Part 18 (1/2)

”Thanks awfully, Miss Bayfield,” said Blachland. ”The implication is grateful and comforting to a battered fogey of a precious deal nearer forty than thirty.”

For answer the girl only laughed--that bright, whole-hearted laugh of hers. It was a musical laugh too, full-throated, melodious. She and her father's guest were great friends. Though now living somewhat of an out-of-the-world life, she had been well-educated, and her tastes were artistic. She drew and painted with no mean skill, and her musical attainments were above the average. So far from feeling bored and discontented with the comparative isolation of her lot, she had an affection for the free and healthy conditions of her surroundings, the beauties of which, moreover, her artistic temperament rendered her capable of perceiving and appreciating. Then this stranger had come into their life, and at first she had been inclined to stand somewhat in awe of him. He was so much older than herself, and must have seen so much; moreover, his quiet-mannered demeanour, and the life-worn look of his firm dark countenance, seemed to cover a deal of character. But he had entered so thoroughly and sympathetically into her tastes and pursuits that the little feeling of shyness had worn off within the first day, and now, after a fortnight, she had come to regard his presence in their midst as a very great acquisition indeed.

”I say, Lyn,” struck in her father. ”Better take Blachland inside--yes, and light up some logs in the fireplace. There's a sharp tinge in the air after sundown, which isn't good for a man with up-country fever in his bones, as I was telling him just now. I must just go and take a last look round.”

”Did you do any more to my drawing to-day?” asked Hilary, as the two stood within the sitting-room together, watching the efforts of a yellow-faced Hottentot girl to make the logs blaze up.

”I've nearly finished it. I've only got to put in a touch or two.”

”May I see it now?”

”No--not until it is finished. I may not be satisfied with it then, and tear it up.”

”But you are not to. I'm certain that however it turns out it will be too good to treat in that way.”

”Oh, Mr Blachland, I am surprised at such a speech from you,” she said, her eyes dancing with mischief. ”Why, that's the sort of thing that English boy might have said. But you! Oh!”

”Well, I mean it. You know I never hesitate to criticise and that freely. Look at our standing fight over detail in foreground, as a flagrant instance.”

The drawing under discussion was a water-colour sketch of the house and its immediate surroundings. He would treasure it as a reminder after he had gone, he declared, when asking her to undertake it. To which she had rejoined mischievously that he seemed in a great hurry to talk about ”after he had gone,” considering that he had only just come.

Now the entrance of George Bayfield and his youngest born put an end to the discussion, and soon they sat down to supper.

”Man, Mr Blachland, but that is a _mooi_ buck,” began the boy. ”Jafta says he never saw a _mooi-er_ one.”

”Perhaps it'll bring you luck,” said Lyn, looking exceedingly reposeful and sweet, behind the tea-things, in her twenty-year-old dignity at the head of the table.

”I don't know,” was the reply. ”I did something once that was supposed to bring frightful ill-luck, and for a long time it seemed as if it was going to. But--indirectly it had just the opposite effect.”

”Was that up-country, Mr Blachland?” chimed in the boy eagerly. ”Do tell us about it.”

”Perhaps some day, Fred. But it's a thing that one had better have left alone.”

”These children'll give you no peace if you go on raising their curiosity in that way,” said Bayfield.

”I'll go up-country when I'm big,” said the boy. ”Are you going again, Mr Blachland?”

”I don't know, Fred. You see, I've only just come down.”

The boy said no more on the subject. He had an immense admiration for their guest, who, when they were alone together, would tell him tales of which he never wearied--about hunting and trading, and Lo Bengula, and experiences among savages far wilder and more formidable than their own half-civilised and wholly deteriorated Kaffirs. But he was sharp enough to notice that at other times the subject of ”up-country” was not a favourite one with Blachland. Perhaps the latter was tired of it as he had had so much. At any rate, with a gumption rare in small boys of his age, Fred forbore to worry the topic further.

This was one of those evenings which the said guest was wont to prize now, and was destined in the time to come to look back upon as among the very happiest experiences of his life. He regarded his host indeed with a whole-hearted envy, that such should be his daily portion. There was just enough sharpness in the atmosphere to render indoors and a bright, snug fire in a well-lighted room especially reposeful and cosy, as they adjourned to the sitting-room where Lyn's piano was.

”Fill up, Blachland,” said his host, pus.h.i.+ng over a large bladder tobacco-pouch. ”Where's my pipe? No--not that one. The deep one with the wire cover.”

”I've got it, father,” cried Lyn. ”I'm filling it for you.”

”Thanks, darling,” as she brought it over. ”You know, Blachland, my after-supper pipe never tastes so good unless this little girlie fills it for me. She's done so ever since she was a wee kiddie so high.”

Blachland smiled to himself, rather sadly, as he watched the long tapering fingers pressing down the tobacco into the bowl, and wondered how his friend would feel when the time came--and come it must, indeed any day might bring it--when he would have no one to render this and a hundred and one other little services of love, such as he had noticed during his stay--when Bayfield should be left lonely, and the bright and sweet and sunny presence which irradiated this simple home should be transferred to another. Somehow the thought was distasteful to him, vaguely, indefinably so, but still distasteful.