. The Mozambiquer had closed it loosely behind her, and presently

something touched it inside. It moved a little, then it was still, then moved again; then through the gap a small

nose appeared, and a yellow ear overlapping one eye; then the whole head obtruded, placed itself critically on

one side, wrinkled its nose disapprovingly at Gregory, and withdrew. Through the halfopen door came a

"Left the door open," she said, bustling to shut it; "but a darky will be a darky, and never carries a head on its

shoulders like other folks. Not ill, I hope sir?" she said, looking at Gregory when she had shut the bedroom

Glad to have a little innocent piece of gossip to relate, and some one willing to hear it, the landlady made the

most of a little story as she cleared the table. Six months before a lady had come alone to the hotel in a

wagon, with only a coloured leader and driver. Eight days after a little baby had been born.

If Gregory stood up and looked out at the window he would see a bluegum tree in the graveyard; close by it

was a little grave. The baby was buried there. A tiny thingonly lived two hours, and the mother herself

almost went with it. After a while she was better; but one day she got up out of bed, dressed herself without

saying a word to any one, and went out. It was a drizzly day; a little time after some one saw her sitting on

the wet ground under the bluegumtree, with the rain dripping from her hat and shawl. They went to fetch

her, but she would not come until she chose. When she did, she had gone to bed and had not risen again from

She was very patient, poor thing. When you went in to ask her how she was she said always "Better," or

"Nearly well!" and lay still in the darkened room, and never troubled any one. The Mozambiquer took care of

her, and she would not allow any one else to touch her; would not so much as allow any one else to see her

foot uncovered. She was strange in many ways, but she paid well, poor thing; and now the Mozambiquer was

The landlady prattled on pleasantly, and now carried away the tray with the breakfast things. When she was

Before dinner he had ridden out of the town to where on a rise a number of transportwagons were

outspanned. The Dutchman driver of one wondered at the stranger's eagerness to free himself of his horses.

Stolen perhaps; but it was worth his while to buy them at so low a price. So the horses changed masters, and

Gregory walked off with his saddlebags slung across his arm. Once out of sight of the wagons he struck out

of the road and walked across the veld, the dry, flowering grasses waving everywhere about him; halfway

across the plain he came to a deep gully which the rain torrents had washed out, but which was now dry.

Gregory sprung down into its red bed. It was a safe place, and quiet. When he had looked about him he sat

down under the shade of an overhanging bank and fanned himself with his hat, for the afternoon was hot, and

he had walked fast. At his feet the dusty ants ran about, and the high red bank before him was covered by a

network of roots and fibres washed bare by the rains. Above his head rose the clear blue African sky; at his

side were the saddlebags full of women's clothing. Gregory looked up half plaintively into the blue sky.

It was also strange, he sitting there in that sloot in that upcountry plain!strange as the fantastic, changing

shapes in a summer cloud. At last, tired out, he fell asleep, with his head against the bank. When he woke the

shadow had stretched across the sloot, and the sun was on the edge of the plain. Now he must be up and

doing. He drew from his breast pocket a little sixpenny lookingglass, and hung it on one of the roots that

stuck out from the bank. Then he dressed himself in one of the oldfashioned gowns and a great pinkedout

collar. Then he took out a razor. Tuft by tuft the soft brown beard fell down into the sand, and the little ants

took it to line their nests with. Then the glass showed a face surrounded by a frilled cap, white as a woman's,

Presently a rather tall woman's figure was making its way across the veld. As it passed a hollowedout

antheap it knelt down, and stuffed in the saddlebags with the man's clothing, closing up the anthill with bits

of ground to look as natural as possible. Like a sinner hiding his deed of sin, the hider started once and looked

round, but yet there was no one near save a meerkat, who had lifted herself out of her hole and sat on her hind

legs watching. He did not like that even she should see, and when he rose she dived away into her hole. Then

he walked on leisurely, that the dusk might have reached the village streets before he walked there. The first

house was the smith's, and before the open door two idle urchins lolled. As he hurried up the street in the

gathering gloom he heard them laugh long and loudly behind him. He glanced round fearingly, and would

almost have fled, but that the strange skirts clung about his legs. And after all it was only a spark that had

The door of the hotel stood wide open, and the light fell out into the street. He knocked, and the landlady

came. She peered out to look for the cart that had brought the traveller; but Gregory's heart was brave now he

was so near the quiet room. He told her he had come with the transport wagons that stood outside the town.

It was a deliberate lie, glibly told; he would have told fifty, though the recording angel had stood in the next

room with his pen dipped in the ink. What was it to him? He remembered that she lay there saying always: "I

The landlady put his supper in the little parlour where he had sat in the morning. When it was on the table she

sat down in the rockingchair, as her fashion was to knit and talk, that she might gather news for her

customers in the taproom. In the white face under the queer, deepfringed cap she saw nothing of the

morning's traveller. The newcomer was communicative. She was a nurse by profession, she said; had come to

the Transvaal, hearing that good nurses were needed there. She had not yet found work. The landlady did not

If it wasn't the very finger of God's providence, as though you saw it hanging out of the sky, she said. Here

was a lady ill and needing a new nurse that very day, and not able to get one to her mind, and nowwell, if

it wasn't enough to convert all the Atheists and Freethinkers in the Transvaal, she didn't know!

"I'm sure you will suit her," she added; "you're just the kind. She has heaps of money to pay you with; has

everything that money can buy. And I got a letter with a check in it for fifty pounds the other day from some

one, who says I'm to spend it for her, and not to let her know. She is asleep now, but I'll take you in to look at

The landlady opened the door of the next room, and Gregory followed her. A table stood near the bed, and a

lamp burning low stood on it; the bed was a great fourposter with white curtains, and the quilt was of rich

crimson satin. But Gregory stood just inside the door with his head bent low, and saw no further.

"Come nearer! I'll turn the lamp up a bit, that you can have a look at her. A pretty thing, isn't it?" said the

Near the foot of the bed was a dent in the crimson quilt, and out of it Doss' small head and bright eyes looked

Then Gregory looked up at what lay on the cushion. A little white, white face, transparent as an angel's with a

"We had to cut it off," said the woman, touching it with her forefinger. "Soft as silk, like a wax doll's."

Gregory uttered one word. In an instant the beautiful eyes opened widely, looked round the room and into the

Gregory had sunk back behind the curtain; the landlady drew it aside, and pulled him forward.

"Only this lady, ma'ama nurse by profession. She is willing to stay and take care of you, if you can come

Lyndall raised herself on her elbow, and cast one keen scrutinizing glance over him.

"Perhaps you would like to arrange the terms between yourselves," said the landlady. "Here is a chair. I will

Gregory sat down, with bent head and quick breath. She did not speak, and lay with halfclosed eyes,

"Will you turn the lamp down a little?" she said at last; "I cannot bear the light."

Then his heart grew braver in the shadow, and he spoke. Nursing was to him, he said, his chosen life's work.

"I take no service for which I do not pay," she said. "What I gave to my last nurse I will give to you; if you do

Afterward she tried to turn herself. He lifted her! Ah! a shrunken little body, he could feel its weakness as he

"Thank you! that is so nice. Other people hurt me when they touch me," she said. "Thank you!" Then after a

The doctor said of Gregory four days after, "She is the most experienced nurse I ever came in contact with."

Gregory, standing in the passage, heard it and laughed in his heart. What need had he of experience?

Experience teaches us in a millennium what passion teaches us in an hour. A Kaffer studies all his life the

discerning of distant sounds; but he will never hear my step, when my love hears it, coming to her window in

At first Gregory's heart was sore when day by day the body grew lighter, and the mouth he fed took less; but

afterward he grew accustomed to it, and was happy. For passion has one cry, one only"Oh, to touch thee,

In that quiet room Lyndall lay on the bed with the dog at her feet, and Gregory sat in his dark corner

She seldom slept, and through those long, long days she would lie watching the round streak of sunlight that

came through the knot in the shutter, or the massive lion's paw on which the wardrobe rested. What thoughts

Sometimes Doss where he lay on her feet would dream that they two were in the cart, tearing over the veld,

with the black horses snorting, and the wind in their faces; and he would start up in his sleep and bark aloud.

Then awaking, he would lick his mistress' hand almost remorsefully, and slink quietly down into his place.

Gregory thought she had no pain, she never groaned; only sometimes, when the light was near her, he thought

One night he thought he heard a sound, and, opening it softly, he looked in. She was crying out aloud, as if

she and her pain were alone in the world. The light fell on the red quilt, and the little hands that were clasped

over the head. The wideopen eyes were looking up, and the heavy drops fell slowly from them.

"I cannot bear any more, not any more," she said in a deep voice. "Oh, God, God! have I not borne in silence?

"I do not ask for wisdom, not human love, not work, not knowledge, not for all things I have longed for," she

cried; "only a little freedom from pain! Only one little hour without pain! Then I will suffer again."

He crept away to the front door, and stood looking out at the quiet starlight. When he came back she was

lying in her usual posture, the quiet eyes looking at the lion's claw. He came close to the bed.

She still drew her lips together, and motioned with her fingers toward the dog who lay sleeping at her feet.

Gregory lifted him and laid him at her side. She made Gregory turn open the bosom of her nightdress, that the

dog might put his black muzzle between her breasts. She crossed her arms over him. Gregory left them lying

"Some one ought to tell her," said the landlady; "we can't let her soul go out into eternity not knowing,

especially when I don't think it was all right about the child. You ought to go and tell her, doctor."

So, the little doctor, edged on and on, went in at last. When he came out of the room he shook his fist in the

"The next time you have any devil's work to do, do it yourself," he said, and he shook his fist in her face

When Gregory went into the bedroom he only found her moved, her body curled up, and drawn close to the

"Bring me food," she said, "I want to eat. Two eggs, and toast, and meat two large slices of toast, please."

"Sit me up, and put it close to me," she said; "I am going to eat it all." She tried to draw the things near her

with her fingers, and rearranged the plates. She cut the toast into long strips, broke open both eggs, put a

tiny morsel of bread into her own mouth, and fed the dog with pieces of meat put into his jaws with her

"Is it twelve o'clock yet?" she said; "I think I do not generally eat so early. Put it away, please, carefullyno,

do not take it awayonly on the table. When the clock strikes twelve I will eat it."

"Yes; I am going to dress tomorrow. I should get up now, but it is rather late. Put them on that chair. My

Her eyes followed him intently as he collected the articles one by one, and placed them on the chair as she

"Put it nearer," she said, "I cannot see it;" and she lay watching the clothes, with her hand under her cheek.

The old, old tone was again in the sweet voice. He obeyed her; and opened the shutter, and raised her up

"Now bring my books to me," she said, motioning eagerly with her fingers; "the large book, and the reviews

He piled them round her on the bed; she drew them greedily closer, her eyes very bright, but her face as white

"Now the big one off the drawers. No, you need not help me to hold my book," she said; "I can hold it for

Gregory went back to his corner, and for a little time the restless turning over of leaves was to be heard.

"Will you open the window," she said, almost querulously, "and throw this book out? It is so utterly foolish. I

thought it was a valuable book; but the words are merely strung together, they make no sense. Yesso!" she

said with approval, seeing him fling it out into the street. "I must have been very foolish when I thought that

Then she turned to read, and leaned her little elbows resolutely on the great volume, and knit her brows. This

"I wish you would take a handkerchief and tie it tight round my head, it aches so."

He had not been long in his seat when he saw drops fall from beneath the hands that shaded the eyes, on to

"I am not accustomed to so much light, it makes my head swim a little," she said. "Go out and close the

He heard no sound of weeping, but the shoulders shook. He darkened the room completely.

When Gregory went to his sofa that night, she told him to wake her early; she would be dressed before

breakfast. Nevertheless, when morning came, she said it was a little cold, and lay all day watching her clothes

upon the chair. Still she sent for her oxen in the country; they would start on Monday and go down to the

In the afternoon she told him to open the window wide, and draw the bed near it.

It was a leaden afternoon, the dull rainclouds rested close to the roofs of the houses, and the little street was

silent and deserted. Now and then a gust of wind eddying round caught up the dried leaves, whirled them

hither and thither under the trees, and dropped them again into the gutter; then all was quiet. She lay looking

Presently the bell of the church began to toll, and up the village street came a long procession. They were

carrying an old man to his last resting place. She followed them with her eyes till they turned in among the

"An old man," he answered, "a very old man; they say he was ninetyfour; but his name I do not know."

"That is why the bell rang so cheerfully," she said. "When the old die it is well; they have had their time. It is

"They love life, they do not want to die," she answered, "but what of that? They have had their time. They

knew that a man's life is threescore years and ten; they should have made their plans accordingly!

"But the young," she said, "the young, cut down, cruelly, when they have not seen, when they have not

knownwhen they have not foundit is for them that the bells weep blood. I heard in the ringing it was an

old man. When the old die Listen to the bell! it is laughing'It is right, it is right; he has had his time.'

She fell back exhausted; the hot light died from her eyes, and she lay looking out into the street. By and by

stragglers from the funeral began to come back and disappear here and there among the houses; then all was

quiet, and the night began to settle down upon the village street. Afterward, when the room was almost dark,

so that they could not see each other's faces, she said, "It will rain tonight;" and moved restlessly on the

He wondered what she meant, and they sat on in the still darkening room. She moved again.

"Will you presently take my cloakand new grey cloak from behind the door and go out with it. You will

find a little grave at the foot of the tall gumtree; the water drips off the long, pointed leaves; you must cover

Gregory assented, and there was silence again. It was the first time she had ever spoken of her child.

"It was so small," she said; "it lived such a little whileonly three hours. They laid it close by me, but I

never saw it; I could feel it by me." She waited; "its feet were so cold; I took them in my hand to make them

warm, and my hand closed right over them they were so little." There was an uneven trembling in the voice.

"It crept close to me; it wanted to drink, it wanted to be warm." She hardened herself"I did not love it; its

father was not my prince; I did not care for it; but it was so little." She moved her hand. "They might have

kissed it, one of them, before they put it in. It never did any one any harm in all its little life. They might have

Late on in the evening, when the shutter was closed and the lamp lighted, and the raindrops beat on the roof,

he took the cloak from behind the door and went away with it. On his way back he called at the village post

office and brought back a letter. In the hall he stood reading the address. How could he fail to know whose

hand had written it? Had he not long ago studied those characters on the torn fragments of paper in the old

parlour? A burning pain was at Gregory's heart. If now, now at the last, one should come, should step in

between! He carried the letter into the bedroom and gave it to her. "Bring me the lamp nearer," she said.

Then Gregory sat down in the lamplight on the other side of the curtain, and heard the pencil move on the

paper. When he looked round the curtain she was lying on the pillow musing. The open letter lay at her side;

she glanced at it with soft eyes. The man with the languid eyelids must have been strangely moved before his

"Let me come back to you! My darling, let me put my hand round you, and guard you from all the world. As

my wife they shall never touch you. I have learnt to love you more wisely, more tenderly, than of old; you

shall have perfect freedom. Lyndall, grand little woman, for your own sake be my wife!

"Why did you send that money back to me? You are cruel to me; it is not rightly done."

She rolled the little red pencil softly between her fingers, and her face grew very soft. Yet:

"It cannot be," she wrote; "I thank you much for the love you have shown me; but I cannot listen. You will

call me mad, foolishthe world would do so; but I know what I need and the kind of path I must walk in. I

cannot marry you. I will always love you for the sake of what lay by me those three hours; but there it ends. I

must know and see, I cannot be bound to one whom I love as I love you. I am not afraid of the worldI will

fight the world. One dayperhaps it may be far offI shall find what I have wanted all my life; something

nobler, stronger than I, before which I can kneel down. You lose nothing by not having me now; I am a weak,

selfish, erring woman. One day I shall find something to worship, and then I shall be"

"Nurse," she said; "take my desk away; I am suddenly so sleepy; I will write more tomorrow." She turned her

face to the pillow; it was the sudden drowsiness of great weakness. She had dropped asleep in a moment, and

Gregory moved the desk softly, and then sat in the chair watching. Hour after hour passed, but he had no wish

for rest, and sat on, hearing the rain cease, and the still night settle down everywhere. At a quarterpast

twelve he rose, and took a last look at the bed where she lay sleeping so peacefully; then he turned to go to

his couch. Before he had reached the door she had started up and was calling him back.

"You are sure you have put it up?" she said, with a look of blank terror at the window. "It will not fall open in

"Even if it is shut," she said, in a whisper, "you cannot keep it out! You feel it coming in at four o'clock,

He thought she was wandering, and laid her little trembling body down among the blankets.

"I dreamed just now that it was not put up," she said, looking into his eyes; "and it crept right in and I was

"The Grey Dawn," she said, glancing round at the window. "I was never afraid of anything, never, when I

was a little child, but I have always been afraid of that. You will not let it come in to me?"

But she was growing calmer. "No, you must go to bed. I only awoke with a start; you must be tired. I am

He knelt down at the foot of the bed and took the tiny foot in his hand; it was swollen and unsightly now, but

"It makes it better when you kiss it; thank you. What makes you all love me so?" Then dreamily she muttered

Kneeling there, rubbing softly, with his cheek pressed against the little foot, Gregory dropped to sleep at last.

How long he knelt there he could not tell; but when he started up awake she was not looking at him. The eyes

He looked round fearfully. What did she see there? God's angels come to call her? Something fearful? He

saw only the purple curtain with the shadows that fell from it. Softly he whispered, asking what she saw

And she said, in a voice strangely unlike her own: "I see the vision of a poor, weak soul striving after good. It

was not cut short, and in the end it learnt, through tears and much pain, that holiness is an infinite compassion

for others; that greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them; that"She moved

her white hand and laid it on her forehead"happiness is a great love and much serving. It was not cut short;

Gregory told the landlady the next morning that she had been wandering all night. Yet, when he came in to

give her her breakfast, she was sitting up against the pillows, looking as he had not seen her look before.

"Put it close to me," she said, "and when I have had breakfast I am going to dress."

"I am sitting up quite by myself," she said. "Give me his meat;" and she fed the dog herself, cutting his food

"Now bring the chair near and dress me. It is being in this room so long, and looking at that miserable little

bit of sunshine that comes in through the shutter, that is making me so ill. Always that lion's paw!" she said,

with a look of disgust at it. "Come and dress me." Gregory knelt on the floor before her, and tried to draw on

"It is very funny that I should have grown so fat since I have been so ill," she said, peering down curiously.

"Perhaps it is want of exercise." She looked troubled and said again, "Perhaps it is want of exercise." She

wanted Gregory to say so too. But he only found a larger pair; and then tried to force the shoes, oh, so

"There," she said, looking down at them when they were on, with the delight of a small child over its first

"No," she said, seeing the soft gown he had prepared for her, "I will not put that on. Get one of my white

dressesthe one with the pink bows. I do not even want to think I have been ill. It is thinking and thinking of

things that makes them real," she said. "When you draw your mind together, and resolve that a thing shall not

be, it gives way before you; it is not. Everything is possible if one is resolved," she said. She drew in her little

lips together, and Gregory obeyed her; she was so small and slight now it was like dressing a small doll. He

would have lifted her down from the bed when he had finished, but she pushed him from her, laughing very

"No, no; I can get down myself," she said, slipping cautiously on to the floor. "You see!" She cast a defiant

glance of triumph when she stood there. "Hold the curtain up high, I want to look at myself."

He raised it, and stood holding it. She looked into the glass on the opposite wall.

Such a queenly little figure in its pink and white. Such a transparent little face, refined by suffering into an

almost angellike beauty. The face looked at her; she looked back, laughing softly. Doss, quivering with

excitement, ran round her, barking. She took one step toward the door, balancing herself with outstretched

When Gregory reached her she had fallen with her face against the sharp foot of the wardrobe and cut her

forehead. Very tenderly he raised the little crushed heap of muslin and ribbons, and laid it on the bed. Doss

climbed up, and sat looking down at it. Very softly Gregory's hands disrobed her.

"You will be stronger tomorrow, and then we shall try again," he said, but she neither looked at him nor

When he had undressed her, and laid her in bed, Doss stretched himself across her feet and lay whining

Again and again Gregory crept close to the bedside and looked at her; but she did not speak to him. Was it

stupor or was it sleep that shone under those halfclosed eyelids. Gregory could not tell.

"The oxen have come," he said; "we can start tomorrow if you like. Shall I get the wagon ready tonight?"

Twice he repeated his question. Then she looked up at him, and Gregory saw that all hope had died out of the

So the next day Gregory carried her out in his arms to the wagon which stood inspanned before the door. As

he laid her down on the kartel she looked far out across the plain. For the first time she spoke that day.

"That blue mountain, far away; let us stop when we get to it, not before." She closed her eyes again. He drew

the sails down before and behind, and the wagon rolled away slowly. The landlady and the niggers stood to

Very silently the great wagon rolled along the grasscovered plain. The driver on the front box did not clap

his whip or call to his oxen, and Gregory sat beside him with folded arms. Behind them, in the closed wagon,

she lay with the dog at her feet, very quiet, with folded hands. He, Gregory, dared not be in there. Like Hagar,

when she laid her treasure down in the wilderness, he sat afar off:"For Hagar said, Let me not see the death

Evening came, and yet the blue mountain was not reached, and all the next day they rode on slowly, but still

it was far off. Only at evening they reached it; not blue now, but low and brown, covered with long waving

grasses and rough stones. They drew the wagon up close to its foot for the night. It was a sheltered, warm

When the dark night had come, when the tired oxen were tied to the wheels, and the driver and leader had

rolled themselves in their blankets before the fire, and gone to sleep, then Gregory fastened down the sails of

the wagon securely. He fixed a long candle near the head of the bed, and lay down himself on the floor of the

wagon near the back. He leaned his head against the kartel, and listened to the chewing of the tired oxen, and

to the crackling of the fire, till, overpowered by weariness, he fell into a heavy sleep. Then all was very still

in the wagon. The dog slept on his mistress' feet, and only two mosquitoes, creeping in through a gap in the

The night was grown very old when from a long, peaceful sleep Lyndall awoke. The candle burnt at her head,

the dog lay on her feet; but he shivered; it seemed as though a coldness struck up to him from his resting

place. She lay with folded hands, looking upward; and she heard the oxen chewing, and she saw the two

mosquitoes buzzing drearily round and round, and her thoughtsher thoughts ran far back into the past.

Through these months of anguish a mist had rested on her mind; it was rolled together now, and the old clear

intellect awoke from its long torpor. It looked back into the past, it saw the present; there was no future now.

The old strong soul gathered itself together for the last time; it knew where it stood.

Slowly raising herself on her elbow, she took from the sail a glass that hung pinned there. Her fingers were

stiff and cold. She put the pillow on her breast, and stood the glass against it. Then the white face on the

pillow looked into the white face in the glass. They had looked at each other often so before. It had been a

child's face once, looking out above its blue pinafore; it had been a woman's face, with a dim shadow in the

eyes, and a something which had said, "We are not afraid, you and I; we are together; we will fight, you and

The dying eyes on the pillow looked into the dying eyes in the glass; they knew that their hour had come. She

raised one hand and pressed the stiff fingers against the glass. They were growing very stiff. She tried to

speak to it, but she would never speak again. Only the wonderful yearning light was in the eyes still. The

Then slowly, without a sound, the beautiful eyes closed. The dead face that the glass reflected was a thing of

marvelous beauty and tranquillity. The Grey Dawn crept in over it and saw it lying there.

Had she found what she sought forsomething to worship? Had she ceased from being? Who shall tell us?

"Tell me what a soul desires, and I will tell you what it is." So runs the phrase.

"Tell me what a man dreams, and I will tell you what he loves." That also has its truth.

For, ever from the earliest childhood to the latest age, day by day, and step by step, the busy waking life is

followed and reflected by the life of dreamswaking dreams, sleeping dreams. Weird, misty, and distorted

as the inverted image of a mirage, or a figure seen through the mountain mist, they are still the reflections of a

On the night when Gregory told his story Waldo sat alone before the fire, his untasted supper before him. He

was weary after his day's worktoo weary to eat. He put the plate down on the floor for Doss, who licked it

clean, and then went back to his corner. After a time the master threw himself across the foot of the bed

without undressing, and fell asleep there. He slept so long that the candle burnt itself out, and the room was in

In his dream, to his right rose high mountains, their tops crowned with snow, their sides clothed with bush

and bathed in the sunshine. At their feet was the sea, blue and breezy, bluer than any earthly sea, like the sea

he had dreamed of in his boyhood. In the narrow forest that ran between the mountains and the sea the air

was rich that the scent of the honey creeper that hung from dark green bushes, and through the velvety grass

He sat on a high square rock among the bushes, and Lyndall sat by him and sang to him. She was only a

small child, with a blue pinafore, and a grave, grave, little face. He was looking up at the mountains, then

suddenly when he looked round she was gone. He slipped down from his rock, and went to look for her, but

he found only her little footmarks; he found them on the bright green grass, and in the moist sand, and there

where the little streams ran purling down into the sea. In and out, in and out, and among the bushes where the

honeycreeper hung, he went looking for her. At last, far off, in the sunshine, he saw her gathering shells

upon the sand. She was not a child now, but a woman, and the sun shone on her soft brown hair, and in her

white dress she put the shells she gathered. She was stooping, but when she heard his step she stood up,

holding her skirt close about her, and waited for his coming. One hand she put in his, and together they

walked on over the glittering sand and pink seashells; and they heard the leaves talking, and they heard the

waters babbling on their way to the sea, and they heard the sea singing to itself, singing, singing.

At last they came to a place where was a long reach of pure white sand; there she stood still, and dropped on

to the sand one by one the shells that she had gathered. Then she looked up into his face with her beautiful

eyes. She said nothing; but she lifted one hand and laid it softly on his forehead; the other she laid on his

With a cry of suppressed agony Waldo sprung from the bed, flung open the upper half of the door, and leaned

Great God! it might be only a dream, but the pain was very real, as though a knife ran through his heart, as

though some treacherous murderer crept on him in the dark! The strong man drew his breath like a frightened

"Only a dream, but the pain was very real," he muttered, as he pressed his right hand upon his breast. Then he

The dream was with him still; the woman who was his friend was not separated from him by yearsonly

that very night he had seen her. He looked up into the night sky that all his life long had mingled itself with

his existence. There were a thousand faces that he loved looking down at him, a thousand stars in their glory,

in crowns, and circles, and solitary grandeur. To the man they were not less dear than to the boy they had

been not less mysterious; yet he looked up at them and shuddered; at last turned away from them with horror.

Such countless multitudes stretching out far into space, and yet not in one of them all was she! Though he

searched through them all, to the furthest, faintest point of light, nowhere should he ever say, "She is here!"

Tomorrow's sun would rise and gild the world's mountains, and shine into its thousand valleys; it would set

and the stars creep out again. Year after year, century after century, the old changes of nature would go on,

day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest; but in none of them all would she have part!

He shut the door to keep out their hideous shining, and because the dark was intolerable lit a candle, and

paced the little room, faster and faster yet. He saw before him the long ages of eternity that would roll on, on,

on, and never bring her. She would exist no more. A dark mist filled the little room.

"Oh, little hand! oh, little voice! oh, little form!" he cried; oh, little soul that walked with mine! oh, little soul,

that looked so fearlessly down into the depths, do you exist no more for everfor all time?" He cried more

bitterly: "It is for this hourthisthat men blind reason, and crush out thought! For this hourthis,

thisthey barter truth and knowledge, take any lie, any creed, so it does not whisper to them of the dead that

Pain made his soul weak; it cried for the old faith. They are the tears that fall into the newmade grave that

cement the power of the priest. For the cry of the soul that loves and loses is this, only this: "Bridge over

Death; blend the Here with the Hereafter; cause the mortal to robe himself in immortality; let me not say of

my Dead that it is dead! I will believe all else, bear all else, endure all else!"

To the soul's wild cry for its own there are many answers. He began to think of them. Was not there one of

"You shall see her again," says the Christian, the true Bible Christian. "Yes, you shall see her again. 'And I

saw the dead, great and small, stand before God. And the books were opened, and the dead were judged from

those things which were written in the books. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was

cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.' Yes; you shall see her again. She died sowith her knee

unbent, with her hand unraised, with a prayer unuttered, in the pride of her intellect and the strength of her

youth. She loved and she was loved; but she said no prayer to God; she cried for no mercy; she repented of no

"You shall see her again," said the nineteenthcentury Christian, deep into whose soul modern unbelief and

thought have crept, though he knows it not. He it is who uses his Bible as the pearlfishers use their shells,

sorting out gems from refuse; he sets his pearls after his own fashion, and he sets them well. "Do not fear," he

says; "hell and judgment are not. God is love. I know that beyond this blue sky above us is a love as wide

spreading over all. The AllFather will show her to you again; not spirit onlythe little hands, the little feet

you loved, you shall lie down and kiss them if you will. Christ arose, and did eat and drink, so shall she arise.

The dead, all the dead, raised incorruptible! God is love. You shall see her again."

It is a heavenly song, this of the nineteenthcentury Christian. A man might dry his tears to listen to it, but for

"The thing I loved was a woman proud and young; it had a mother once, who, dying, kissed her little baby,

and prayed God that she might see it again. If it had lived the loved thing would itself have had a son, who,

when he closed the weary eyes and smoothed the wrinkled forehead of his mother, would have prayed God to

see that old face smile again in the Hereafter. To the son heaven will be no heaven if the sweet worn face is

not in one of the choirs; he will look for it through the phalanx of God's glorified angels; and the youth will

look for the maid, and the mother for the baby. 'And whose then shall she be at the resurrection of the dead?'"

"Ah, God! ah, God! a beautiful dream," he cried; "but can any one dream it not sleeping?"

"What have you to do with flesh, the gross and miserable garment in which spirit hides itself? You shall see

her again. But the hand, the foot, the forehead you loved, you shall see no more. The loves, the fears, the

frailties that are born with the flesh, with the flesh they shall die. Let them die! There is that in man that

cannot diea seed, a germ an embryo, a spiritual essence. Higher than she was on earth, as the tree is higher

than the seed, the man than the embryo, so shall you behold her; changed, glorified!"

High words, ringing well; they are the offering of jewels to the hungry, of gold to the man who dies for bread.

Bread is corruptible, gold is incorruptible; bread is light, gold is heavy; bread is common, gold is rare; but the

hungry man will barter all your mines for one morsel of bread. Around God's throne there may be choirs and

companies of angels, cherubim and seraphim, rising tier above tier, but not for one of them all does the soul

cry aloud. Only perhaps for a little human woman full of sin, that it once loved.

"Change is death, change is death!" he cried. "I want no angel, only she; no holier and no better, with all her

And, truly, does not the heart love its own with the strongest passion for their very frailties? Heaven might

"Change is death," he cried, "change is death! Who dares to say the body never dies, because it turns again to

grass and flowers? And yet they dare to say the spirit never dies, because in space some strange unearthly

being may have sprung up upon its ruins. Leave me! Leave me!" he cried in frantic bitterness. "Give me back

For the soul's fierce cry for immortality is thisonly this: Return to me after death the thing as it was before.

Leave me in the Hereafter the being that I am today. Rob me of the thoughts, the feelings, the desires that are

my life, and you have left nothing to take. Your immortality is annihilation, your Hereafter is a lie.

Waldo flung open the door, and walked out into the starlight, his pain stricken thoughts ever driving him on

"There must be a Hereafter because man longs for it!" he whispered. "Is not all life from the cradle to the

grave one long yearning for that which we never touch? There must be a Hereafter because we cannot think

of any end to life. Can we think of a beginning? Is it easier to say 'I was not' than to say 'I shall not be'? And

yet, where were we ninety years ago? Dreams, dreams! Ah, all dreams and lies! No ground anywhere."

He went back into the cabin and walked there. Hour after hour passed, and he was dreaming.

For, mark you, men will dream; the most that can be asked of them is but that the dream be not in too glaring

All dies, all dies! the roses are red with the matter that once reddened the cheek of the child; the flowers

bloom the fairest on the last year's battleground; the work of death's finger cunningly wreathed over is at the

Death's finger is everywhere. The rocks are built up of a life that was. Bodies, thoughts, and loves die: from

where springs that whisper to the tiny soul of man, "You shall not die"? Ah, is there no truth of which this

He fell into perfect silence. And, at last, as he walked there with his bent head, his soul passed down the steps

of contemplation into that vast land where there is always peace; that land where the soul, gazing long, loses

all consciousness of its little self, and almost feels its hand on the old mystery of Universal unity that

"No death, no death," he muttered; "there is that which never dieswhich abides. It is but the individual that

perishes, the whole remains. It is the organism that vanishes, the atoms are there. It is but the man that dies,

the Universal Whole of which he is part reworks him into its inmost self. Ah, what matter that man's day be

short!that the sunrise sees him, and the sunset sees his grave; that of which he is but the breath has

For the little soul that cries aloud for continued personal existence for itself and its beloved, there is no help.

For the soul which knows itself no more as a unit, but as a part of the Universal Unity of which the Beloved

also is a part; which feels within itself the throb of the Universal Life; for that soul there is no death.

"Let us die, beloved, you and I, that we may pass on forever through the Universal Life! In that deep world of

contemplation all fierce desires die out, and peace comes down. He, Waldo, as he walked there, saw no more

the world that was about him; cried out no more for the thing that he had lost. His soul rested. Was it only

Long years before the father had walked in the little cabin, and seen choirs of angels, and a prince like unto

The son's knowledge was not as the father's, therefore the dream was new tinted, but the sweetness was all

there, the infinite peace that men find not in the little cankered kingdom of the tangible. The bars of the real

are set close about us; we cannot open our wings but they are struck against them, and drop bleeding. But,

when we glide between the bars into the great unknown beyond, we may sail forever in the glorious blue,

So age succeeds age, and dream succeeds dream, and of the joy of the dreamer no man knoweth but he who

Our fathers had their dream; we have ours; the generation that follows will have its own. Without dreams and

It had been a princely day. The long morning had melted slowly into a rich afternoon. Rains had covered the

karoo with a heavy coat of green that hid the red earth everywhere. In the very chinks of the stone walls dark

green leaves hung out, and beauty and growth had crept even into the beds of the sandy furrows and lined

them with weeds. On the broken sod walls of the old pigsty chickweeds flourished, and iceplants lifted

heir transparent leaves. Waldo was at work in the wagonhouse again. He was making a kitchen table for

Em. As the long curls gathered in heaps before his plane, he paused for an instant now and again to throw one

down to a small naked nigger, who had crept from its mother, who stood churning in the sunshine, and had

From time to time the little animal lifted its fat hand as it expected a fresh shower of curls; till Doss, jealous

of his master's noticing any other small creature but himself, would catch the curl in his mouth and roll the

little Kaffer over in the sawdust, much to that small animal's contentment. It was too lazy an afternoon to be

really illnatured, so Doss satisfied himself with snapping at the little nigger's fingers, and sitting on him till

he laughed. Waldo, as he worked, glanced down at them now and then, and smiled; but he never looked out

across the plain. He was conscious without looking of that broad green earth; it made his work pleasant to

him. Near the shadow at the gable the mother of the little nigger stood churning. Slowly she raised and let fall

the stick in her hands, murmuring to herself a sleepy chant such as her people love; it sounded like the

A different life showed itself in the front of the house, where Tant Sannie's cart stood ready inspanned and

She had come to visit her stepdaughter, probably for the last time, as she now weighed two hundred and sixty

pounds, and was not easily able to move. On a chair sat her mild young husband nursing the babya

"You take it and get into the cart with it," said Tant Sannie. "What do you want here, listening to our woman's

"I'm very glad you are going to be married, my child," said Tant Sannie, as she drained the last drop from her

coffee cup. "I wouldn't say so while that boy was here, it would make him too conceited; but marriage is the

finest thing in the world. I've been at it three times, and if it pleased God to take this husband from me I

"Perhaps it might not suit all people, at all times, as well as it suits you, Tant Sannie," said Em. There was a

"Not suit every one!" said Tant Sannie. "If the beloved Redeemer didn't mean men to have wives what did He

make women for? That's what I say. If a woman's old enough to marry, and doesn't, she's sinning against the

Lord it's a wanting to know better than Him. What, does she think the Lord took all that trouble in making

her for nothing? It's evident He wants babies, otherwise why does He send them? Not that I've done much in

She rose with some difficulty from her chair, and began moving slowly toward the door.

"It's a strange thing," she said, "but you can't love a man till you've had a baby by him. Now there's that boy

there, when we were first married if he only sneezed in the night I boxed his ears; now if he lets his pipeash

come on my milkcloths I don't think of laying a finger on him. There's nothing like being married," said

Tant Sannie, as she puffed toward the door. "If a woman's got a baby and a husband she's got the best things

the Lord can give her; if only the baby doesn't have convulsions. As for a husband, it's very much the same

who one has. Some men are fat, and some men are thin; some men drink brandy, and some men drink gin;

but it all comes to the same thing in the end; it's all one. A man's a man, you know."

Here they came upon Gregory, who was sitting in the shade before the house. Tant Sannie shook hands with

"I'm glad you're going to get married," she said. "I hope you'll have as many children in five years as a cow

has calves, and more too. I think I'll just go and have a look at your soappot before I start," she said, turning

to Em. "Not that I believe in this new plan of putting soda in the pot. If the dear Father had meant soda to be

put into soap what would He have made milkbushes for, and stuck them all over the veld as thick as lambs

She waddled off after Em in the direction of the builtin soappot, leaving Gregory as they found him, with

his dead pipe lying on the bench beside him, and his blue eyes gazing out far across the flat, like one who sits

Against his breast was a letter found in the desk addressed to himself, but never posted. It held only four

words: "You must marry Em." He wore it in a black bag round his neck. It was the only letter she had ever

"You see if the sheep don't have the scab this year!" said Tant Sannie as she waddled after Em. "It's with all

these new inventions that the wrath of God must fall on us. What were the children of Israel punished for, if it

wasn't for making a golden calf? I may have my sins, but I do remember the tenth commandment: 'Honour

thy father and mother that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long in the land which the Lord

thy God giveth thee!' It's all very well to say we honour them, and then to be finding out things that they

never knew, and doing things in a way that they never did them! My mother boiled soap with bushes, and I

will boil soap with bushes. If the wrath of God is to fall upon this land," said Tant Sannie, with the serenity of

"Let them make their steamwagons and their firecarriages; let them go on as though the dear Lord didn't

know what he was about when He gave horses and oxen legsthe destruction of the Lord will follow them. I

don't know how such people read their Bibles. When do we hear of Moses or Noah riding in a railway? The

Lord sent firecarriages out of heaven in those days: there's no chance of His sending them for us if we go on

in this way," said Tant Sannie sorrowfully, thinking of the splendid chance which this generation had lost.

"Depend upon it you'll get the itch, or some other disease; the blessing of the Lord'll never rest upon it," said

the Boerwoman. Then suddenly she broke forth. "And she eightytwo, and goats, and rams, and eight

thousand morgen, and the rams real angora, and two thousand sheep, and a shorthorn bull," said Tant

Em looked at her in silent wonder. Had connubial bliss and the joys of motherhood really turned the old

"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "I had almost forgotten to tell you. By the Lord if I had him here! We were walking

to church last Sacrament Sunday, Piet and I. Close in front of us with old Tant Trana, with dropsy and cancer,

and can't live eight months. Walking by her was something with its hands under its coattails, flap, flap, flap;

and its chin in the air, and a stickup collar, and the black hat on the very back of the head. I knew him!

'Who's that?' I asked. 'The rich Englishman that Tant Trana married last week.' 'Rich Englishman! I'll rich

Englishman him,' I said; 'I'll tell Tant Trana a thing or two. My fingers were just in his little white curls. If it

hadn't been the blessed Sacrament, he wouldn't have walked so sourka, sourka, sourka, any more. But I

thought. Wait till I've had it, and then. But he, sly fox, son of Satan, seed of the Amalekite, he saw me

"The blessed Sacrament wasn't half over when he takes Tant Trana by the arm, and out they go. I clap my

baby down to its father, and I go after them. But," said Tant Sannie, regretfully, "I couldn't get up to them; I

am too fat. When I got to the corner he was pulling Tant Trana up into the cart. 'Tant Trana,' I said, 'you've

married a Kaffer's dog, a Hottentot's brakje.' I hadn't any more breath. He winked at me; he winked at ME,"

said Tant Sannie, her sides shaking with indignation, "first with one eye, and then with the other, and then

drove away. Child of the Amalekite!" said Tant Sannie, "if it hadn't been the blessed Sacrament. Lord, Lord,

Here the little Bushgirl came running to say that the horses would stand no longer, and still breathing out

vengeance against her old adversary she laboured toward the cart. Shaking hands and affectionately kissing

Em, she was with some difficulty drawn up. Then slowly the cart rolled away, the good Boerwoman putting

Em stood watching it for a time, then as the sun dazzled her eyes she turned away. There was no use in going

to sit with Gregory! he liked best sitting there alone, staring across the the green karoo; and till the maid had

done churning there was nothing to do; so Em walked away to the wagon house, and climbed on to the end

of Waldo's table, and sat there, swinging one little foot slowly to and fro, while the wooden curls from the

"Waldo," she said at last, "Gregory has given me the money he got for the wagon and oxen, and I have fifty

pounds besides that once belonged to some one. I know what they would have liked to have done with it. You

"No, little one, I will not take it," he said, as he planed slowly away; "the time was when I would have been

very grateful to any one who would have given me a little money, a little help, a little power of gaining

knowledge. But now, I have gone so far alone I may go on to the end. I don't want it, little one."

She did not seem pained at his refusal, but swung her foot to and fro, the little old wrinkled forehead more

"Why is it always so, Waldo, always so?" she said; "we long for things, and long for them, and pray for them;

we would give all we have to come near to them, but we never reach them. Then at last, too late, just when

we don't want them any more, when all the sweetness is taken out of them, then they come. We don't want

them then," she said, folding their hands resignedly on her little apron. After a while she added: "I remember

once, very long ago, when I was a very little girl, my mother had a workbox full of coloured reels. I always

wanted to play with them, but she would never let me. At last one day she said I might take the box. I was so

glad I hardly knew what to do. I ran round the house, and sat down with it on the back steps. But when I

She sat for a while longer, till the Kaffer maid had finished churning, and was carrying the butter toward the

house. Then Em prepared to slip off the table, but first she laid her little hand on Waldo's. He stopped his

"Gregory is going to the town tomorrow. He is going to give in our bans to the minister; we are going to be

Waldo lifted her very gently from the table. He did not congratulate her; perhaps he thought of the empty

She walked away toward the house, but stopped when she got halfway. "I will bring you a glass of

buttermilk when it is cool," she called out; and soon her clear voice came ringing out through the back

Waldo did not wait till she returned. Perhaps he had at last really grown weary of work; perhaps he felt the

wagonhouse chilly (for he had shuddered two or three times), though this was hardly likely in that warm

summer weather; or, perhaps, and most probably, one of his old dreaming fits had come upon him suddenly.

He put his tools together, ready for tomorrow, and walked slowly out. At the side of the wagonhouse there

was a world of bright sunshine, and a hen with her chickens was scratching among the gravel. Waldo seated

himself near them with his back against the redbrick wall. The long afternoon was half spent, and the kopje

was just beginning to cast its shadow over the roundheaded yellow flowers that grew between it and the

farmhouse. Among the flowers the white butterflies hovered and on the old kraal mounds three white kids

gambolled, and at the door of one of the huts an old greyheaded Kafferwoman sat on the ground mending

her mats. A balmy, restful peacefulness seemed to reign everywhere. Even the old hen seemed well satisfied.

She scratched among the stones and called to her chickens when she found a treasure; and all the while

Waldo, as he sat with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms folded on them, looked at it all and smiled.

An evil world, a deceitful, treacherous, miragelike world it might be; but a lovely world for all that, and to

sit there gloating in the sunlight was perfect. It was worth having been a little child, and having cried and

prayed so one might sit there. He moved his hands as though he were washing them in the sunshine. There

will always be something worth living for while there are shimmery afternoons. Waldo chuckled with intense

inward satisfaction as the old hen had doneshe, over the insects and the warmth; he, over the old brick

walls, and the haze, and the little bushes. Beauty is God's wine, with which He recompenses the souls that

The fellow looked, and at last stretched out one hand to a little iceplant that grew on the sod wall of the sty;

not as though he would have picked it, but as it were in a friendly greeting. He loved it. One little leaf of the

iceplant stood upright, and the sun shone through it. He could see every little crystal cell like a drop of ice in

So long as any passion holds its revel there, the eyes are holden that they should not see her.

Go out if you will and walk alone on the hillside in the evening, but if your favourite child lies ill at home, or

your lover comes tomorrow, or at your heart there lies a scheme for the holding of wealth, then you will

return as you went out; you will have seen nothing. For Nature, ever, like the Old Hebrew God, cries out,

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Only then, when there comes a pause, a blank in your life, when

the old idol is broken, when the old hope is dead, when the old desire is crushed, then the Divine

compensation of Nature is made manifest. She shows herself to you. So near she draws you, that the blood

seems to flow from her to you, through a still uncut cord: you feel the throb of her life.

When that day comes, that you sit down broken, without one human creature to whom you cling, with your

loves the dead and the livingdead; when the very thirst for knowledge through longcontinued thwarting

has grown dull; when in the present there is no craving, and in the future no hope, then, oh, with a beneficent

Then the large white snowflakes as they flutter down, softly, one by one, whisper soothingly, "Rest, poor

heart, rest!" It is as though our mother smoothed our hair, and we are comforted.

And yellowlegged bees as they hum make a dreamy lyric; and the light on the brown stone wall is a great

Well to die then; for, if you live, so surely as the years come, so surely as the spring succeeds the winter, so

surely will passions arise. They will creep back, one by one, into the bosom that has cast them forth, and

fasten there again, and peace will go. Desire, ambition, and the fierce agonizing flood of love for the living

they will spring again. Then Nature will draw down her veil; with all your longing you shall not be able to

Sitting there with his arms folded on his knees, and his hat slouched down over his face, Waldo looked out

into the yellow sunshine that tinted even the very air with the colour of ripe corn, and was happy.

He was an uncouth creature with small learning, and no prospect in the future but that of making endless

tables and stone walls, yet it seemed to him as he sat there that life was a rare and very rich thing. He rubbed

his hands in the sunshine. Ah, to live on so, year after year, how well! Always in the present; letting each day

glide, bringing its own labour, and its own beauty; the gradual lighting up of the hills, night and the stars,

firelight and the coals! To live on so, calmly, far from the paths of men; and to look at the lives of clouds and

insects; to look deep into the heart of flowers, and see how lovingly the pistil and the stamens nestle there

together; and to see in the thornpods how the little seeds suck their life through the delicate curledup

string, and how the little embryo sleeps inside! Well, how well, to sit so on one side taking no part in the

world's life; but when great men blossom into books looking into those flowers also, to see how the world of

men too opens beautifully, leaf after leaf. Ah! life is delicious; well to live long, and see the darkness

breaking, and the day coming! The day when soul shall not thrust back soul that would come to it; when men

shall not be driven to seek solitude because of the cryingout of their hearts for love and sympathy. Well to

live long and see the new time breaking. Well to live long; life is sweet, sweet, sweet! In his breast pocket,

where of old the broken slate used to be, there was now a little dancing shoe of his friend who was sleeping.

He could feel it when he folded his arm tight against his breast; and that was well also. He drew his hat lower

over his eyes and sat so motionless that the chickens thought he was asleep, and gathered closer around him.

One even ventured to peck at his boot, but he ran away quickly. Tiny, yellow fellow that he was, he knew that

men were dangerous; even sleeping they might awake. But Waldo did not sleep, and coming back from his

sunshiny dream, stretched out his hand for the tiny thing to mount. But the chicken eyed the hand, and then

ran off to hide under its mother's wing, and from beneath it it sometimes put out its round head to peep at the

great figure sitting there. Presently its brothers ran off after a little white moth and it ran out to join them; and

when the moth fluttered away over their heads they stood looking up disappointed, and then ran back to their

Waldo through his halfclosed eyes looked at them. Thinking, fearing, craving, those tiny sparks of brother

life, what were they, so real there in that old yard on that sunshiny afternoon? A few yearswhere would

they be? Strange little brother spirits! He stretched his hand toward them, for his heart went out to them; but

not one of the little creatures came nearer him, and he watched them gravely for a time; then he smiled, and

began muttering to himself after his old fashion. Afterward he folded his arms upon his knees, and rested his

forehead on them. And so he sat there in the yellow sunshine, muttering, muttering, muttering, to himself.

It was not very long after when Em came out at the back door with a towel thrown across her head, and in her

"Ah," she said, coming close to him, "he is sleeping now. He will find it when he wakes, and be glad of it."

She put it down upon the ground beside him. The motherhen was at work still among the stones, but the

chickens had climbed about him and were perching on him. One stood upon his shoulder, and rubbed its little

head softly against his black curls: another tried to balance itself on the very edge of the old felt hat. One tiny

fellow stood upon his hand, and tried to crow; another had nestled itself down comfortably on the old coat

Em did not drive them away; but she covered the glass softly at his side. "He will wake soon," she said, "and