The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
Chapter 1.XII. He Bites.
Bonaparte Blenkins was riding home on the grey mare. He had ridden outthat afternoon, partly for the benefit of his health, partly tomaintain his character as overseer of the farm. As he rode on slowly, hethoughtfully touched the ears of the grey mare with his whip.
"No, Bon, my boy," he addressed himself, "don't propose! You can't marryfor four years, on account of the will; then why propose? Wheedle her,tweedle her, teedle her, but don't let her make sure of you. When awoman," said Bonaparte, sagely resting his finger against the side ofhis nose, "When a woman is sure of you she does what she likes withyou; but when she isn't, you do what you like with her. And I--" saidBonaparte.
Here he drew the horse up suddenly and looked. He was now close to thehouse, and leaning over the pigsty wall, in company with Em, who wasshowing her the pigs, was a strange female figure. It was the firstvisitor that had appeared on the farm since his arrival, and he lookedat her with interest. She was a tall, pudgy girl of fifteen, weighinga hundred and fifty pounds, with baggy pendulous cheeks and up-turnednose. She strikingly resembled Tant Sannie, in form and feature, buther sleepy good eyes lacked that twinkle that dwelt in the Boer-woman'ssmall orbs. She was attired in a bright green print, wore brass rings inher ears and glass beads round her neck, and was sucking the tip of herlarge finger as she looked at the pigs.
"Who is it that has come?" asked Bonaparte, when he stood drinking hiscoffee in the front room.
"Why, my niece, to be sure," said Tant Sannie, the Hottentot maidtranslating. "She's the only daughter of my only brother Paul, and she'scome to visit me. She'll be a nice mouthful to the man that can gether," added Tant Sannie. "Her father's got two thousand pounds in thegreen wagon box under his bed, and a farm, and five thousand sheep,and God Almighty knows how many goats and horses. They milk ten cows inmid-winter, and the young men are after her like flies about a bowl ofmilk. She says she means to get married in four months, but she doesn'tyet know to whom. It was so with me when I was young," said Tant Sannie."I've sat up with the young men four and five nights a week. And theywill come riding again, as soon as ever they know that the time's upthat the Englishman made me agree not to marry in."
The Boer-woman smirked complacently.
"Where are you going to?" asked Tant Sannie presently, seeing thatBonaparte rose.
"Ha! I'm just going to the kraals; I'll be in to supper," saidBonaparte.
Nevertheless, when he reached his own door he stopped and turned inthere. Soon after he stood before the little glass, arrayed in his bestwhite shirt with the little tucks, and shaving himself. He had on hisvery best trousers, and had heavily oiled the little fringe at theback of his head, which, however, refused to become darker. But whatdistressed him most was his nose--it was very red. He rubbed his fingerand thumb on the wall, and put a little whitewash on it; but, findingit rather made matters worse, he rubbed it off again. Then he lookedcarefully into his own eyes. They certainly were a little pulled down atthe outer corners, which gave them the appearance of looking crosswise;but then they were a nice blue. So he put on his best coat, took up hisstick, and went out to supper, feeling on the whole well satisfied.
"Aunt," said Trana to Tant Sannie when that night they lay together inthe great wooden bed, "why does the Englishman sigh so when he looks atme?"
"Ha!" said Tant Sannie, who was half asleep, but suddenly started, wideawake. "It's because he thinks you look like me. I tell you, Trana,"said Tant Sannie, "the man is mad with love of me. I told him the othernight I couldn't marry till Em was sixteen, or I'd lose all the sheepher father left me. And he talked about Jacob working seven years andseven years again for his wife. And of course he meant me," said TantSannie pompously. "But he won't get me so easily as he thinks; he'llhave to ask more than once."
"Oh!" said Trana, who was a lumpish girl and not much given to talking;but presently she added, "Aunt, why does the Englishman always knockagainst a person when he passes them?"
"That's because you are always in the way," said Tant Sannie.
"But, aunt," said Trana, presently, "I think he is very ugly."
"Phugh!" said Tant Sannie. "It's only because we're not accustomed tosuch noses in this country. In his country he says all the people havesuch noses, and the redder your nose is the higher you are. He's of thefamily of the Queen Victoria, you know," said Tant Sannie, wakening upwith her subject; "and he doesn't think anything of governors and churchelders and such people; they are nothing to him. When his aunt withthe dropsy dies he'll have money enough to buy all the farms in thisdistrict."
"Oh!" said Trana. That certainly made a difference.
"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only forty-one, though you'd take himto be sixty. And he told me last night the real reason of his baldness."
Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age,Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady. How a deadly rival, jealousof his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a damnableand insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How,applying it in the evening, on rising in the morning he found his pillowstrewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the glass, beheldthe shining and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The fewremaining hairs were turned to a silvery whiteness, and the young ladymarried his rival.
"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace ofGod, and reading of the psalms, he says he would have killed himself. Hesays he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman andshe won't."
"Alle wereld!" said Trana: and then they went to sleep.
Every one was lost in sleep soon; but from the window of the cabin thelight streamed forth. It came from a dung fire, over which Waldo satbrooding. Hour after hour he sat there, now and again throwing a freshlump of fuel on to the fire, which burnt up bravely, and then sank intoa great bed of red coals, which reflected themselves in the boy's eyesas he sat there brooding, brooding, brooding. At last, when the fire wasblazing at its brightest, he rose suddenly and walked slowly to a beamfrom which an ox riem hung. Loosening it, he ran a noose in one end andthen doubled it round his arm.
"Mine, mine! I have a right," he muttered; and then something louder,"if I fall and am killed, so much the better!"
He opened the door and went out into the starlight.
He walked with his eyes bent upon the ground, but overhead it was one ofthose brilliant southern nights when every space so small that your handmight cover it shows fifty cold white points, and the Milky-Way is abelt of sharp frosted silver. He passed the door where Bonaparte laydreaming of Trana and her wealth, and he mounted the ladder steps. Fromthose he clambered with some difficulty on to the roof of the house. Itwas of old rotten thatch with a ridge of white plaster, and it crumbledaway under his feet at every step. He trod as heavily as he could. Somuch the better if he fell.
He knelt down when he got to the far gable, and began to fasten his riemto the crumbling bricks. Below was the little window of the loft. Withone end of the riem tied round the gable, the other end round his waist,how easy to slide down to it, and to open it, through one of the brokenpanes, and to go in, and to fill his arms with books, and to clamber upagain! They had burnt one book--he would have twenty. Every man's handwas against his--his should be against every man's. No one would helphim--he would help himself.
He lifted the black damp hair from his knit forehead, and looked roundto cool his hot face. Then he saw what a regal night it was. He kneltsilently and looked up. A thousand eyes were looking down at him, brightand so cold. There was a laughing irony in them.
"So hot, so bitter, so angry? Poor little mortal?"
He was ashamed. He folded his arms, and sat on the ridge of the rooflooking up at them.
"So hot, so bitter, so angry?"
It was as though a cold hand had been laid upon his throbbing forehead,and slowly they began to fade and grow dim. Tant Sannie and the burntbook, Bonaparte and the broken machine, the box in the loft, he himselfsit
"So hot, so angry, poor little soul?" they said.
The riem slipped from his fingers; he sat with his arms folded, lookingup.
"We," said the stars, "have seen the earth when it was young. We haveseen small things creep out upon its surface--small things that prayedand loved and cried very loudly, and then crept under it again. But we,"said the stars, "are as old as the Unknown."
He leaned his chin against the palm of his hand and looked up at them.So long he sat there that bright stars set and new ones rose, and yet hesat on.
Then at last he stood up, and began to loosen the riem from the gable.
What did it matter about the books? The lust and the desire for them haddied out. If they pleased to keep them from him they might. What matter?it was a very little thing. Why hate, and struggle, and fight? Let it beas it would.
He twisted the riem round his arm and walked back along the ridge of thehouse.
By this time Bonaparte Blenkins had finished his dream of Trana, and ashe turned himself round for a fresh doze he heard the steps descendingthe ladder. His first impulse was to draw the blanket over his head andhis legs under him, and to shout; but recollecting that the door waslocked and the window carefully bolted, he allowed his head slowly tocrop out among the blankets, and listened intently. Whosoever it mightbe, there was no danger of their getting at him; so he clambered out ofbed, and going on tiptoe to the door, applied his eye to the keyhole.There was nothing to be seen; so walking to the window, he brought hisface as close to the glass as his nose would allow. There was a figurejust discernible. The lad was not trying to walk softly, and the heavyshuffling of the well-known velschoens could be clearly heard throughthe closed window as they crossed the stones in the yard. Bonapartelistened till they had died away round the corner of the wagon-house;and, feeling that his bare legs were getting cold, he jumped back intobed again.
*****
"What do you keep up in your loft?" inquired Bonaparte of the Boer-womanthe next evening, pointing upwards and elucidating his meaning by theaddition of such Dutch words as he knew, for the lean Hottentot was gonehome.
"Dried skins," said the Boer-woman, "and empty bottles, and boxes, andsacks, and soap."
"You don't keep any of your provisions there--sugar, now?" saidBonaparte, pointing to the sugar-basin and then up at the loft.
Tant Sannie shook her head.
"Only salt, and dried peaches."
"Dried peaches! Eh?" said Bonaparte. "Shut the door, my dear child, shutit tight," he called out to Em, who stood in the dining room. Thenhe leaned over the elbow of the sofa and brought his face as close aspossible to the Boer-woman's, and made signs of eating. Then he saidsomething she did not comprehend; then said, "Waldo, Waldo, Waldo,"pointed up to the loft, and made signs of eating again.
Now an inkling of his meaning dawned on the Boer-woman's mind. To makeit clearer, he moved his legs after the manner of one going up a ladder,appeared to be opening a door, masticated vigorously, said, "Peaches,peaches, peaches," and appeared to be coming down the ladder.
It was now evident to Tant Sannie that Waldo had been in her loft andeaten her peaches.
To exemplify his own share in the proceedings, Bonaparte lay down on thesofa, and shutting his eyes tightly, said, "Night, night, night!" Thenhe sat up wildly, appearing to be intently listening, mimicked with hisfeet the coming down a ladder, and looked at Tant Sannie. This clearlyshowed how, roused in the night, he had discovered the theft.
"He must have been a great fool to eat my peaches," said Tant Sannie."They are full of mites as a sheepskin, and as hard as stones."
Bonaparte, fumbling in his pocket, did not even hear her remark, andtook out from his coat-tail a little horsewhip, nicely rolled up.Bonaparte winked at the little rhinoceros horsewhip, at the Boer-woman,and then at the door.
"Shall we call him--Waldo, Waldo?" he said.
Tant Sannie nodded, and giggled. There was something so exceedinglyhumorous in the idea that he was going to beat the boy, though for herown part she did not see that the peaches were worth it. When the Kaffermaid came with the wash-tub she was sent to summon Waldo; and Bonapartedoubled up the little whip and put it in his pocket. Then he drewhimself up, and prepared to act his important part with becominggravity. Soon Waldo stood in the door, and took off his hat.
"Come in, come in, my lad," said Bonaparte, "and shut the door behind."
The boy came in and stood before them.
"You need not be so afraid, child," said Tant Sannie. "I was a childmyself once. It's no great harm if you have taken a few."
Bonaparte perceived that her remark was not in keeping with the natureof the proceedings, and of the little drama he intended to act. Pursingout his lips, and waving his hand, he solemnly addressed the boy.
"Waldo, it grieves me beyond expression to have to summon you for sopainful a purpose; but it is at the imperative call of duty, which Idare not evade. I do not state that frank and unreserved confession willobviate the necessity of chastisement, which if requisite shall be fullyadministered; but the nature of that chastisement may be mitigatedby free and humble confession. Waldo, answer me as you would your ownfather, in whose place I now stand to you; have you, or have you not,did you, or did you not, eat of the peaches in the loft?"
"Say you took them, boy, say you took them, then he won't beat youmuch," said the Dutchwoman, good-naturedly, getting a little sorry forhim.
The boy raised his eyes slowly and fixed them vacantly upon her, thensuddenly his face grew dark with blood.
"So, you haven't got anything to say to us, my lad?" said Bonaparte,momentarily forgetting his dignity, and bending forward with a littlesnarl. "But what I mean is just this, my lad--when it takes a boythree-quarters of an hour to fill a salt-pot, and when at three o'clockin the morning he goes knocking about the doors of a loft, it's naturalto suppose there's mischief in it. It's certain there is mischief in it;and where there's mischief in, it must be taken out," said Bonaparte,grinning into the boy's face. Then, feeling that he had fallen from thathigh gravity which was as spice to the pudding, and the flavour of thewhole little tragedy, he drew himself up. "Waldo," he said, "confess tome instantly, and without reserve, that you ate the peaches."
The boy's face was white now. His eyes were on the ground, his handsdoggedly clasped before him.
"What, do you not intend to answer?"
The boy looked up at them once from under his bent eyebrows, and thenlooked down again.
"The creature looks as if all the devils in hell were in it," cried TantSannie. "Say you took them, boy. Young things will be young things; Iwas older than you when I used to eat bultong in my mother's loft, andget the little niggers whipped for it. Say you took them."
But the boy said nothing.
"I think a little solitary confinement might perhaps be beneficial,"said Bonaparte. "It will enable you, Waldo, to reflect on the enormityof the sin you have committed against our Father in heaven. And you mayalso think of the submission you owe to those who are older and wiserthan you are, and whose duty it is to check and correct you."
Saying this, Bonaparte stood up and took down the key of the fuel-house,which hung on a nail against the wall.
"Walk on, my boy," said Bonaparte, pointing to the door; and as hefollowed him out he drew his mouth expressively on one side, and madethe lash of the little horsewhip stick out of his pocket and shake upand down.
Tant Sannie felt half sorry for the lad; but she could not helplaughing, it was always so funny when one was going to have a whipping,and it would do him good. Anyhow, he would forget all about it when theplaces were healed. Had not she been beaten many times and been all thebetter for it?
Bonaparte took up a lighted candle that had been left burnin
"Walk in, my lad," he said.
Waldo obeyed sullenly; one place to him was much the same as another. Hehad no objection to being locked up.
Bonaparte followed him in, and closed the door carefully. He put thelight down on the heap of dung in the corner, and quietly introduced hishand under his coat-tails, and drew slowly from his pocket the end of arope, which he concealed behind him.
"I'm very sorry, exceedingly sorry, Waldo, my lad, that you should haveacted in this manner. It grieves me," said Bonaparte.
He moved round toward the boy's back. He hardly liked the look in thefellow's eyes, though he stood there motionless. If he should spring onhim!
So he drew the rope out very carefully, and shifted round to the woodenpost. There was a slipknot in one end of the rope, and a sudden movementdrew the boy's hands to his back and passed it round them. It was aninstant's work to drag it twice round the wooden post: then Bonapartewas safe.
For a moment the boy struggled to free himself; then he knew that he waspowerless, and stood still.
"Horses that kick must have their legs tied," said Bonaparte, as hepassed the other end of the rope round the boy's knees. "And now, mydear Waldo," taking the whip out of his pocket, "I am going to beatyou."
He paused for a moment. It was perfectly quiet; they could hear eachother's breath.
"'Chasten thy son while there is hope,'" said Bonaparte, "'and let notthy soul spare for his crying.' Those are God's words. I shall act as afather to you, Waldo. I think we had better have your naked back."
He took out his penknife, and slit the shirt down from the shoulder tothe waist.
"Now," said Bonaparte, "I hope the Lord will bless and sanctify to youwhat I am going to do to you."
The first cut ran from the shoulder across the middle of the back; thesecond fell exactly in the same place. A shudder passed through theboy's frame.
"Nice, eh?" said Bonaparte, peeping round into his face, speaking with alisp, as though to a very little child. "Nith, eh?"
But the eyes were black and lustreless, and seemed not to see him. Whenhe had given sixteen Bonaparte paused in his work to wipe a little dropof blood from his whip.
"Cold, eh? What makes you shiver so? Perhaps you would like to pull upyour shirt? But I've not quite done yet."
When he had finished he wiped the whip again, and put it back in hispocket. He cut the rope through with his penknife, and then took up thelight.
"You don't seem to have found your tongue yet. Forgotten how to cry?"said Bonaparte, patting him on the cheek.
The boy looked up at him--not sullenly, not angrily. There was a wild,fitful terror in the eyes. Bonaparte made haste to go out and shut thedoor, and leave him alone in the darkness. He himself was afraid of thatlook.
*****
It was almost morning. Waldo lay with his face upon the ground at thefoot of the fuel-heap. There was a round hole near the top of the door,where a knot of wood had fallen out, and a stream of grey light came inthrough it.
Ah, it was going to end at last. Nothing lasts forever, not even thenight. How was it he had never thought of that before? For in all thatlong dark night he had been very strong, had never been tired, neverfelt pain, had run on and on, up and down, up and down; he had notdared to stand still, and he had not known it would end. He had been sostrong, that when he struck his head with all his force upon the stonewall it did not stun him nor pain him--only made him laugh. That was adreadful night.
When he clasped his hands frantically and prayed--"O God, my beautifulGod, my sweet God, once, only once, let me feel you near me tonight!"he could not feel him. He prayed aloud, very loud, and he got no answer;when he listened it was all quite quiet--like when the priests of Baalcried aloud to their god--"Oh, Baal, hear us! Oh, Baal, hear us! ButBaal was gone a-hunting."
That was a long wild night, and wild thoughts came and went in it; butthey left their marks behind them forever: for, as years cannot passwithout leaving their traces behind them, neither can nights into whichare forced the thoughts and sufferings of years. And now the dawn wascoming, and at last he was very tired. He shivered and tried to draw theshirt up over his shoulders. They were getting stiff. He had never knownthey were cut in the night. He looked up at the white light that camein through the hole at the top of the door and shuddered. Then he turnedhis face back to the ground and slept again.
Some hours later Bonaparte came toward the fuel-house with a lump ofbread in his hand. He opened the door and peered in; then entered,and touched the fellow with his boot. Seeing that he breathed heavily,though he did not rouse, Bonaparte threw the bread down on the ground.He was alive, that was one thing. He bent over him, and carefullyscratched open one of the cuts with the nail of his forefinger,examining with much interest his last night's work. He would have tocount his sheep himself that day; the boy was literally cut up. Helocked the door and went away again.
"Oh, Lyndall," said Em, entering the dining room, and bathed in tears,that afternoon, "I have been begging Bonaparte to let him out, and hewon't."
"The more you beg the more he will not," said Lyndall.
She was cutting out aprons on the table.
"Oh, but it's late, and I think they want to kill him," said Em, weepingbitterly; and finding that no more consolation was to be gained from hercousin, she went off blubbering--"I wonder you can cut out aprons whenWaldo is shut up like that."
For ten minutes after she was gone Lyndall worked on quietly; then shefolded up her stuff, rolled it tightly together, and stood before theclosed door of the sitting room with her hands closely clasped. A flushrose to her face: she opened the door quickly, and walked in, went tothe nail on which the key of the fuel-room hung. Bonaparte and TantSannie sat there and saw her.
"What do you want?" they asked together.
"This key," she said, holding it up, and looking at them.
"Do you mean her to have it?" said Tant Sannie in Dutch.
"Why don't you stop her?" asked Bonaparte in English.
"Why don't you take it from her?" said Tant Sannie.
So they looked at each other, talking, while Lyndall walked to thefuel-house with the key, her underlip bitten in.
"Waldo," she said, as she helped him to stand up, and twisted his armabout her waist to support him, "we will not be children always; weshall have the power, too, some day." She kissed his naked shoulder withher soft little mouth. It was all the comfort her young soul could givehim.