The Fire Trumpet Part 5

"Here, Mary, I've brought you a visitor," said the settler, as they entered. "You remember Arthur Claverton?"

A tall old lady, whose kindly and still handsome face bore unmistakable signs of former beauty, rose from a sewing-machine at which she had been working, with a start of surprise.

"What! Arthur? Why, so it is. But I should never have known you, you're so altered. Ah, I always said we should see you out here again,"

she continued, shaking his hand cordially.

The stranger smiled, and a very pleasant smile it was.

"Well, yes, so you did, Mrs Brathwaite; but at least I have the faculty of knowing when and where I am well off," he said, really touched by the genuine warmth of his reception.

"So you've been all over the world since we saw you last--to Australia and back?" she went on. "And then the last thing we heard of you was that you had gone to America."

"I attempted to; but Providence, or rather the blunder-headed lookout on board a homeward-bound liner, willed otherwise."

"How do you mean?"

"Why! that the said idiotically-handled craft collided with ours, two days out, cutting her down to the water's edge and sinking her in thirteen minutes. I and twenty-four others were picked up, but the rest went to Davy Jones's locker. There weren't many more of them, though, for it was a small boat, and I was nearly the only pa.s.senger."

"Oh! And you didn't try the voyage again?" said Mrs Brathwaite, in subdued tones. She was colonial born, and in her own element as brave a woman as ever stepped. In the earlier frontier wars she had stood by her husband's side within the laager and loaded his guns for him, while the conflict waxed long and desperate, and the night was ablaze with the flash of volleys, and the air was heavy with asphyxiating smoke, and the detonating crash of musketry and the battle-shouts of the savage foe, and had never flinched. But she had a shuddering horror of the sea, and would almost have gone through all her terrible experiences again rather than trust herself for one hour on its smiling, treacherous expanse.

"Well, no; I didn't," he answered. "I took it as an omen, and concluded to dismiss the Far West in favour of the 'Sunny South.' So here I am."

"Ah! well," put in the old settler. "Perhaps we'll be able to find you something in the way of excitement here, if that's what you were in search of, and that before very long, too. All isn't so quiet here as they try to make out. I've lived on the frontier, man and boy, all my life, and I can see pretty plainly that there's mischief brewing."

"Is there? I did hear something of the sort on my way up, now I think of it; but I had an idea that the days of war were over, and that Jack Kafir had got his quietus."

"Ha! ha! Had you really, now? Why, bless my soul, the Kafirs are far more numerous than ever; they outnumber us by fifty to one. They hate us as much as ever they did, and for some time past have been steadily collecting guns and ammunition. Now, what do they want those guns and that ammunition for? Not for hunting, for there's next to no game in all Kafirland. No, it is to put them on an equal footing with us; and then, with their numbers, they think to have it all their own way.

There's mischief brewing, mark my words."

"It wouldn't mean a scrimmage among themselves, would it? They might be anxious to exterminate each other," ventured Claverton.

The other smiled significantly, and was about to reply, when the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of supper and--Hicks.

The latter was one of those young Englishmen often met with on colonial farms, learning their business in the capacity of a.s.sistant, or general factotum; and who may be divided into two categories: those who take kindly to the life and throw themselves thoroughly into it and its interests, and those who don't, and leave it after a trial. Our friend Hicks may be placed in the former of these. He was a strong, energetic, good-tempered fellow, who loved his calling, and was a favourite with everybody. He had served three years in the Frontier Mounted Police, and had been two with Mr Brathwaite, and, by virtue of so much hard, healthy, open-air life, was twice the man he had been when he left his father's Midlands.h.i.+re parsonage five years previously.

"You were asking if the Kafirs might not be preparing for a fight among themselves?" resumed the old settler as they took their places at the supper-table, which looked cheerful and homelike in the extreme. He had got upon a favourite hobby, and was not to be diverted from a congenial ride. "There isn't the slightest chance of it, because they know very well we shan't let them. We prefer encouraging them to hammer away at us."

"Pickling a rod for our own backs?" remarked Claverton.

"Just so. By patching up their tribal disputes we check just so much salutary blood-letting, and foster hordes of lazy, thieving rascals right on our border. Even if the sham philanthropy, under which we groan, obliges us to sit still while the savages grow fat on our stolen cattle and laugh at us, the least it could do would be to allow them to cut a few of each other's throats when they have a mind to."

"The Home Government, I suppose?"

"That's it. A parcel of old women in Downing Street, ruled by Exeter Hall and the Peace Society. What do they know about the Colony, and what do they care? After British subjects have been murdered and plundered all along the border, an official is sent to inquire into it.

Of course the chiefs all pretend ignorance, and throw the blame on somebody else. Then follows great palaver and b.u.t.tering over. The chiefs are told to be good boys and not do it again, and are given waggon-loads of presents--and a treaty is made. A treaty! With savages--savages whose boast is that they are a nation of liars. Can't you imagine the wily rascals sn.i.g.g.e.ring in their blankets, and wondering how much longer they are going to allow themselves to be governed by such a race of milksops!"

His listeners could not forbear a laugh.

"I can tell you it's no laughing matter to be burned out of house and home three times as I have been," went on the old man, "and that through the sentimental cant of our rulers. No; coddling savages doesn't do-- never did do, and never will. Treat them fairly and with the strictest justice; but, if you are to rule them at all, you must do so with a strong hand."

Walter Brathwaite had, as he said, lived on the frontier, man and boy, all his life; for he was a mere child when his father, tempted by the inducement of free grants of land, had transferred the family fortunes to the sh.o.r.es of Southern Africa in the early days of the settlement of the Cape Colony. His youth and earlier manhood were pa.s.sed amid the hards.h.i.+ps and obstacles of an emigrant's life. And also its dangers-- for the tribes infesting the rugged and difficult country which then was Kafirland, were wont to lay marauding hands on the settler's flocks and herds--nor did the savages scruple about adding murder to pillage.

Still the emigrants throve; for those were the days of good seasons and healthy flocks and herds--when pasturage was plentiful and succulent, droughts were infrequent, and disease almost unknown. Three successive wars at short intervals swept away the fruits of the unfortunate settlers' toil; but they managed to pick up again, and now, at this period of our narrative, it is twenty years since the last of these, and there are once more the same signs of restlessness among the tribes which the experienced remember to have heralded former outbreaks. So if Walter Brathwaite expresses strong distrust of his barbarous neighbours, it is not without ample justification. He has done good service, too, in the time of need; has fought valiantly and ungrudgingly on behalf of his adopted country, and whether in peace or in war has ever enjoyed the respect and good opinion of his fellows. In truth, right justly so.

Gifted with strong, practical common sense; his straightforward nature abhorring anything in the shape of humbug or meanness; of a thoroughly kind-hearted, genial disposition and open-handed to a degree, he is a splendid specimen of the colonist who is also by birth and tradition a true English gentleman; and now in the latter years of his long, useful, and honourable life, he is an object of esteem and affection to all who know him--and they are many.

Note 1. Dutch, "Evening, master." Dutch is nearly always employed in the Cape Colony for intercourse with the natives, comparatively few frontiersmen, even, being well versed in the Kafir language.

Note 2. "The goat which goes before."--A goat is always used instead of a bell-wether on the Cape sheep farms, and so accustomed do the flocks become to their leader that it is a hard and toilsome business to induce them to enter their fold without it.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.

THE BITER BITTEN.

It was early when Claverton awoke on the following morning; but, early as it was, the occupant of the other bed had disappeared. He had "shaken down" in Hicks' room, and the two had talked and smoked themselves to sleep; and, early as it was, there were plenty of sounds outside, which told of the day's doings having begun.

The most epicurean of late sleepers will find it hard to keep up his usual luxurious habit in a frontier house. There is a something which seems to preclude late lying--possibly the consciousness of exceptional laziness, or a sneaking qualm over taking it easy in bed when every soul on the place has long been astir; but even the most inveterate sluggard will hardly find it in his conscience to roll over again, especially if a companion's long since vacated conch is staring him reproachfully in the face from the other side of the room.

Claverton, who was in no sense an epicurean, felt something of this, and lost no time in turning out. The sun had risen, but was unable to pierce the heavy mist which hang over the earth in opaque folds. He found his host busy at the sheep kraals, the thorn-fence dividing which had been broken through in the night, with the result of mixing the flocks. Three Kafirs were hard at work sorting them out again, and the dust flew in clouds as the flock rushed hither and thither within the confined s.p.a.ce--the ground rumbling under their hoofs.

"Pleasure of farming!" remarked the old man, with a smile, after greetings had been exchanged. Both turned away their faces a minute as a pungent and blinding cloud swept past them. "The rascals might have avoided all this by simply putting a thorn tack or two in its place last night. You can't trust them, you see--have to look to everything yourself."

"Suppose so," replied Claverton, slipping out of his jacket. "I'm going to give your fellows a hand. The brand, though, is rather indistinct.

Which come out?"

"All branded B, with the double ear mark."

"Right?" And he dived into the thick of the fun, with all the energy and more than the dexterity of the Kafirs, who paused for a moment with a stare of astonishment and a smothered "Whouw!" They did not know who the strange _Baas_ was, but he was evidently no greenhorn.

Another hour's hard work and the flocks are separate again; but it is rather too early to turn them out to gra.s.s. So the two stroll round to the cattle kraal, whose denizens stand patiently and ruminatingly about for the most part, though some are restless and on the move, recognising with responsive "moo" the voices of their calves in the pen. Nearly all the cows are of good breed--the serviceable and hardy cattle of the country, crossed with imported stock, though now and again among them can be descried the small head and straight back of an almost thorough-bred Alderney. Milking is going on. There sits the old cattle-herd beneath a wild young animal properly secured, milking away and gossiping with his satellites as fast as he fills his pail--for Kafirs are awful gossips. Then he turns the frightened young cow loose, and, removing the foaming pail out of the way of a possible upset, proceeds in search of a fresh victim. He salutes his master in pa.s.sing, and, with a rapid, keen glance at the stranger, extends his greeting to him.

Mr Brathwaite is very proud of his choice and well-bred animals. He knows every hoof of them like ABC, almost every hair; and as they walk about among the beasts he entertains his companion with the history of each, and where it came from, and the events of its career in life.

"Hullo! Who's this?" said Claverton suddenly, as two hors.e.m.e.n appeared on the brow of the opposite hill. "One's Hicks, the other looks like, uncommonly like, Jim."

"Yes, it is Jim," a.s.sented Mr Brathwaite. "What's brought him over this morning, I wonder?" The said Jim was his eldest son. He was a married man, and lived on a farm of his own some fifteen or sixteen miles off. A few minutes more, and the two hors.e.m.e.n drew rein in front of the cattle kraal.

"Hullo, Arthur!" sang out Jim, jumping to the ground. "Here we are again! Hicks told me I should find _you_ here, of all people. Morning, father! Have Ethel and Laura arrived yet?"

"I believe so. I saw Jeffreys' trap coming over the hill about an hour ago, and he was to bring them. I was busy and couldn't go in then. My brother's children, Arthur," he explained, noting a surprised look in his guest's face. "They have come from Cape Town to stay a couple of months while their father is away up the country."

"Come to enliven us up a bit," said jovial Jim. "Ethel will lead you a life of it, or I'm a Trojan."

Jim Brathwaite was a fine, handsome fellow of thirty-five, over six feet in height, strong as a bull and active as a leopard. His bronzed and bearded countenance was stamped with that air of das.h.i.+ng intrepidity with which a genial disposition usually goes hand in hand. He was a quick-tempered man, and his native dependents stood in considerable awe of him, for they knew--some of them to their cost--that he would stand no nonsense. Of untiring energy, and with all his father's practical common sense, he had prospered exceedingly in good times, and had managed to hold his own against bad ones. Shrewd and clear-headed, he was thoroughly well able to look after his own interests; and any one given to sharp practice or rascality--whether cattle dealer or Dutchman, Kafir or Hottentot--would have to get up very early indeed to reach the blind side of him.