CHAPTER III
MR. FRANK MULLER
John Niel woke early the next morning, feeling as sore and stiff as
though he had been well beaten and then wrapped up tight in horse-
girths. He made shift, however, to dress himself, and then, with the
help of a stick, limped through the French windows that opened from
his room on to the verandah, and surveyed the scene before him. It was
a delightful spot. At the back of the stead was the steep boulder-
strewn face of the flat-topped hill that curved round on each side,
embosoming a great slope of green, in the lap of which the house was
placed. It was very solidly built of brown stone, and, with the
exception of the waggon-shed and other outbuildings which were roofed
with galvanised iron, that shone and glistened in the rays of the
morning sun in a way that would have made an eagle blink, was covered
with rich brown thatch. All along its front ran a wide verandah, up
the trellis-work of which green vines and blooming creepers trailed
pleasantly, and beyond was the broad carriage-drive of red soil,
bordered with bushy orange-trees laden with odorous flowers and green
and golden fruit. On the farther side of the orange-trees were the
gardens, fenced in with low walls of rough stone, and the orchard
planted with standard fruit-trees, and beyond these again the oxen and
ostrich kraals, the latter full of long-necked birds. To the right of
the house grew thriving plantations of blue-gum and black wattle, and
to the left was a broad stretch of cultivated lands, lying so that
they could be irrigated for winter crops by means of water led from
the great spring that gushed out of the mountain-side high above the
house, and gave its name of Mooifontein to the place.
All these and many more things John Niel saw as he looked out from the
verandah at Mooifontein, but for the moment at any rate they were lost
in the wild and wonderful beauty of the panorama that rolled away for
miles and miles at his feet, till it was bounded by the mighty range
of the Drakensberg to the left, tipped here and there with snow, and
by the dim and vast horizon of the swelling Transvaal plains to the
right and far in front of him. It was a beautiful sight, and one to
make the blood run in a man's veins, and his heart beat happily
because he was alive to see it. Mile upon mile of grass-clothed veldt
beneath, bending and rippling like a corn-field in the quick breath of
the morning, space upon space of deep-blue sky overhead with ne'er a
cloud to dim it, and the swift rush of the wind between. Then to the
left there, impressive to look on and conducive to solemn thoughts,
the mountains rear their crests against the sky, and, crowned with the
gathered snows of the centuries whose monuments they are, from aeon to
aeon gaze majestically out over the wide plains and the ephemeral ant-
like races who tread them, and while they endure think themselves the
masters of their little world. And over all--mountain, plain, and
flashing stream--the glorious light of the African sun and the Spirit
of Life moving now as it once moved upon the darkling waters.
John stood and gazed at the untamed beauty of the scene, in his mind
comparing it to many cultivated prospects which he had known, and
coming to the conclusion that, however desirable the presence of
civilised man might be in the world, it could not be said that his
operations really add to its beauty. For the old line, "Nature
unadorned adorned the most," still remains true in more senses than
one.
Presently his reflections were interrupted by the step of Silas Croft,
which, notwithstanding his age and bent frame, still rang firm enough
--and he turned to greet him.
"Well, Captain Niel," said the old man, "up already! It looks well if
you mean to take to farming. Yes, it's a pretty view, and a pretty
place too. Well, I made it. Twenty-five years ago I rode up here and
saw this spot. Look, you see that rock there behind the house? I slept
under it and woke at sunrise and looked out at this beautiful scene
and at the great veldt (it was all alive with game then), and I said
to myself, 'Silas, for five-and-twenty years have you wandered about
this great country, and now you are getting tired of it; you've never
seen a fairer spot than this or a healthier; be a wise man and stop
here.' And so I did. I bought the 3,000 /morgen/ (6,000 acres), more
or less, for 10 pounds down and a case of gin, and I set to work to
make this place, and you see I have made it. Ay, it has grown under my
hand, every stone and tree of it, and you know what that means in a
new country. But one way or another I have done it, and now I have
grown too old to manage it, and that's how I came to give out that I
wanted a partner, as Mr. Snow told you down in Durban. You see, I told
Snow it must be a gentleman; I don't care much about the money, I'll
take a thousand for a third share if I can get a gentleman--none of
your Boers or mean whites for me. I tell you I have had enough of
Boers and their ways; the best day of my life was when old Shepstone
ran up the Union Jack there in Pretoria and I could call myself an
Englishman once more. Lord! and to think that there are men who are
subjects of the Queen and want to be subjects of a Republic again--
Mad! Captain Niel, I tell you, quite mad! However, there's an end of
it all now. You know what Sir Garnet Wolseley told them in the name of
the Queen up at the Vaal River, that this country would remain English
until the sun stood still in the heavens and the waters of the Vaal
ran backwards.[*] That's good enough for me, for, as I tell these
grumbling fellows who want the land back now that we have paid their
debts and defeated their enemies, no English government is false to
its word, or breaks engagements solemnly entered into by its
representatives. We leave that sort of thing to foreigners. No, no,
Captain Niel, I would not ask you to take a share in this place if I
wasn't sure that it would remain under the British flag. But we will
talk of all this another time, and now come in to breakfast."
[*] A fact.--Author.
After breakfast, as John was far too lame to walk about the farm, the
fair Bessie suggested that he should come and help her to wash a batch
of ostrich feathers, and, accordingly, off he went. The /locus
operandi/ was in a space of lawn at the rear of a little clump of
/naatche/ orange-trees, of which the fruit is like that of the Maltese
orange, only larger. Here were placed an ordinary washing-tub half-
filled with warm water, and a tin bath full of cold. The ostrich
feathers, many of which were completely coated with red dirt, were
plunged first into the tub of warm water, where John Niel scrubbed
them with soap, and then transferred to the tin bath, where Bessie
rinsed them and laid them on a sheet in the sun to dry. The morning
was very pleasant, and John soon came to the conclusion that there are
many more disagreeable occupations in the world than the washing of
ostrich feathers with a lovely girl to help you. For there was no
doubt but that Bessie was lovely, looking a very type of happy,
healthy womanhood as she sat opposite to him on the little stool, her
sleeves rolled up almost to the shoulder, showing a pair of arms that
would not have disgraced a statue of Venus, and laughed and chatted
away as she washed the feathers. Now, John Niel was not a susceptible
man: he had gone through the fire years before and burnt his fingers
like many another confiding youngster but, all the same, he did wonder
as he knelt there and watched this fair girl, who somehow reminded him
of a rich rosebud bursting into bloom, how long it would be possible
to live in the same house with her without falling under the spell of
her charm and beauty. Then he began to think of Jess, and of what a
strange contrast the two were.
"Where is your sister?" he asked presently.
"Jess? Oh, I think that she has gone to the Lion Kloof, reading or
sketching, I don't know which. You see in this establishment I
represent labour and Jess represents intellect," and she nodded her
head prettily at him, and added, "There is a mistake somewhere, she
got all the brains."
"Ah," said John quietly, and looking up at her, "I don't think that
you are entitled to complain of the way in which Nature has treated
you."
She blushed a little, more at the tone of his voice than the words,
and went on hastily, "Jess is the dearest, best, and cleverest woman
in the whole world--there. I believe that she has only one fault, and
it is that she thinks too much about me. Uncle said that he had told
you how we came here first when I was eight years old. Well, I
remember that when we lost our way on the veldt that night, and it
rained so and was so cold, Jess took off her own shawl and wrapped it
round me over my own. Well, it has been just like that with her
always. I am always to have the shawl--everything is to give way to
me. But there, that is Jess all over; she is very cold, cold as a
stone I sometimes think, but when she does care for anybody it is
enough to frighten one. I don't know a great number of women, but
somehow I do not think that there can be many in the world like Jess.
She is too good for this place; she ought to go away to England and
write books and become a famous woman, only----" she added
reflectively, "I am afraid that Jess's books would all be sad ones."
Just then Bessie stopped talking and suddenly changed colour, the
bunch of lank wet feathers she held in her hand dropping from it with
a little splash back into the bath. Following her glance, John looked
down the avenue of blue-gum trees and perceived a big man with a broad
hat and mounted on a splendid black horse, cantering leisurely towards
the house.
"Who is that, Miss Croft?" he asked.
"It is a man I don't like," she said with a little stamp of her foot.
"His name is Frank Muller, and he is half a Boer and half an
Englishman. He is very rich, and very clever, and owns all the land
round this place, so uncle has to be civil to him, though he does not
like him either. I wonder what he wants now."
On came the horse, and John thought that its rider was going to pass
without seeing them, when suddenly the movement of Bessie's dress
between the /naatche/ trees caught his eye, and he pulled up and
looked round. He was a large and exceedingly handsome man, apparently
about forty years old, with clear-cut features, cold, light-blue eyes,
and a remarkable golden beard that hung down over his chest. For a
Boer he was rather smartly dressed in English-made tweed clothes, and
tall riding-boots.
"Ah, Miss Bessie," he called out in English, "there you are, with your
pretty arms all bare. I'm in luck to be just in time to see them.
Shall I come and help you to wash the feathers? Only say the word,
now----"
Just then he caught sight of John Niel, checked himself, and added:
"I have come to look for a black ox, branded with a heart and a 'W'
inside of the heart. Do you know if your uncle has seen it on the
place anywhere?"
"No, /Meinheer/ Muller," replied Bessie, coldly, "but he is down
there," pointing at a kraal on the plain some half-mile away, "if you
want to go and ask about it."
"/Mr./ Muller," said he, by way of correction, and with a curious
contraction of the brow. "'/Meinheer/' is very well for the Boers, but
we are all Englishmen now. Well, the ox can wait. With your
permission, I'll stop here till /Oom/ Croft (Uncle Croft) comes back,"
and, without further ado, he jumped off his horse and, slipping the
reins over its head as an indication to it to stand still, advanced
towards Bessie with an outstretched hand. As he came the young lady
plunged both her arms up to the elbow in the bath, and it struck John,
who was observing the scene closely, that she did this in order to
avoid the necessity of shaking hands with her stalwart visitor.
"Sorry my hands are wet," she said, giving him a cold little nod. "Let
me introduce you, Mr. (with emphasis) Frank Muller--Captain Niel--who
has come to help my uncle with the place."
John stretched out his hand and Muller shook it.
"Captain," he said interrogatively--"a ship captain, I suppose?"
"No," said John, "a Captain of the English Army."
"Oh, a /rooibaatje/ (red jacket). Well, I don't wonder at your taking
to farming after the Zulu war."
"I don't quite understand you," said John, rather coldly.
"Oh, no offence, Captain, no offence. I only meant that you
/rooibaatjes/ did not come very well out of that war. I was there with
Piet Uys, and it was a sight, I can tell you. A Zulu had only to show
himself at night and one would see your regiments /skreck/ (stampede)
like a span of oxen when they wind a lion. And then they'd fire--ah,
they did fire--anyhow, anywhere, but mostly at the clouds, there was
no stopping them; and so, you see, I thought that you would like to
turn your sword into a ploughshare, as the Bible says--but no offence,
I'm sure--no offence."
All this while John Niel, being English to his backbone, and
cherishing the reputation of his profession almost as dearly as his
own honour, was boiling with inward wrath, which was all the fiercer
because he knew there was some truth in the Boer's insults. He had the
sense, however, to keep his temper--outwardly, at any rate.
"I was not in the Zulu war, Mr. Muller," he said, and just then old
Silas Croft rode up, and the conversation dropped.
Mr. Frank Muller stopped to dinner and far on into the afternoon, for
his lost ox seemed to have entirely slipped his memory. There he sat
close to the fair Bessie, smoking and drinking gin-water, and talking
with great volubility in English sprinkled with Boer-Dutch terms that
John Niel did not understand, and gazing at the young lady in a manner
which John somehow found unpleasant. Of course it was no affair of
his, and he had no interest in the matter, but for all that he thought
this remarkable-looking Dutchman exceedingly disagreeable. At last,
indeed, he could bear it no longer, and hobbled out for a little walk
with Jess, who, in her abrupt way, offered to show him the garden.
"You don't like that man?" she said to him, as they went slowly down
the slope in front of the house.
"No; do you?"
"I think," replied Jess quietly, but with much emphasis, "that he is
the most odious man I ever saw--and the most curious." Then she
relapsed into silence, only broken now and again by an occasional
remark about the flowers and trees.
Half an hour afterwards, when they arrived again at the top of the
slope, Mr. Muller was just riding off down the avenue of blue gums. By
the verandah stood a Hottentot named Jantje, who had been holding the
Dutchman's horse. He was a curious, wizened-up little fellow, dressed
in rags, and with hair like the worn tags of a black woollen carpet.
His age might have been anything between twenty-five and sixty; it was
impossible to form any opinion on the point. Just now, however, his
yellow monkey face was convulsed with an expression of intense
malignity, and he was standing there in the sunshine cursing rapidly
beneath his breath in Dutch, and shaking his fist after the form of
the retreating Boer--a very epitome of impotent but overmastering
passion.
"What is he doing?" asked John.
Jess laughed, and answered, "Jantje does not like Frank Muller any
more than I do, but I don't know why. He will never tell me."
