Part 4 (2/2)
”Oh, I don't blanise that maxim ht, he need raise no further _indaba_ about acco you, because I'd take the responsibility So we'll stroll round presently and look hiood of you, Matterson In fact, you've no idea what running against you like thisan old pal Did the ot here?”
”Yes, and it struckhoht have come, well--huht with Marshbanks And nohat are your plans?”
”Why, to get back hoain”
”I wouldn't hurry about that if I were you Why not cohted, if you can put up with things a bit plain We can show you a little of the country, and what life on a stock farh there's a sight too ht”
”My dear chap, I shall be only too delighted You can i, thrown up here like a stranded log, not knowing a living soul, and with seven pound nine and a halfpenny--and that already dipped into--for worldly wealth until I could hear froood job I spotted your card on Marshbanks' table”
”Here, we'll have a drink to ourthe perspiring barman aforesaid ”What's yours, Matterson?”
”Oh, a French and soda goes down as well as anything Only, as this is my country, the drinks are mine too, Holt So don't put your hand in your pocket now Here's luck! Welcoether, as Brian Matterson had said, but the three or four years between our ages, though nothing now, had been everything then I remembered him a quiet, rather melancholy sort of boy on his first arrival from his distant colonial home, and in his capacity of new boy had once or twice protected hier fellows But he had soon learned to take his own part, never having been any sort of a fool, and, possibly by reason of his earliest training, had turned out as good at gaer and older fellows than hih to do with each other then by reason of the difference in our ages, yet we enuine cordiality ith he noelcoe country--went for anything
We strolled round to the bank, and the ies, but I wouldn't hear any, telling him I quite understood his position, and would almost certainly have acted in the same way myself Then, our business satisfactorily disposed of, Brian and I went round to a store or two to procure a little clothing and a trunk, for s as I could procure would not have furnished good advertisements for a first-rate London tailor or hosier
”Don't you bother about that, Holt,” Brian said ”You don't want much in the way of clothes in our life Fit doesn't ed I could not do better than be guided by his experience
We were to start early the next , and had nearly two days' drive before us This was not their district town, Brian explained to me; indeed, it was the merest chance that he was down here at all, but his father and a neighbour or two had been trying the experiland, and he had coons back alestion that ht prove inconvenient to his people he sihed
”We don't bother about set invites in this country, Holt,” he said
”Our friends are alelcoh of course they lish hotel You won't put us out, so make your mind quite easy as to that”
Late in the afternoon we parted Brian was due to drive out to a far nature--and sleep, but it was arranged he should call forany time after sunrise
There is a superstition current to the effect that when things are at their worst they mend, and assuredly this last experience of o here was I, stranded, a waif and a stray, upon a very distant shore, a stranger in a strange land, wondering what on earth I was going to do next, either to keep ain And now I had all unexpectedly found a friend, and was about to set forth with that friend upon a pleasure visit fraught with every delightful kind of novelty There was one cru early the nextMorrissey and ain I went round to the agents, however, and inquired if there was no way of sending any note or usted to find that there was none that day
The bar had risen again in the afternoon, and there was no prospect of any one fro ashore So I left a note for the captain, expressing--well, a great deal more than I could ever have told in so , and had just got outside of a muddy concoction whose principal flavour ood-fire smoke, and was euphemistically termed coffee, when Brian Matterson drove up in a Cape cart
”Hallo, Holt,” he sang out ”You're in training early You see, with us a fellow has to turn out early, if only that everybody else does, even if he hiht have given you a little longer, because I've got to pick up a thing or two at the store, and it won't be open just yet, and thento have a look atwith soht her dohen I caood-bye, you know She's a dear little kid, and I wouldn't disappoint her for anything Now trot out your luggage, and we'll splice it on behind”
We got hold of a sable eneral handyinal with his wool grown long and standing out like unravelled rope around his head, and having hauled out ulation raw hide _reiht as well have so, and did
It was about seven o'clock e started, but the sun's rays were alreadyThe horses, a pair of flea-bitten roans, were not h sturdy and compact, but in hard condition, and up to any as at the store, and then it seeain There was the white of a sunshade by the roadside, and under it the flutter of a feirls who had come out to meet the little one to whose aid I had so opportunely coreat heavens!--with her wasout Brian Matterson ”Get up, now; I've got to take you back Just had a note froo back at once
Ju a rohite teeth, and shook her pretty head
”No fear,” she replied ”Keep that yarn for next tiht of me, she started and stared, reduced to silence The while I was conscious of being introduced to Miss Somebody or other, whose na froed the introduction, I was sure she could not catchon the part of the child, Brian got down and went a little ith her apart, where the two seeand likely to continue hot, and to indulge in similar banalities