two or three of the eleven brothers, of various ages—also in leathern crackers, but without coats or hats—came forward, kicked the dogs, and led the horses away.
“Let me introduce a stranger, father, whom I have found—lost in the karroo,” said Hans.
“Welcome to Eden! Come in, come in,” said Mynheer Conrad Marais heartily, as he shook his visitor by the hand.
Considine suitably acknowledged the hospitable greeting and followed his host into the principal room of his residence.
There was no hall or passage to the house. The visitor walked straight off the veldt, or plain, into the drawing-room—if we may so style it. The house door was also the drawing-room door, and it was divided transversely into two halves, whereby an open window could at any moment be formed by shutting the lower half of the door. There was no ceiling to the room. You could see the ridge-pole and rafters by looking up between the beams, on one of which latter a swallow—taking advantage of the ever open door and the general hospitality of the family—had built its nest. The six-foot sons almost touched the said nest with their heads; as to the smaller youths it was beyond the reach of most of them, but had it been otherwise no one would have disturbed the lively little intruder.
The floor of the apartment was made of hard earth, without carpet. The whitewashed walls were graced with various garments, as well as implements and trophies of the chase.
From the beams hung joints of meat, masses of dried flesh, and various kinds of game, large whips—termed sjamboks (pronounced shamboks)—made of rhinoceros or hippopotamus hide, leopard and lion skins, ostrich eggs and feathers, dried fruit, strings of onions, and other miscellaneous objects; on the floor stood a large deal table, and chairs of the same description—all home-made,—two waggon chests, a giant churn, a large iron pot, several wooden pitchers hooped with brass, and a side-table on which were a large brass-clasped Dutch Bible, a set of Dutch tea-cups, an urn, and a brass tea-kettle heated like a chafing-dish. On the walls and in corners were several flint-lock guns, and one or two of the short light javelins used by the Kafirs for throwing in battle, named assagais.
Three small doors led into three inner rooms, in which the entire family slept. There were no other apartments, the kitchen being an outhouse. On the centre table was spread a substantial breakfast, from which the various members of the family had risen on the arrival of the horsemen.
Considine was introduced to Mynheer Marais’ vrouw, a good-looking, fat, and motherly woman verging on forty,—and his daughter Bertha, a pretty little girl of eight or nine.
“What is Mynheer’s name?” was the matron’s first question.
Mynheer replied that it was Charles Considine.
“Was Mynheer English?”
“Yes,” Mynheer was proud to acknowledge the fact.
Mrs Marais followed up these questions with a host of others—such as, the age and profession of Mynheer, the number of his relatives, and the object of his visit to South Africa. Mynheer Marais himself, after getting a brief outline of his son’s meeting with the Englishman, backed the attack of his pleasant-faced vrouw by putting a number of questions as to the political state of Europe then existing, and the chances of the British Government seriously taking into consideration the unsatisfactory condition of the Cape frontier and its relations with the Kafirs.
To all of these and a multitude of other questions Charlie Considine replied with great readiness and good-humour, as far as his knowledge enabled him, for he began quickly to appreciate the fact that these isolated farmers, who almost never saw a newspaper were thirsting for information as to the world in general as well as with regard to himself in particular.
During this bombardment of queries the host and hostess were not forgetful to supply their young guest with the viands under which the substantial table groaned, while several of the younger members of the family, including the pretty Bertha, stood behind the rest and waited on them. With the exception of the host and hostess, none of the household spoke during the meal, all being fully occupied in listening eagerly and eating heartily.
When the Dutch fire began to slacken for want of ammunition, Considine retaliated by opening a British battery, and soon learned that Marais and his wife both claimed, and were not a little proud of, a few drops of French blood. Their progenitors on the mother’s side, they said, were descended from one of the French Huguenot families which settled in the colony after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
“You see,” said Mynheer Marais, with a quiet smile of satisfaction, as he applied a boiled cob of mealies or Indian corn to his powerful teeth, “our family may be said to be about two-thirds Dutch and one-third French. In fact, we have also a little English blood in our veins, for my great-grandfather’s mother was English on the father’s side and Dutch on the mother’s. Perhaps this accounts to some extent for my tendency to adopt some English and American ideas in the improvement of my farm, which is not a characteristic of my Cape-Dutch brethren.”
“So I have been told, and to some extent have seen,” said Considine, with a sly glance; “in fact they appear to be rather lazy than otherwise.”
“Not lazy, young sir,” returned Marais with some emphasis. “They are easy-going and easily satisfied, and not solicitous to add to their material comforts beyond a certain point—in short, contented with little, like Frenchmen, which is a praiseworthy condition of mind, commended in Holy Writ, and not disposed to make haste to be rich, like you English.”
“Ah, I see,” rejoined Considine, who observed a twinkle in the eyes of some of Mynheer’s stalwart sons.
“Yes,” pursued the farmer, buttering another mealie-cob, and commencing to eat it with infinite gusto, “you see, the Cape Dutchmen, although as fine a set of men as ever lived, are just a little too contented and slow; on the other hand, young sir, you English are much too reckless and fast—”
“Just so,” interrupted Considine, bowing his thanks to the hostess for a third venison-steak which she had put on his plate; “the Dutch too slow, the English too fast, so that three parts Dutch, two parts French, and one part English—like a dash of seasoning—is, it seems, the perfect Marais mixture.”
This remark produced a sudden and unintentional burst of laughter from the young Maraises, not so much on account of the excess of humour contained in it, as from the fact that never before had they heard a jest of any kind fabricated at the expense of their father, of whom they stood much in awe, and for whom they had a profound respect.
Conrad Marais, however, could take a joke, although not much given to making one. He smiled blandly over the edge of his mealie-cob.
“You’re right, sir,—right; the mixture is not a bad one. The Dutch element gives steadiness, the English vigour, and the French spirit.—By the way, Arend,” he continued, turning to one of his stout olive-branches, “talking of spirit reminds me that you will have to go to work at that leak in the dam with more spirit than usual, for we can’t afford to lose water in this dry weather. It is not finished, I think?”
“No, father, but we hope to get it done this afternoon.”
“That’s well. How many of you are at it?”
“David and I, with six Totties. Old Sam is ill, and none of the others can be spared to-day.”
“Can’t some of your brothers help?” asked the farmer. “Losing water is as bad almost as losing gold.”
“Joseph meant to come, but he started at six this morning to look after the
