Читать книгу The Fire Trumpet - Mitford Bertram - Страница 29

“Drive on, Piet, Mopela! Sharp’s the word; don’t give them time to think. Look alive, now!”

The speaker is Mr Brathwaite; the scene the wash-pool. A long line of fleecy backs is moving over the veldt, propelled by the shouts of three or four Kafirs, whose naked bodies glisten in the sun as they advance swiftly behind the flock, brandishing their red blankets and whistling shrilly. For it may be that the leaders of that sturdy mass of fat wethers, over a thousand in number, may take a sudden freak into their woolly heads, and refuse to go any further when once within that cul de sac of thorn-fence gradually narrowing down to an outlet, and that outlet the water—which will mean that each particular animal must be thrown in separately, not once, but four or five times. Therefore they must be kept on the move and run down as quickly as possible. Once they begin jumping all will follow, but should the foremost happen to jib, then the morning’s work will be a hard one indeed.

A pleasant spot is this; bush and open veldt about in equal proportion. Yonder, across the river, rises a ridge of high ground whose slopes are well wooded, and over the wash-pool, which consists of a long, smooth reach, the finks are flitting about their pendulous, swaying nests, and twittering in the sunshine; while that shadowy krantz overhanging the stream further down echoes back the long-drawn piping of spreuws and the “coo” of a solitary dove.

Mr Brathwaite and his two lieutenants are evidently got up for business—rough shirts and trousers and broad-brimmed hats, the last a very necessary safeguard, for the morning, though still young, is unconscionably warm.

“Don’t think these will give us any trouble, they always take to the water like ducks. It’s the next lot, the ewes, that are brutes to funk; and once on that tack the devil himself won’t make them jump. Bles, you schelm!” he exclaims, with a crack of his whip to hasten the decision of the voerbok, who is slackening pace dubiously at the entrance to the cul de sac. The old goat gives a start and resumes his course, trotting down towards the water; the sheep stream after him, and before he has time to think better of it, even if so disposed, his woolly followers press so closely upon him that there is no help for it; he springs from the rock into the water, about two feet and a half beneath, and the whole flock hastens to follow by threes and fours, and swimming across emerges dripping on the other side. Indeed, so fast do they press forward that it becomes necessary for some one to stand at the water’s edge and check them, lest they should injure themselves or their neighbours by jumping upon each other’s backs.

“That’s how I like to see them jump. Fine sheep like that ought never to want throwing in,” says the old farmer, watching his well-bred flock with some pride.

On they come, their drivers keeping them well at it, and in a short time the last jumps in. The whole lot are through and scattering slowly over the veldt on the other side, the steam arising in clouds from their dripping fleeces.

“Bring them on again,” calls out Mr Brathwaite, after a little time has been given them to rest and get warm again. The animals are driven through at a shallow place lower down the river, and brought round to the jumping place again. Then they are headed once more for the water, going through this time even better than the first.

“Hallo!” cries Hicks, running down to the edge and scrutinising the surface all alive with panting heads and spongy fleeces. “One’s down. Yes, there it is,” pointing to four kicking legs above the surface, but which immediately disappear. “In with you, Mopela—Piet—look sharp!” The first addressed pretends not to hear, but Piet, throwing aside his kaross, takes a header, and as he reappears he just catches sight of the drowning animal. In a twinkling he has seized it, and holding its head above water, he strikes out for the bank, dragging his cumbersome and struggling burthen. The animal had been suddenly taken with a fit and gone under—an occurrence which now and then happens, and but for Hicks’ promptitude would have been drowned. As it was, it lay upon the ground, and after some gasping staggered to its legs, tottered a little way, then lay down again, and finally picked itself up and began nibbling a little grass, and in a few minutes had quite recovered.

The operation is repeated in precisely the same way as at first, and after the flock had been through four times, it wore a very different appearance to what it had done before; every fleece looking almost snowy white by contrast as the animals are slowly driven off to their ordinary pasturage, nibbling as they go.

“Piet, go and tell Umgiswe to bring on his lot,” says Mr Brathwaite. “There are under five hundred, and it won’t take us very long,” he adds, for the benefit of his lieutenants, “that is if they jump well. ’Tisn’t twelve o’clock yet, so there’ll be lots of time for them to dry.”

Twenty minutes’ rest, and then a sound of approaching bleating told that the other flock was at hand.

Then arises a deafening and hideous din as the sheep are driven into the cul de sac. Yelling, and shouting, and whistling, white and black alike contributing towards the general row, waving karosses, cracking whips, and beating the ground with branches. The voerbok spasmodically rushes on ahead, plunges into the water and swims through; but the sheep, suddenly deserted by their leader, stop half-way down the passage, and, in spite of the pressure from behind, and the earsplitting shindy, steadfastly refuse to budge.

“We’ve bungled it somehow,” says the old farmer, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone. “No use bothering them any more just now. Bring round the goat, and we’ll try again.”

Two of the Kafirs start off on that intent, but it takes some time to “collect” the truant, who runs hither and thither, bleating idiotically. At last he is brought back to his post of honour at the head of the flock; the driving and the row recommences, and the goat leaps into the water manfully; but he is leading a forlorn hope, indeed, for not one of the sheep will follow him—devil a sheep—though they are on the brink of the water. There they stick, firmly and stubbornly.

“Come on, Claverton, we must pitch some of them in,” cries Hicks, and the two promptly shove their way through the closely-wedged flock, which stands packed like sardines, wheezing and panting in the heat. In a twinkling they have seized half-a-dozen of the obstinate brutes and shied them in; but the rest show no signs of following, and so they go on, till at last they pause, breathless and bathed in perspiration, for two of the Kafirs to take their places; and finally, by relays of labour, the whole flock is through.

“Whew! but that’s warm work,” exclaims Claverton, as, after a short rest, the word is given to bring them on again. “Perhaps they’ll jump this time.”

His conjecture proves correct. Whether it is that they find their plunge cool and refreshing on this hot day, or that they are tired of resistance, or a little of both, is uncertain; but as again, amid whistling and din, the stupid animals are driven down to the water’s edge, they follow their leader, at first gingerly and by twos and threes, and then so fast that Hicks takes up his position at the jumping place to check them; in process whereof, having imprudently got too near the edge, he is upset bodily into the water, and disappears from mortal view, to emerge, spluttering and puffing and making awful faces, as he scrambles up the bank, dripping like a half-drowned rat.

I know of nothing more funny than the sudden and unexpected descent of any one into deep water. The utter woefulness, combined with an indignant air of injured innocence, which the sufferer’s countenance invariably assumes on emerging, should make a cat laugh; anyhow, nothing human can stand against it. And the savagely furious way in which the patient hisses between his chattering teeth, “What the devil is there to grin at?” While the tout ensemble, his garments clinging to his shivering carcase, is in no wise calculated to invest his just exasperation with the majesty of outraged dignity.

Poor Hicks formed no exception. Everybody was convulsed; one of the Kafirs to such an extent, that he could do nothing but roll on the ground in the exuberance of his glee, though he managed to recover sufficiently to dart out of the way just in time to avoid a mighty kick aimed at his nether quarters by the infuriated object of his mirth.

“There’s something for you to grin at, you sooty son of a Cheshire cat!” exclaimed Hicks, savagely; but, as we have seen, he missed his aim, and in a minute had recovered all his wonted good humour.

The sheep gave no more trouble, but went through after that as if they liked it. Two or three turned over in the water, and were rescued as previously described, while one died; but these accidents were inevitable, and soon the flock was straggling away across the veldt to its feeding ground—white, clean, and freshened up.

When they reached home, the dining-room table was strewn with letters and newspapers. The postbag, which was fetched from the nearest agency once a week, had just arrived, and as they entered, Mrs Brathwaite was reading a letter aloud for the public benefit. The writer stated her intention of profiting by an unexpectedly early opportunity, and availing herself of a long-standing and oft-repeated invitation to visit them at Seringa Vale, in about a fortnight from then, and subscribed herself: “Lilian Strange.”

“Poor thing!” said Mr Brathwaite. “We’ll soon bring the roses back to her cheeks. A couple of months of this splendid air, and she’ll be that strong and sunburnt they Won’t know her when she goes back.”

And the kindly, hospitable old couple went on discussing their prospective visitor and her joys and sorrows, past, present, and to come; projecting all manner of schemes for making her stay an enjoyable and a happy one.

There was one present whom this letter had set thinking, and that was Claverton. The name seemed familiar and yet not, for he couldn’t for the life of him fit it to an individual.

“Lilian—Lilian Strange—Lilian,” he kept repeating to himself. “Now where the deuce have I come across that name before? Lilian—it’s a pretty name, too. No, I can’t remember for the life of me.” He could see the writing as the letter lay open on the table. It was rather large and very distinct, but not masculine. But neither it nor memory seemed to aid him, and he gave it up.

“What is she like, aunt?” asked Ethel. “And what sort of age is she? Young or middling?”

The old lady laughed. “Young or middling? Gracious me, child. She’s only twenty-three, is sweetly pretty, and has the loveliest eyes I ever saw.”

“Present company excepted—ahem!” cut in Hicks, thinking he had said an excessively smart thing, and colouring and looking an ass on the strength of it.

“We must make her enjoy her visit,” went on Mrs Brathwaite. “Poor girl, I feel so sorry for her. Her mother is dead, and her stepfather was a country gentleman in England and a wealthy man. When he died all his property went to his own family, and Lilian was left without a penny. Her relations on the stepfather’s side were not kind to her, and she was thrown on the world to get her living as best she could, and now she’s teaching.”

“Universal refuge for the destitute,” murmured Ethel. “What brought her out here?”

“A ship,” chimed in Hicks, intent on being funny. But Ethel looked angrily at him, and he collapsed.

“She came out as a companion to some lady,” answered Mrs Brathwaite. “Then the McColls at Port Elizabeth engaged her to teach their children, and a nice handful she must find them. I fancy her health has rather broken down. She looked anything but strong when we saw her last June.”

“It’ll be a great nuisance,” said Ethel afterwards to her sister when they were alone together, “to have to be always trundling this girl about. She’ll probably give herself no end of airs and try to patronise us all.”

“I don’t know,” answered Laura, “I have an idea she’ll be rather nice. Her letter reads like it.”

“Perhaps so,” rejoined Ethel, a little ashamed of her inhospitable speech; “let’s hope so, anyhow.”

In due course the shearers arrived, and all being ready, operations were begun at once. No more long rides or bushbuck bants or anything of the kind, time was too valuable; and for about three weeks Mr Brathwaite and his two lieutenants had their hands full in superintending and otherwise furthering that most important phase of farm routine—shearing; and from rosy morn till dewy eve, and often till late within the latter, were they strictly on duty.

Yes, those were busy times indeed. There were the Fingo shearers to be set to their work and kept to it, wool bales to be pressed and sewn up, rationing to be attended to, and a hundred and one things, large or small, to tax the mind and employ the hand. Moreover, a sharp eye had to be kept on the natives aforesaid, lest in their laudable anxiety to make the largest possible tally, they should inflict grievous bodily harm upon the animals under operation, and haply remove the cuticle as well as the fleece. But those there employed were old hands at the craft, and gave no trouble to speak of. They would clip away by the hour, chatting among themselves in that seemingly disjointed way wherein these people are wont to exchange gossip. Now and then they varied the pastime by humming a barbarous tune on about three notes, whose terrible monotony would be distracting were it not that the ear gets accustomed to the wretched crooning, even as to the hum of a threshing machine or the ticking of an obtrusive clock, but through this, as through all other sounds, the clip, clip, clip of the shears went steadily on, from morning till night, from day to day.

“I’ve just had another letter from Lilian Strange,” said Mrs Brathwaite, one evening towards the close of the busy time above mentioned.

“What does she say?” asked the old settler, who was nodding in a roomy arm-chair, tired with the heat and exertion of the day.

“She says she won’t be able to come to us this week after all, because the McColls have put off their start. She may have to wait another ten days in consequence.”

“H’m. Don’t know that it isn’t just as well. It would have been difficult to send for her during shearing time—means two days away from home. Hicks might have gone to fetch her, or Arthur, but they are both wanted here. Naylor’s busy, too, and so is Jim. Yes, it’s just as well, as things go.”

“She thinks she will have an opportunity in about a fortnight, which will save us the trouble of sending.”

“Well, that’s better still. Besides, who’s going to bring her?”

“She doesn’t say,” answered Mrs Brathwaite. “She only promises to let us know.”

To one, at least, of the auditors of this dialogue, the postponement of the expected guest’s arrival was not a source of unmixed grief. That one was Ethel. She would not own to herself that so commonplace a failing as jealousy had anything to do with it; still the fact remained that they were all very jolly together as it was. “Two’s company, three’s a bore,” applies in principle to circles, and now it was horribly likely that this Miss Strange would be, from Ethel’s point of view, de trop. Her aunt had spoken in warm terms of the other’s beauty and attractiveness. But Ethel herself was conscious of the possession of a larger share of those commodities than most people. Had the other been of the colourless and inane order she could have tolerated her—bore as she might be. As matters stood, however, it was not in feminine human nature that Ethel should be prepared to welcome the unexpected guest with open arms.

“What has become of Arthur?” asked Mrs Brathwaite, as they sat down to supper.

“Oh, he’ll be here in a minute,” said Hicks. “I left him yarning with Xuvani. He says the old chap’s teaching him Kafir, and I’ll be hanged if ever I knew a fellow pick it up so quickly. He didn’t know a word when he came here, but Xavani says he must have really, and was keeping it dark. He let drop two or three idiomatic expressions which showed that he must have known something about the language or the structure of it.”

At that moment the door opened, admitting the object of their discussion.

“Late, I’m afraid,” he said, sliding into his place. “That long-legged humbug, Ntyesa, swore he had left his jacket in the shearing-house, and I had to go and unlock it again for him. Awfully sorry.”

“Mr Claverton can’t tear himself away, even at half-past eight,” said Ethel, maliciously. “He will soon be quite glued to the wool bales.”

He glanced up with an amused look. “While there is light, there is work—in shearing time,” he replied.

“Bother shearing time!” rejoined she, pettishly. “I wish you’d be quick and finish it. We can’t get about at all, because there’s no one to take us. Laura and I have wanted to go over to Thirlestane, and to Jim’s, and a host of places, but we can’t. We are just as much shut up in here as you are in there. Aren’t we, Laura?”

“Ha—ha—ha,” laughed her uncle, with whom she was a prime favourite, and who spoilt her outrageously. “You’d better come and give us a hand, Ethel. You and Laura. We shall get it over ever so much sooner then. You shall have six shillings a hundred. Eh?”

“They oughtn’t to have more than five, because they don’t bring their own shears,” cut in Hicks.

“They’ve got nail-scissors, though,” murmured Claverton.

“Ah, I could see you were going to say something horrid,” cried Ethel.

“There are those two sparring again,” was Laura’s comment, “as usual.”

Now there was a good deal more underlying Ethel’s impatience with the shearing time than appeared on the surface. It deprived them of their usual escort on their journeyings abroad, even as she had said, and with her own particular body-guard on those occasions she found herself less and less able to dispense. And yet, as her sister had just remarked, they two were always at daggers-drawn. She had begun by cordially detesting this man, as she thought. In reality, there had been more of resentment than of dislike in the matter. She had resented his coolness, his utter indifference to her charms, his way of treating her like a spoilt child; laughing at her petulance, and turning off her most pointed shafts on an impenetrable shield of mild satire, mingled with surprised amusement. She, Ethel Brathwaite, at whose shrine, when she shone in the society of the capital, all crowded and fell down and worshipped, to be thus treated! She counted, among her sworn admirers, more than one whose name was in many mouths, who boasted much-prized decorations, well and fairly won, and yet here on the distant frontier this man, whom, in reality, no one had ever heard of, treated her with a sort of good-humoured indulgence! And in spite of it—shall we not rather say, because of it?—she was not angry with him. It was a new thing to find one who, instead of looking up at, if anything, looked down to her; and to the wilful little beauty the change was positively refreshing. Then how helpless she had been in his hands on one or two occasions—that of the storm, for instance, and the subsequent terrifying episode—and he had not been wanting. There were many men within and without the circle of her admirers whom she could snub capriciously and ruthlessly tyrannise over, but Arthur Claverton was not one of them, and this she knew full well. And now she had discovered that his society was becoming very necessary to her, and what had forced that discovery irresistibly upon her mind was the announcement, two weeks ago, of the arrival of a new character upon the stage whereon she and one other were the chief actors. Verily it seemed to Ethel as if a bomb had emanated from that harmless-looking postbag, and was destined shortly to explode in their midst.

Then had come the shearing, and, except on Sundays, from dawn till dark, Mr Brathwaite’s two lieutenants found the whole of their time taken up. In the middle of the day they would come in, by turns, to get their dinners, but it was a case of off again directly after. No more long rides home in the twilight, or quiet strolls in the sunny afternoon, at least not for some time to come, and then—another would have appeared on the scene, thought Ethel, with a dire presentiment that those times which now she looked back on with a sinking kind of regret would never come round again. Will it be better for her—for both of them—if they do not? We shall see.

She is looking bewitchingly pretty to-night as she sits throwing her bright shafts of laughter and mockery at those around, and at Claverton in particular—at the latter, indeed, to such an extent as to call forth Laura’s remark. But a very close observer might have detected a kind of latent wistfulness beneath the brilliant, lively manner, and only then if he had specially looked for it.

“So you have been trying your hand at shearing, I hear, Mr Claverton?” she said.

“I have.”

“How did you get on, and how did you like it?” asked Laura.

“Hicks will best tell you how I got on. As for liking it, the occupation would be a wholly delightful one had a beneficent Providence but seen fit to arrange the small of one’s back upon hinges. By the way, Armitage wasn’t here to-day, was he? We could have sworn we heard that laugh of his; couldn’t we, Hicks?”

“No; he hasn’t been here—and a good thing too,” rejoined Mr Brathwaite. “He’d only have got playing the fool, or something. He carries that habit of his rather far at times. You heard what he did over at Naylor’s the year before last?”

“No. What was it?”

“Well, Naylor was hard at work with his shearing, and one day, in turning out a lot of old hurdles to fence in the yard with, they came upon a snake—a thundering big ringhals—and killed it. Jack Armitage dropped in just afterwards, and Edward showed him the snake, rather crowing over having killed such a big one. Jack said nothing at the time, but a little while after, when they were all in the shearing-house, they heard a yell, and a big black brute of a ringhals came scooting in among them all, and there stood that villain Jack in the door, grinning and chuckling, and nearly splitting his sides with laughter.”

“The beggar!” said Claverton. “Did he scare them?”

“Didn’t he! You never saw such a commotion as it made. The shearers gave one ‘whouw,’ dropped their sheep, and made for the door with a rush—they’re mortally afraid of a snake, you know—and there were sheep rushing about the place half shorn, and kicking against the shears which the fellows had let drop, and making a most infernal clatter. And the niggers were all crowding to get out, and raising a hubbub, and all the rest of it. The worst of it, though, was that they got so mad that they one and all struck work—flatly refused to come back—and it was some time before Naylor could persuade them to.”

“The mischief! And what did Jack do?”

“Do? Jumped on his horse and rode away, laughing fit to kill himself. Naylor was very savage with him though, and now he vows he won’t have Jack on the place at shearing time, not at any price. By the way, that long fellow, Ntyesa, was one of them. You ask him to-morrow if he remembers the snake in the shearing-house.”