Part 19 (1/2)
”Rather But I'll be hanged if I would for the whole of Doppersdorp”
”Ha! ha! But poor old Doppersdorp isn't such a bad place There are a lot of people in it who are damn sweeps; but I can always pull with everybody--even da
I don't care for anybody then But when you've got to be in a place, Musgrave, you may as well make the best of it”
”And that I flatter myself I do What with yourselves, Mr Van Stolz, and the Suffields, and one or or two more, I am not particularly discontented with the place”
”Ha! ha! And one or two istrate mischievously
”What did the wife say when you first caht? Own up, now When is it to come off?”
From anybody else this sort of chaff would have more than annoyed Roden--indeed, hardly anybody else would have ventured upon it with hihed, and said that, if for no other reason, he did not see how anything real or iht of the munificent rate of pay ith a paternal Government saw fit to remunerate the labours of the junior members of its judicial service Then he turned the conversation into other channels, and thus, alternately subsiding into silence as the nature of their work required, and s suggested one to either, this happily assorted brace of officials got through the first half of an afternoon, until the tread of a pair of heavy boots on the boarded floor of the Court-roo near
”Some confounded Boer, I suppose, who'll extend a claround and spit five tirowled Roden, thinking it was about ti out a voice
”Hallo! It's Suffield Co up
”Busy, I see!” said Suffield, having shaken hands, and looking rather aard, for ith Mona worrying his life out for the last half hour, and ith the confounded cheek, as he reckoned it, of suggesting that Musgrave should knock off work and coraphic predicament known as between the devil and the deep sea But the eyes of the ood-naturedto take him aith you, Suffield?” he said
”Well--urave; I expect Miss Ridsdale will co, and it's nearly five And I say, Suffield,” he called out after the; ”don't let hi!” and chuckling heartily, the genial official turned back to light a fresh pipe and do another hoar of his oork, and that of his assistant too
Arassy _nek_ about aoff into the open veldt beyond, the trio were in good spirits enough
”Well, and why haven't you blown ?” said Roden
”Do I ever blow you up? Besides, you couldn't help it,” answered Mona
”Ah, 'To err is huht have added, 'to blow a man up for what he can't help is feminine'”
”Don't be cynical now, and sarcastic And it's our last day”
”Why, hang it, the chap isn't going to be away for a year,” cut in Suffield, as at thatwith a villainouslyof s sulphur instead of tobacco And then there was a clatter of hoofs behind, and they were joined by a couple of Boers of the ordinary type, sunburned and not too clean of visage--one clad in ”store-clothes” the other in corduroy, and both wearing extre their wiry, knock-kneed nags alongside, went through the usual cere of pipe-fills with the male element in the party
Boers, in their queer and at ti those they know, the most sociable of mortals, and never dream that their room may be preferable to their company; wherefore this accession to the party was heartily welcomed by Mona, for now these two could ride on ahead with Charlie and talk sheep and ostriches, and narrate the bold deeds they had done while serving in Kreli's country, in Field-Commandant Deventer's troop, which had just returned covered with laurels--and dust--froion But alas! while one carried out this programme to the letter, his fellow, the ”store-clothes” one, persisted in jogging alongside of Roden discoursing volubly, of which discourse Roden understood about three words in twenty
”_Ja, det is reegt, Johannes_,” [”Yes That is right”] the latter would assent in reply to some statement but poorly understood ”Darn the fellow, can't he realise that two's company, three's a bore--in this instance a Boer! Nay what, Johannes _Ik kan nie Hollands praat Jy verstaand_, [I can't talk Dutch You understand?] Better jog on and talk to Suffield, see? He can talk it like a Dutch uncle; I can't”
”_Det is ja his head Then after a ed on to join the other two
The open veldt now lay outstretched before the on soreen slopes and soaring cliff walls of the rassy plains, stretching for miles, but always bounded nearer or farther byin cliff wall, or jagged, naked crags
Here and there in the distance, a white dot upon the green, lay a Boer horazed a flock of sheep or goats The slanting rays of the afternoon sun, now not far from his western dip behind yon cluster of ironstone peaks, shed upon this bright, wavy, open landscape that olden radiance which renders the close of a cloudless day upon the High Veldt so like a dream of enchanted worlds
They were rather silent, these two The thrilling, vivid happiness of the one, was dashed by a certain aoing quite unnecessarily to expose hireat, possibly small, but at any rate unnecessary On the part of that other, well, what had he to do with anything so delusive as the fleeting and te called happiness, he whose life was all behind him? Yet he was very--contented; that is how he put it; and he owned to hi more and more-- contented