Part 22 (1/2)
”The worst of it is that the bare fact of coming to the town entails upon one multifold commissions, utterly regardless of s.p.a.ce or carrying power,” he answered. ”Look at those bundles, for instance. Not a third of what I was to have fetched, and shall catch it for not bringing out.”
Lilian laughed.
”Never mind. I'll bear witness in your favour. And now tell me, when do we reach Seringa Vale?”
”Not before sundown. I'm afraid you'll be dreadfully done up. It's very spirited of you to travel two days running like this. I wonder you didn't allow yourself a day here to rest after coming up all the way from Port Elizabeth yesterday.”
”It was tiring, certainly. But I've had a good night's rest, and this sort of travelling is quite luxurious after the pa.s.senger-cart. Is it going to be very hot?”
”I'm afraid it'll be warm, but not dusty, which is something to be thankful for. The heavy shower in the night has done that much for us.
Look! Grahamstown shows well from here.”
A curve in the road brought the city into full view, lying beneath, embowered in its bosky gardens.
”Yes. But I don't see anything to admire in these colonial towns. They are not even picturesque. Frightfully dusty, oppressively hot, and streets and buildings absolutely hideous.”
”I agree with you. Look at this one, for instance. That mound of baked clay, plastered up wet and left to dry, which we pa.s.sed at starting and which can hardly be distinguished now, doesn't look much like a cathedral, does it? Yet it is. Then that fifth-rate mongrel Corn Exchange you see--there--is the Eastern Districts Court, second temple of Justice in the land. That square barn-like wool-store, beyond the clay cathedral, is a Methodist chapel with a truly appalling front. It is the prize barrac.o.o.n of that connexion, and its habitues fondly cherish the conviction that it is a second Milan. The building away there against the hill is to be admired, isn't it? Built for a barrack it remains a barrack, though it is now a public hospital. The town is pretty, thanks to its situation and trees, but there isn't a decent-looking building in it.”
”I want to see something of the country,” went on Lilian. ”It ought to be lovely, judging from what I saw of it coming along in the post-cart yesterday. And I've seen nothing of it as yet.”
”Here we are, then. What do you think of that?” said her companion, as, having crested the hill which shut the city from view, he whipped up his horses and they sped merrily along an elevated flat, das.h.i.+ng aside the dewdrops which lay thickly studding the short gra.s.s like a field of diamonds. The sun was not long up, and a white morning mist hung here and there among the sprays of the bush, but overhead all was dazzling blue. The view was extensive. Wooded ridges melted away afar in the soft morning light, and in the distant background the crescent range of the Great Winterberg rose purple and dim.
”Oh, but this is lovely!” cried Lilian. ”Don't laugh at me, Mr Claverton, but it is like drinking in new life after being pent up in a dusty town.”
”I'd rather be shot than laugh at you,” he answered, with an earnestness very unwonted in him. ”I am only too glad you should find anything to enjoy in what I feared would be to you a very tedious journey. Still more glad am I that it has been my luck to escort you.”
It was about the first genuine compliment he had ever paid to a woman in his life, and yet he seemed totally unconscious of intending any compliment at all. He could hardly take his glance off the beautiful, animated face beside him. And how was it that this same escort duty had fallen to his lot? When Lilian Strange found out at nearly the last moment that the opportunity on which she relied of getting to Seringa Vale had fallen through, Mr Brathwaite had made arrangements to go to Grahamstown and fetch her himself. But a sharp attack of rheumatism precluded this, and Hicks, who otherwise would have been told off on this mission, and who had his own reasons for not wis.h.i.+ng to be away from home two days, easily prevailed on his friend to go instead of him.
On they sped, now ascending a hill at a foot's pace, now bowling briskly down the next declivity, as the road wound over the rolling country. To Lilian the journey, so far from being a tedious one, was wholly delightful. She was vividly interested in everything. Even the little meercats, which sat upright on their hind legs a few yards from the road and then bolted into their burrows at the approach of the horses, came in for a share of her notice and admiration. A solitary secretary bird, stalking away down in the hollow, became the subject of numerous inquiries, and she gazed with awe upon a cloud of great white vultures soaring overhead bound for some defunct horse or sheep, appearing from nowhere and disappearing as mysteriously. To the English girl, with her keen love of Nature, even these insignificant representatives of wild African animal life were full of interest.
They pa.s.sed a large ostrich farm lying beneath them on the slope, and she could hardly believe her companion's statement that the distant black specks at the farther ends of their respective enclosures were as formidable as the traditional mad bull, until a large troop of ten-months-old ostriches, under charge of herds, swept past, and he drew her attention to their size, and the strength of those long legs terminating in a sharp, h.o.r.n.y toe, capable of ripping a man up. But the birds looked very handsome, very picturesque as they careered by, their snowy plumes extended and waving, and she was delighted with the picture they made, though her enjoyment was tempered with alarm as the horses showed signs of restiveness. But Claverton rea.s.sured her, and the ostriches and their keepers were soon left far behind.
”You live at Seringa Vale, do you not, Mr Claverton?”
”Well, yes; I do at present. I am jackarooing there, as they say in Australia, which is to say that I am imbibing instruction in the craft in consideration of my valuable services.”
”And are you going to settle out here, then?”
”To settle! H'm! How do you know I wasn't born and bred out here?”
”I suppose because there's some sort of secret sign by which one importation can detect another,” answered Lilian. ”I don't believe you have been out here as long as I have.”
”Do I look so thoroughly the 'new chum,' then? Point out the conspicuous sign of 'rawness,' that I may at once eradicate it, if it is worth eradicating, that is.”
”No. I refuse to reveal my masonic sign,” she answered, gaily; ”but I know I am right in my conjecture. I could tell the moment I saw you.
Am I not right? Now confess!”
”Yes and no. That is to say, it is only three months since I left England this time; but before that I was out here in South Africa for several years.”
”Then I cannot claim seniority of standing, after all. Are there any more 'importations' at Seringa Vale?”