Chapter One.

Home, Sweet Home.

“Hi! Val! Come, quick!”

“What’s the matter?” I said excitedly, for my brother Bob came tearing down to the enclosure, sending the long-legged young ostriches scampering away towards the other side; and I knew directly that something unusual must be on the way, or, after the warnings he had received about not startling the wild young coveys, he would not have dashed up like that.

“I dunno. Father sent me to fetch you while he got the guns ready. He said something about mounted men on the other side of the kopje, so it can’t be Kaffirs. I say, do back me up, Val, and get father to let me have a gun.”

“Ugh! you bloodthirsty young wretch!” I cried as I started with him for our place, now partly hidden by the orchard—apple and pear trees—I had helped to plant seven years before, when father really pitched his tent by the kopje, and he, Bob—a little, round-headed tot of a fellow then—Aunt Jenny, and I lived in the canvas construction till we had built a house of stone.

The orchard was planted long before the tent was given up—all trees that father had ordered to be sent to us from a famous nursery in Hertfordshire. How well I remember it all!—the arrival of the four big bundles wrapped in matting, and tied behind a great Cape wagon drawn by twenty oxen, whose foreloper was a big, shiny black fellow, who wore a tremendous straw hat, and seemed to think that was all he needed in the way of clothes, as it was big enough to keep off the sun (of which there was a great deal) and the rain (of which there was little). In fact, he wore scarcely anything else—only part of a very old pair of canvas trousers, which he made comfortable and according to his taste by cutting down at the top, so as to get rid of the waist, and tearing close in the fork till the legs were about three inches long.

I remember it all so well: seeing the foreloper come striding along by the foremost pair of oxen, holding one of them by its horn, and carrying a long, thin pole like a very big fishing-rod over his shoulder, for use instead of a whip to guide the oxen. Yes, I recollect it as if it were only yesterday. I looked at him, and he looked at me. My eyes were fixed upon those trousers; and I burst out, boy-like, into the heartiest fit of laughter I ever had. As I laughed his eyes opened wider and wider, and the corners of his mouth began to creep back farther and farther till they nearly disappeared. Then, suddenly, his mouth flew open, showing a wonderfully white set of teeth, and he gave vent to “Yer-her! Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk! Yor-hor!” Then he helped to outspan the oxen, and I showed him and the man with the wagon where to find water. At every order I gave he opened his mouth and laughed at me; but he eagerly did all I bade, and followed me back to the wagon to help in unloading the bundles of trees, taking the greatest interest in everything, and lifting the boxes and packages of stores which had come with the trees, no matter what their weight, as if he enjoyed putting forth his tremendous strength.

“Well, Val,” said my father as he took out his big knife to cut the string, and then carefully unlaced it—for string was precious out in the desert—“I thought I’d chance a few; but it’s quite a spec, and I’m afraid they’ll be all dried up. However, we’ll try them; and now they are here we must get them in at once. Mind, I shall look to you to make them grow if they are still alive.”

“How am I to make them grow, father?” I said.

“With water, my boy. You must bring down buckets from the spring till we have time to dig a channel; and then they’ll shift for themselves. I hope they’ll grow, for it will be pleasant for you and Bob to sit under them sometimes and eat apples and pears such as your father used to have in his old orchard at home.”

“Yes, father,” I said; “and for you too.”

“Perhaps, my boy; perhaps,” he said, with a sigh. “We shall see.—Here, Jenny!”

My aunt was already at the door, in her print sun-bonnet, and looking very cross, I thought.

“Yes,” she said.

“Give these two men a good hearty meal; I dare say they’re pretty hungry.”

“It’s all ready, John,” she said.

“That’s right, my dear,” said my father; and then, as if to himself, “I might have known.” Turning to the short, thick-set Dutch Boer in charge of the wagon, father told him to go to the big wagon-sheet supported on poles, which we used for a dining-room, and then clapped the big black on the shoulder, bidding him go too.

“Get two spades, Val,” he said as soon as the men were gone; “and you, Bob, come off that bundle of trees. It wasn’t sent all these thousands of miles by ship and wagon to make you a horse.”

I fetched the spades while my father went on unpacking the little trees, Bob being set to help by unlacing the string from the pleasant-smelling Russian mats. Before the new arrivals were cast loose, the big black, with a tremendous sandwich of bread and bacon, had joined us, and showed at once that he meant to help. After taking a big bite, he put his sandwich down while he carried trees to the places where they were to be planted, and after putting them down, returned for another bite, giving me a grin every time.

Then the spades were taken up; and by that time the Boer had eaten and drunk as much as he could, and gone to sit on the big chest in front of the wagon, where he filled his pipe and began to smoke, never offering to help, but watching us with his eyes half-closed.

“Here, steady, nigger!” said my father, smiling; “we’re not going to bury bullocks. Little holes like this just where I put in these pegs.—You keep him in hand, Val. I never saw such a strong fellow before.”

The great black fellow grinned and dug away, making the rich and soft dry earth fly as he turned it out; while he laughed with delight every time I checked him, and followed me to another place.

By that time he had finished his sandwich, and a thought occurred to me.

“Here, Bob,” I said; “put down those pegs”—for he was marching about with us, looking very serious, with the bundle of pegs under his arm. “Go and ask Aunt Jenny to cut another big bit of bread and a very large slice of bacon, and bring ’em here.”

Bob ran off, and the big black looked at me, threw back his head, and laughed, and laughed again, as he drove the spade deeply into the rich loamy soil; and when the bread and bacon came he laughed, and bit with those great white teeth of his, and munched and chewed like the lying-down oxen, and dug and dug, till my father said, “No more to-night,” and bade me carry in the spades.

That night, before going to bed, tired, but happy with the thoughts of our orchard to come, I walked with father beneath the great stars, going round the place—father with his rifle over his shoulder—to see if all was safe.

We went straight to the wagon, to find the oxen all lying down chewing their cud, and from under the tilt there came a deep, heavy snore; but there was also a rustling sound, a big black head popped out, and the man said, in a deep, thick voice:

“Boss, hear lion?”

“No,” said my father sharply. “Did you, boy?”

“Iss. Oom! Wawk, wawk, wawk. Boss, lissum.”

We stood there in the silence, and for a full minute I could hear nothing but the deep snore of the Boer and chewing of the oxen. Then, distinctly heard, but evidently at a great distance, there was the tremendous barking roar of a lion, and my father uttered a deep “Ha!”

“Boss shoot lion,” said the black in a quiet, contented way; and from out of the darkness beneath the great wagon came the sound of the foreloper settling himself down once more to sleep. I remember wondering whether he had anything to cover himself, for the night was fresh and cold. I asked my father.

“Yes; I saw him with a sheepskin over his shoulders. He won’t hurt.”

We were interrupted by no lion that night, and at the first dawn of day we were out with the spades again; our black visitor, under my direction, digging the holes for the trees, while father planted, and Bob held the stems straight upright till their roots were all nicely spread out, and soil carefully placed amongst them, and trampled firmly in.

This went on till breakfast-time, when Aunt Jenny called us, and the Dutchman came and sat with us, while the great Kaffir carried his portion away, and sat under the wagon to munch.

After the meal the Boer lit his pipe, sat down on a piece of rock, and smoked and looked on till midday, by which time the fruit-trees were all planted, and the big Kaffir had trotted to and fro with a couple of buckets, bringing water to fill up the saucer-like depressions placed about each tree. Then Aunt Jenny called us to dinner, and after that the Boer said it was time to inspan and begin the journey back.

Oh, how well I remember it all!—seeing my father opening a wash-leather bag and paying the Boer the sum that had been agreed upon, and that he wasn’t satisfied, but asked for another dollar for the work done by his man. Then father laughed and said he ought to charge for the meals that had been eaten; but he gave the Boer the money all the same; and Aunt Jenny uttered a deep grunt, and said afterwards in her old-fashioned way, “Oh John, what a foolish boy you are!” Then he kissed her and said, “Yes, Jen. I always was. You didn’t half-teach me when I was young.”

This was after we had watched the wagon grow smaller and smaller in the distance on its way back, and after the great black had stood and looked down at me and laughed in his big, noisy way.

Then once more we were alone in the great desert, father looking proudly down at his little orchard, and Bob walking up and down touching every tree, and counting them over again.

“Begins to look homely now, Val,” he said; “but we must work, boy—work.”

We did work hard to make that place the home it grew to.

“It’s for you, boys,” he said, “when I’m dead and gone;” and it was about that time I began to think and understand more fully how father was doing it all for the sake of us boys, and to try and ease his heart-ache. Aunt Jenny set me thinking by her words, and at last I fully grasped how it all was.

“I believe he’d have died broken-hearted, Val,” she said to me, “if I hadn’t come to him. It was after your poor dear mother passed away. I told him he was not acting like a man and a father to give up like that, and it roused him; and one day—you remember, it was when I had come to keep house for him—he turned to me and said, ‘I shall never be happy in England again; and I’ve been thinking it would be a good thing to take those boys out to the Cape and settle there. They’ll grow up well and strong in the new land, and I shall try to make a home for them yonder.’ ‘Yes, John,’ I said, ‘that’s the very thing you ought to do.’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but it means leaving you behind, Jenny, dear, and you’ll perhaps never set eyes upon them again.’ ‘Oh, yes, I shall, John,’ I said, ‘for I’ve come to stay.’ ‘What!’ he cried; ‘would you go with us, sis?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘to the very end of the world.’ So we came here, Val, where there’s plenty of room, and no neighbours to find fault with our ways.”

That’s how it was; and now I can admire and think of how Aunt Jenny, the prim maiden lady, gave up all her own old ways to set to and work and drudge for us all, living in a wagon and then in a tent, and smiling pleasantly at the trees we planted, and bringing us lunch where we were working away, dragging down stones for the house which progressed so slowly, though father’s ideas wore modest.

“For,” said he, “we’ll build one big stone room, Val, and make it into two with part of the tent. Then by-and-by we’ll build another room against it, and then another and another till we get it into a house.”

Yes, it was hard work getting the stones, and we were busy enough one day in the hot sunshine, about a month after the wagon had been with the trees and stores, when Bob suddenly stood shading his eyes, and cried:

“Some one’s coming!”

We looked up, and there, far in the distance, I saw a black figure striding along under a great, broad matting-hat.

“Why, it looks like that great Kaffir, father,” I said.

“Nonsense, boy,” he replied; “the Kaffirs all look alike at a distance.”

“But it is, father,” I cried excitedly. “Look; he’s waving his big hat because he sees us.” I waved mine in answer; and directly after he began to run, coming up laughing merrily, and ending by throwing down three assagais and the bundle he carried, as he cried:

“Come back, boss.”

We gave him something to eat, and the next minute he was lifting and carrying stones, working like a slave; and at night he told me in his way that he was going to stop along with old boss and young boss and little boss and old gal, and never go away no more.

Chapter Two.

Our Ugly Visitor.

The black fellow’s arrival at such a time was most welcome; but my father put no faith in his declaration.

“They’re all alike, Val,” he said. “He’s a quick worker, and as willing and good-tempered as a man can be; but he’ll only stay with us till he has earned wages enough to buy himself some bright-coloured blankets and handkerchiefs, and then he’ll be off back to his tribe.”

“Think so, father?” I said. “He seems to like us all here. He says it’s better than being with the Boers. He always says he means to stay.”

“He does mean it, of course,” said my father; “but these black fellows are like big children, and are easily led away by some new attraction. We shall wake up some morning and find him gone.”

But seven years glided away, during which apprenticeshiplike time Joeboy, as we called him—for he would not be content with Joe when he had heard the “boy” after it once or twice, “Joeboy” quite taking his fancy—worked for us constantly, and became the most useful of fellows upon our farm, ready to do anything and do it well, as his strength became tempered with education. In fact, it grew to be a favourite saying with my father, “I don’t know what we should have done without Joeboy.”

One of the first persons I saw that morning, when I trotted towards the house after being called by my brother, was the great black hurrying out to meet us; and as we got closer it was to see his face puckered up and his eyes flashing, as he said to me hoarsely:

“Won’t go, Boss Val; won’t go. You tell the Boss I’ve run up into the hills. Won’t go.”

“Here, what do you mean?” I said.

“Boss Boers come to fetch up go and fight. Won’t go.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “I dare say they’ve only come to buy bullocks.”

“No,” said the black, shaking his head fiercely. “Come to fetch Joeboy.”

“Here, don’t run away.”

“On’y go up in kopje,” he said. “Hide dar.”

He rushed away, and I was sure I knew where he would hide himself. Then I walked on with my brother, to find my father and Aunt Jenny by the door.

“What’s it all about, father?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet, my boy; but we soon shall. There’s about a score of the Boers, well mounted and armed. Yonder they are, coming at a walk. There were only twelve; but another party have caught up to them, and maybe there are more.”

“Joeboy has run off in a fright,” I said. “He thinks they’ve come to fetch him.”

“Oh no; it isn’t that, my boy,” said my father. “I fear it’s something worse.”

“What?” I said wonderingly.

Chapter Three.

My First Real Trouble.

Before my father could reply a body of horsemen cantered up, every man well mounted, rifle in hand, and carrying a cross-belt over his left shoulder fitted with cartridges, bandolier fashion. Their leader, a big, heavily-bearded, fierce-looking fellow, dropped from his saddle, threw the rein to one of his companions, and then swaggered up to us, scanning us with his eyes half-closed, and with a haughty, contemptuous expression in his countenance.

“Ye’re John Moray, I suppose?” he said, turning to my father, after looking me up and down in a way I, a hot-blooded and independent lad of eighteen, did not at all like.

“Yes,” said my father quietly, “I’m John Moray. Do you want some refreshment for your men and horses?”

“Yes, of course,” said our visitor; and I wondered why such a big-bearded, broad-shouldered fellow should speak in so high-pitched a tone. That he was Irish he proved directly; but that excited no surprise, for we were accustomed to offer hospitality to men of various nationalities from time to time—Scots, Finns, Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians—trekking up-country in search of a place to settle on.

“Will you dismount and tie up, then?” said my father; “and we’ll see what we can do.—Val, my lad, you will see to the horses having a feed?”

“Yes, father,” was on my lips, when the Irish leader turned upon me sharply with:

“Oh, ye’re Val—are ye?”

“Yes,” I said, rather sharply, for the man’s aggressive manner nettled me; “my name is Valentine.”

“And is it, now?” he said, with a mocking laugh. “Ye’re a penny plain and tuppence coloured, I suppose? Coloured, bedad! Look at his face!”

“I don’t see the joke,” I said sharply.

“Don’t ye, now? Then ye soon will, my fine chap. Let’s see, now; how old are ye?”

I made no reply, and my father replied gravely:

“My son is eighteen.”

“Is he, now? And ye’re forty, I suppose?”

“I am sorry to say I am over fifty,” replied my father, as I stood chafing at the man’s insolent, bullying tone.

“Then ye don’t look it, sor. But there, we’ll leave ye alone for a bit. I dare say we can do without ye this time, and take the bhoy.”

“What for—where?” said my father quickly.

“What for—where?” cried the man. “For the commando, of course.”

“The commando?” said my father, while I felt staggered, only half-grasping the import of his words.

“Yes, sor, the commando. D’ye suppose ye are to have the protection of the State, and do nothing again’ your counthry’s inimies? If ye do ye’re greatly mistaken. Every man must take his turn to difind the counthry, and ye may feel preciously contented that ye don’t have to join yerself.”

“But I have heard of no rising,” said my father, looking at me anxiously. “The blacks all about here are peaceable and friendly.”

“Not the blackest blacks, sor,” said the man, drawing himself up and raising one hand and his voice in an oratorical way; “the blacks I mane are white-skinned, but black in the heart through and through; the blacks who are the dispisers of progress, the foes of freedom, the inimies of the counthry, sor—the despicable, insolent Saxons.”

“Do you mean the English?” said my father coolly.

“I do that, sor,” said the man defiantly; “and the day has dawned at last when the down-thrampled Boers are goin’ to give them a lesson that shall make the British lion snaik out of this counthry with his tail between his legs like a beaten dog.”

“You are a British subject, sir,” said my father.

“Mahn, I scorrun it,” cried our visitor. “I have thrown off all fealty years ago, and am a free Irishman, and captain of the body of brave men who are going to dhrive the tyranny of England out of this colony for ever.”

“This is all news to me, sir,” said my father coldly.

“Is it, sor?” said our visitor mockingly. “Then I’m proud to be the bearer of the great news.”

“Do you mean to tell me, then,” said my father, “that there is war declared by England against the Boers?”

“No, sor,” cried the fellow insolently; “but I tell you that we have declared war again’ the brutal Saxon.”

“We, sir?” said my father gravely. “But you are one of the Queen’s servants—an Irishman.”