Part 19 (2/2)

”I think I'll prefer that immeasurably, Miss Bayfield,” replied he most concerned.

”I shall be ready, then, in half an hour. And--I don't like 'Miss Bayfield'--it sounds so stiff, and we are such old friends now. You ought to say Lyn. Oughtn't he, father, now that he is quite one of ourselves?”

”Well, _I_ should--after that,” answered Bayfield, comically, blowing out a big cloud of smoke.

But while he laughed pleasantly, promising to avail himself of the privilege, Hilary was conscious of a kind of mournful impression that the frank ingenuousness of the request simply meant that she placed him on the same plane as her father, in short, regarded him as one of a bygone generation. Well, she was right. He was no chicken after all, he reminded himself grimly.

”I say, Lyn, I'm going with you too!” cried Fred, who was seated on a waggon-pole a little distance off, putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to a new catapult-handle.

”All right. I'll be ready in half an hour,” replied the girl.

One of the prettiest bits in Siever's Kloof was the very spot whereon Blachland had shot the large bushbuck ram, and here the two had taken up their position. For nearly an hour Lyn had been very busy, and her escort seated there, lazily smoking a pipe, would every now and then overlook her work, offering criticisms, and making suggestions, some of which were accepted, and some were not. Fred, unable to remain still for ten minutes at a time, was ranging afar with his air-gun--now put right again--and, indeed, with it he was a dead shot.

”I never can get the exact s.h.i.+ne of these red krantzes,” Lyn was saying.

”That one over there, with the sun just lighting it up now, I know I shall reproduce it either the colour of a brick wall or a dead smudge.

The s.h.i.+ne is what I want to get.”

”And you may get it, or you may not, probably the latter. There are two things, at any rate, which n.o.body has ever yet succeeded in reproducing with perfect accuracy, the colour of fire and golden hair--like yours.

Yes, it's a fact. They make it either straw colour or too red, but always dead. There's no s.h.i.+ne in it.”

Lyn laughed, lightheartedly, unthinkingly.

”True, O King! But I expect you're talking heresy all the same. I wonder what that boy is up to?” she broke off, looking around.

”Why, he's a mile or so away up the kloof by this time. Do you ever get tired of this sort of life, Lyn?”

”Tired? No. Why should I? Whenever I go away anywhere, after the first novelty has worn off, I always long to get back.”

”And how long a time does it take to compa.s.s that aspiration?”

”About a week. At the end of three I am desperately homesick, and long to get back here to old father, and throw away gloves and let my hands burn.”

Blachland looked at the hands in question--long-fingered, tapering, but smooth and delicate and refined--brown indeed with exposure to the air, but not in the least roughened. What an enigma she was, this girl. He watched, her as she sat there, sweet and cool and graceful as she plied her brushes, the wide brim of her straw hat turned up in front so as not to impede her view. Every movement was a picture, he told himself--the quick lifting of the eyelid as she looked at her subject, the delicate supple turn of the wrist as she worked in her colouring. And the surroundings set forth so perfectly the central figure--the varying shades of the trees and their dusky undergrowth, the great krantz opposite, fringed with trailers, bristling with spiky aloes lining up along its ledges. Bright spreuws flashed and piped, darting forth from its s.h.i.+ning face; and other bird voices, the soft note of the hoepoe, and the cooing of doves kept the warm golden air pleasant with harmony.

”What is your name the short for, Lyn?” he said, picking up one of her drawing-books, whereon it was traced--in faded ink upon the faded cover.

She laughed. ”It isn't a name at all really. It's only my initials. I have three ugly Christian names represented under the letters L.Y.N., and it began with a joke among the boys when I was a very small kiddie.

But now I rather like it. Don't you?”

”Yes. Very much... Why, what's the matter now?”

For certain shrill shouts were audible from the thick of the bush, but at no great distance away. They recognised Fred's voice, and he was hallooing like mad.

”Lyn! Mr Blachland! Quick--quick! Man, here's a whacking big snake!”

”Oh, let's go and see!” cried the girl, hurriedly putting down her drawing things, and springing to her feet. ”No--no. You stay here.

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