away from it. He told Mr Musgrave he could go there whenever he liked, and I expect soon there won’t be a buck left on the place.”
“If I were Musgrave, I should make you take me at half-price, on the strength of keeping your larder supplied, Jones,” laughed Suffield. “We must get up a day’s shoot, though. Doctor, are you keen on shooting?”
The doctor replied that he was, and then followed much discussion as to when a good long day could be arranged.
“Why not come out with us this afternoon?” proposed Suffield. “We could get away upon the berg by sundown, and perhaps pick up a buck or two.”
“Can’t do it, unfortunately,” said Roden. “Got to go back to office.”
But the other accepted with alacrity, though it is I probable that the venatorial side of the programme is not, if the truth were known, constitute the most attractive part. All the time they were at table he had been making the most of his opportunities, apparently to some purpose, for when they got up, and Mona declared she had some shopping to do, with her went Lambert in close attendance.
Although continuing to dine at Jones’ dubious board, Roden had so far carried out his project that he had secured for himself a tiny red brick cottage, which boasted two rooms and a kitchen, with a back yard and stable. It was large enough for him, however, and he promptly proceeded to make himself comfortable therein, in a modest sort of way. Hither, having bidden good-bye to the Suffields, without waiting to see them inspan, he adjourned, and, in company with a solitary pipe, fell into a train of thought.
The first thing was to stifle a strong inclination to reconsider Suffield’s proposal. It was not too late now. His pony was only grazing on the town commonage hard by; he could have him brought in less than half an hour. And then came the thought that the motive of this was not the prospect of sport, and the conviction was an unwelcome one. As we have said, he had already seen a good deal of Mona Ridsdale. There was something about her that attracted him powerfully. What was it? He was not in love with her; the bare idea that he might ever become so stirred him uncomfortably. She was a splendid creature, a physical paragon, but love! ah, that was another thing. Besides, what had he to do with love, even were he capable of feeling it? That sort of blissful delusion, veiling Dead Sea ashes, was all very well when one was young; which he no longer was. His life was all behind him now, which made it perhaps the more easy to start again almost where others left off. The modest salary wherewith the Colonial Government saw fit for the present to requite his services, did not constitute his sole means of existence; he possessed something over and above it, though little, and all combined gave him just enough to get along with a moderate degree of comfort. And as his thoughts took this practical turn, the association of ideas caused him to rise suddenly in disgust. It was time to be doing something when his meditations landed him in such a slough of grotesque idiocy, and with that intent he went straight away to his office.
But times were easy just then. He wrote a couple of official letters, and took down the deposition of a lanky Boer with a tallow countenance, adorned by a wispy beard, who, amid much expectoration and nervous shifting of his battered and greasy wide-awake from one hand to another, delivered himself of a long and portentous complaint against a neighbour, for rescuing by force certain cattle, which his servants were driving to the nearest pound. Then, having satisfied this seeker of redress, with the assurance that justice would overtake the footsteps of the aggressor in the shape of a summons, and thus got rid of him, Roden took down two or three of the office volumes and set to work to study a little statute law, in which occupation he was presently disturbed by the cheery, bustling step of Mr Van Stolz.
“Well, Musgrave, not much doing!” cried the latter, perching himself on the side of the table and relighting his pipe. “What’s this?” picking up the official letters. “‘With reference to your circular – um – um – asking for a return of – um – um – ’ Those damn circulars! Every post we get about twenty of them. Return! They’ll soon want a return of the number of buttons each official wears on his shirt,” – signing the letters. “What’s this? Another complaint? ‘Pound rescue, – Willem Cornelia Gerhardus Van Wyk.’ One of the biggest liars that ever trod God’s earth. I’ve fined him over and over again for licking his niggers or trying to do them out of their pay or something; and you’ll see him in church on Sunday with a face as long as a fiddle; he’s one of the ‘elders,’ too. He’ll have to come in and swear this, though.”
“He said he couldn’t wait, sir, but he’ll be in the first thing to-morrow, before court time.”
“Oh, that’ll do just as well, as I wasn’t here, I say, Musgrave, old boy, we’ll shut up shop and go for a walk. Got your pipe with you? Try some of this tobacco. Yes, we may as well take it easy while we can; we shall have enough to do next week with the monthly returns.”
So away they started, leaving the little baked-mud town behind them; away over the open veldt, with its carpet of wax blossoms, lying beneath the slopes of the great hills which stood forth all green and gold in the afternoon sun.
“What do you think of the new doctor, Musgrave?” said the magistrate at last, as they were discussing things and people in general.
“Lambert? H’m! Well, strictly between ourselves – not much.”
“Not, eh? I thought he seemed a nice fellow.”
“I don’t want to prejudice anybody against him, far from it; but I’ve noticed that between two given people there often exists an antipathy at sight. Now, Lambert may be a decent fellow enough in the main; but between him and me that antipathy exists.”
He did not add that from unerring signs he had taken the measure of the subject under discussion, and that that measure was as mean as mean could be.
“You don’t take to Lambert, then?”
“No. But I know nothing against him, and so it wouldn’t be fair to say anything against him on the score of a mere instinctive dislike.”
“How is it you didn’t go out to the Suffields this afternoon, Mr Musgrave?” said the magistrate’s wife as, having returned from their walk, they were sitting on the stoep awaiting dinner – for with characteristic geniality his official superior had insisted upon Roden considering himself on a “run-of-the-house” footing.
“I don’t know,” was the reply. “There was something to be done at the office, I suppose, or perhaps I felt lazy.”
Mrs Van Stolz laughed. She was a pretty, dark-eyed woman, also of Dutch extraction, as amiable and sunny-natured as her husband.
“Oh yes, of course,” she retorted mischievously. “But Miss Ridsdale was consoling herself with the new doctor – at any rate, as they drove past here. He’ll cut you out, Mr Musgrave, if you don’t take care. But, seriously, how do you like her on further acquaintance?”
“Oh, we seem to get along fairly well. Fight without ceremony, and all that sort of thing.”
“And make it up again. Take care, Mr Musgrave; she’s dangerous. Poor Mr Watkins completely lost his heart.”
“Well, I haven’t got one to lose, Mrs Van Stolz; so I’m safe.”
“I don’t know. I’ve already heard in two quarters that you are engaged to her.”
“Hardly surprising, is it? I believe we have been seen twice in the same street. That would be more than enough for Doppersdorp.”
“Don’t you let the new doctor cut you out,” she rejoined merrily.
“He
