Читать книгу By Veldt and Kopje - W. C. Scully - Страница 11

A few years ago I happened to be detained for several weeks in a somewhat remote village in the Cape Colony. Having very little to do I availed myself of an invitation received from a certain Boer named Jacobus van der Merwe—to visit his farm for the purpose of shooting.

The farm, “Honey Krantz,” was about twenty miles away; it lay in the midst of the grandest mountain scenery. The only road was a very rugged one along the course of a devious gorge, with frequent crossings of a brawling stream. Each of the many sharp turns was marked by an immense rock-buttress, hundreds of feet in height. The mountainous sides of the gorge were thickly strewn with mighty boulders, whilst here and there wide moraines extended from summit to base.

I at once became very much interested in the members of the household. My host was about forty-five years of age and, even for a Boer, extremely stout. In fact he was obliged to excuse himself, on the score of his size, from accompanying me to the hunting-grounds, which lay so high that reaching them involved considerable and steep climbing. Accordingly, an alert-looking Hottentot was assigned to me as after-rider and guide. This “boy” knew every corner of the great mountain mass and was thoroughly familiar with the haunts and habits of the game.

Mrs. van der Merwe was almost as stout as her husband, who was also her cousin. It was, however, evident that when young she must have possessed great beauty. The house was full of children; these were of all ages and they strongly resembled each other in appearance. All were blue-eyed, flaxen-haired and rosy-cheeked. There was one grown-up daughter—Gertrude—a girl of eighteen. She only lacked animation to be a most beautiful woman. Her dead-gold hair lay in a dense mass upon her shoulders; her calm, deep eyes of a most tender blue were set beneath a broad, smooth, white brow; her teeth were dazzlingly white and her face pure oval in shape.

It was just after sundown when I arrived at the homestead. Supper over, I was invited to visit Sarei van der Merwe—the old, blind grandfather—who had not left his room for many years. I found him sitting in a very large home-made chair, with his feet upon a wooden stool containing a pan of charcoal. His bulk was huge; in fact, he was, probably, the biggest man I had ever seen. He had a long white beard and a mass of silvery hair. On a table, within reach of his hand, were several pipes and a large tobacco-pouch—the latter made out of a portion of the stomach of a sheep, brayed. Close to his feet a diminutive Hottentot crouched upon a sheep-skin. The face of this creature was old-looking and monkey-like. His duties were to attend to the old man’s needs; more especially to hold a burning coal, when required, to the often-replenished pipe. This he did with a skill evidently born of long practice—picking up the glowing lumps in his naked fingers with the utmost unconcern.

The room was comfortably furnished; almost everything in it appeared to be home-made. There were no blankets on the bed, their place being taken by karosses made of the skins of the fat-tailed sheep. Unlike the other rooms, this one had no ceiling, the thatch being visible between the rafters. Upon the rafters lay a coffin, evidently, from its size, built to accommodate old Sarei’s prospective mortal remnants.

I grasped the old man’s outstretched hand. He retained mine for a few seconds, feeling first the palm, then the back and lastly the fingers carefully over. I looked the while into his eyes; these were clear and blue and gave no suggestion of blindness.

“You work your brain too much and your body too little,” said he, dropping my hand. “Your mind travels without rest on an endless road.”

I was somewhat startled; it was so unexpected and at the same time so tersely true.

“It is clear,” I replied, “that you do not need eyes to see. My brain is busy turning out barren thoughts, like a mill grinding sawdust.”

“When young, one runs after thoughts; but when you grow old the thoughts will come and wait, like servants, until you wish to use them.”

“My thoughts are less like servants than like dogs hunting me to death,” I replied.

“A dog will obey if he be trained; if you do not train him he will bite you.”

“Yes, I can see that. But if you have let them grow big without using the whip—what then?”

“Watch and pray; call the Lord to your help and He will deliver you. When I was young I rioted in my pride; I called my strength my own and told God I could do without His help. Then He struck me with blindness, and I repented. For a season the thoughts I had bred tore at my soul, but I slew them after bitter combat. Now others of a different kind have taken their place.”

It was amazing to find such philosophy in one of a class usually supposed to be both ignorant and illiterate. Here was one who had solved the Great Enigma, who was at peace with himself, who apparently thought strongly and with originality, and who, although stricken with a misfortune that might well bring despair, was probably happier than nineteen-twentieths of his fellow-creatures. There was no trace of self-righteousness about the man. The unmistakable seal of peace was upon him.

“If I could feel as you do,” I replied, “I should not care whether I lived or died; I should know no fear. Can you not teach me how to put the house of my mind in order and to train my dogs?”

“That none can teach but yourself—your own soul—and then only when God touches you with His finger.”

Shortly afterwards the family assembled for worship in the old man’s room. He recited one of the Psalms and then offered up a prayer. His language was very simple, but it breathed the most fervent Christianity. The servants of the household were present. Then, after bidding old Sarei “Good-night,” all left the room but his son and the little Hottentot. These remained to assist him to bed.

It was evidently the practice of the household to retire early, so I went to my room at once. It was large and lofty. The snowy linen upon the great feather-bed looked tempting, and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction in sinking into the downy abyss.

My window looked out upon the valley; through the wide-open casement I could see the black rampart of mountain crested with twinkling stars. Here, if anywhere, one could realise—

“The silence that is in the starry sky,

And sleep that is among the lonely hills.”

Shortly after daylight a most delicious cup of coffee was brought to my bedside; it was keen enjoyment just to lie and inhale the aroma, but the aroma was nothing to the taste.

Soon a weak shaft of sunlight touched the wall above my head, so I sprang up and went to the open window. The beauty of the scene was incomparable. To the southward arose the stark, rugged mountain mass which formed the culmination of the range—its topmost crags touched with gold; all else was clothed in a diaphanous purple veil; every hollow was brimming with mystery. Here and there a faint wreath of mist clung like departing sleep to the eyelids of the mountain. As I looked, the sun climbed through a gap, and straightway the lesser summits grew golden.

Not a breath of the slightest breeze disturbed the sacred stillness. The only sound was the faint murmur from the distant stream foaming over the grey boulders at the bottom of the valley. From the stream the hillside sloped steeply up, dotted thickly with dark green trees. But an undercurrent of very real sadness flowed through all this beauty. I could not forget the blind man in the next room; did he ever recall this scene—which he must often have gazed upon—and repine? Although his peace seemed to be as deep and changeless as the vault of the blue sky, the memory must, surely, often strain his heartstrings.

I leant upon the window-sill and looked to the right. There I saw Gertrude standing, her dead-gold hair unbound, her pure, calm visage bathed in the sunlight. She appeared to gaze at the sun as unconcernedly as an eagle might have done. She afforded the one touch necessary to complete the harmony of the scene.

After an early breakfast I took my rifle and, accompanied by the Hottentot guide, went forth in search of game. The mountain was so steep that our ponies could only ascend by scarping, zigzag fashion. It took nearly two hours to reach the central plateau lying between the two highest summits of the range.

From here the view was superb; billow after billow seemed to surge away in every direction—each crested with a fringe of cliff like the foam of a breaking wave. Every now and then a faint cloud-wreath would form around one or other of the higher crags, then float away to leeward like a tress, until dissolved by the sunshine.

Having shot a couple of rheboks, I felt disinclined for further slaughter, so laid myself down among the late mountain flowers and basked in the light. The heat was deliciously tempered by a steadily-streaming breeze. Thus were spent several hours.

It was only when the sun had sunk considerably in to the afternoon that I regretfully began to think of returning to the homestead. The ponies were grazing a short distance away, so after telling my after-rider to replace the saddles, load up the game and make his way homeward by the nearest available course, I took a bee-line on foot for the farmhouse.

My course led across the head of a gorge, the sides of which were steep, grassy slopes, interspersed with patches of moraine. Here and there immense angular fragments of stone—which had, ages back, slid down from the crowning cliffs—protruded from the earth. Passing one of these, something peculiar in its appearance caught my eye, so I approached more closely. Upon its flat face the following inscription had been roughly cut:—

“HIER WORDT EEN ZONDENAAR BEKEERD.”

Having thought much of old Sarei during the day, I involuntarily connected him with the strange inscription—“Here a sinner became converted.” The letters were deeply carved into the stone, and the way the dents were overgrown with lichen showed that the carving had taken place many years ago. Somehow the legend seemed quite congruous; if a special revelation ever came from the Divine to the human, what place could be more appropriate for its happening than this—the undefiled heart of the everlasting hills, where the hand of man had as yet wrought no desecration? Like Moses before the Burning Bush, I felt as though standing upon holy ground.

I reached the homestead just as dusk was setting in. After supper I again went to pay my respects to old Sarei. He greeted me with cheerfulness—

“Well, they say no Englishman can shoot, yet I hear you killed two bucks to-day.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I killed two bucks, and I almost wish I had not done so. It seemed to be a sin to shed blood in such a place and on such a day.”

Old Sarei turned his mild, inquiring, blind eyes upon me, but made no reply. We sat and smoked in silence for a while.

“Can you tell me anything about an inscription I saw upon a rock to-day—‘Here a sinner became converted’?”

“Yes,” he replied, after a pause, “I am the sinner. My son cut the words upon the stone at my wish.”

I held silence, so he shortly afterwards asked—“Would you like me to tell you of what happened?”

“Yes, I should be most grateful.”

“I was born on this farm,” he said; “my father was one of the first to take up land about here. When a young man, hunting was my passion. I made friends with the wild Bushmen who then dwelt on the mountain, and they used to drive the game for me. I built a hut near the spring just below the summit, and there I sometimes stayed for weeks together.

“I was proud of my eyesight and my skill with the rifle. I did not care for the society of others; I neglected my wife and children; I neither feared God nor regarded man. The mountain I looked upon as my home. Living so near the sky makes one different to others. The sins of the Flesh lose their breath and cannot climb so high, but those of the Spirit beset you sorely. You will remember that Satan tempted the Lord on the top of a high mountain.

“One day in summer, about forty years ago, I was riding across the head of the kloof where the stone stands whereon you read those words to-day. A thunderstorm was sweeping down from the north-west, but I took no heed, for I had never known fear of lightning nor anything else. The Bushmen were driving on a troop of elands, and I expected them to cross the saddle at the head of the kloof; so I left the horse concealed in a hollow and took my stand, with the rifle on my arm, at the foot of the rock.

“Soon the elands appeared; they ran for a short distance down the kloof, then halted just opposite where I was standing. One great bull stood apart from the others. As I lifted my rifle to take aim a flash leaped out of the cloud and struck the ground close to where the bull was standing, igniting the grass. The animal sprang back in terror. I fired—and it rolled over, dead.

“Then I laughed aloud and shouted that my aim was more true than that of the Almighty. An instant afterwards the heavens opened and flame enveloped me like a sheet. I fell, senseless, to the ground.

“When I recovered I thought night had fallen. I could smell that my clothing was scorched, but I felt no hurt. The rain had ceased and I was conscious of a sensation of warmth. I still thought it was night, but night blacker than I had ever known. After a while I stood up and groped about in terror, for I now imagined that the end of the world had come and that the sun had been quenched. Then I heard a bird singing: I still wondered; but when I heard the Bushmen calling to me from the other side of the kloof, where the dead eland lay, the truth struck me in all its terror: I was blind.

“I shrieked and blasphemed as I staggered about. I found my gun and tried to shoot myself, but the lightning had twisted it as you might twist a handful of straw. The Bushmen led me down to the homestead.

“Afterwards, I spent many days and nights in hell, but the day arrived when my pride lay broken in the dust, and I came to acknowledge that God’s Angel was sitting on that thundercloud, charged to save my soul.”

That night I lay long awake, thinking of old Sard’s tale. I had a very clear recollection of the inscribed stone and its surroundings, so tried to picture the tremendous episode of forty years back. The sultry summer day; the white thundercloud curdling into shape upon the hot north-western horizon and towering into the ether, until its spreading tentacles seemed to seize the world in a mighty grip. Later, the low muttering of thunder, pulsing from the monster’s baleful heart, and the thin streak of fire darting out far in advance of the rain and igniting the dry grass. Then the blasphemous jest of the strong man proud of his skill. Lastly, the thunderbolt winged to smite but not to slay, touching not so much as a hair of the head of the defiant human atom, but crushing the gun in his hand as though it were a reed, and filling his eyes with such excess of light that nothing less vivid could stir their sense for evermore.