Chapter Six.
Too General to be Specified.
When Susannah reached the camp with the afterglow of her lover’s kisses still upon her lips, she found that dinner was over. There was a new look upon her face and a light in her eye, which were not lost on any member of the family. She took a rusk from the cupboard and then went to the scherm for a cup of coffee which Katryn, the Hottentot servant-girl, had saved for her. Katryn had seen Max follow Susannah to the kopje, and, as she noticed the new look upon the girl’s face, had drawn her own conclusions. After pouring out the coffee she shot an extremely sly glance at Susannah’s face and then turned away, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
Old Schalk turned to his wife, who was sitting beside him in the mat-house, hemming an apron—
“Wife, did you see how strange she looked? I wonder what she and the Jew have been doing on the kopje?”
“Let us call her and ask. Susannah!”
“Yes, aunt.”
“Where have you been that you did not come to dinner?”
“At the koekerboom on the top of the kopje, aunt.”
“Who was with you?”
“Max, aunt.”
“What happened to make you look so strange?”
In the most self-possessed manner possible Susannah replied—
“He told me he loved me, and I promised to marry him.”
Old Schalk and his wife both gasped; then the old man broke out—
“You promised to marry him—a Jew—one of those who denied the Lord Jesus and crucified Him?”
“I am sure Max did not do that; for one thing, he was not born at the time.”
“Don’t tell me! If he did not do it himself his forefathers did, and the Lord laid a curse on the Jews.”
“Who ever heard of such a thing as marrying a Jew?” broke in Mrs Hattingh. “I am sure the minister would refuse you the sacrament if you were to do it.”
“I love him, and I will marry no one else,” replied Susannah composedly.
“It is not even as if he were rich,” continued Mrs Hattingh; “but he has nothing—he is only a servant. The shop belongs to his brother.”
Maria and Petronella, were just on the other side of the mat-house wall, listening to all that was said, and giggling and making signs to each other. Old Schalk bethought him of his overdue account at the shop, and wondered how this unexpected development would affect his relations with Nathan, with whom he could not afford to quarrel. But Max was often, as at present, in charge of the business; he also had to be considered. The old Boer came to the conclusion that his safest course was to ignore the whole affair, at all events for the present, until after Nathan’s return.
“The idea of her wanting to marry a little boy like that! A nice joke, indeed! When Nathan comes back he will soon put him right.”
“And to think of her looking at a fellow of his size when a fine man like Jan Roster, who has plenty of stock and a farm of his own, just wants but a little encouragement to make him have the banns put up for the next Nachtmaal.”
Susannah turned away indignantly and left the mat-house. Jan Roster was a young farmer who owned land on the opposite fringe on the Desert, many arid miles from Namies. His business, the peculiar methods of which will be explained later on, sometimes brought him to northern Bushmanland. Recently he had cast looks of tenderness at Susannah. This, however, was not much of a distinction; he was known to be very anxious indeed to get married—in fact, he had proposed to nearly every good-looking girl within two hundred miles of his farm. In spite of his flourishing circumstances, his bulky build, and his not specially ill-favoured appearance, no girl could ever be got to take him seriously. He had spent a few months at a college at Stellenbosch, and thus received what, by courtesy, was termed an education. Theology was his speciality, and could he have conveniently combined the ministry with farming as carried on upon his peculiar lines, he would undoubtedly have attempted to enter the Church. As things were, he was in the habit, when on his rounds, of preaching to the Trek-Boers and half-breeds. It was understood that he was ambitious of entering Parliament eventually, and that he looked upon sermons as a preparation for debating in the senate of his country.
“Is it true that you are going to marry the little Jew?” asked Maria, as Susannah left the mat-house.
Susannah passed on indignantly without deigning an answer. She was not going to stand having her lover referred to in such slighting terms.
It was past eight o’clock when the waning moon looked over the eastern rim of the Desert. Max was sitting on a packing-case outside the shop, trying to make up his mind as to whether he ought to walk over to the camp and see Susannah or not. His heart said “Go,” but his reason said “Stay.” He instinctively divined that there would be opposition to any connection between himself and Susannah on the part of the Hattinghs. He wondered whether Susannah had told about what had happened. It seemed to him impossible that such a thing could be kept concealed—the clucking lizards which came out of their sand-burrows after the sun had gone down, and the green pneumoras squeaking on the bushes, seemed to be discussing nothing else—to be proclaiming their opinion of the occurrence far and wide. When the moon arose Susannah happened to be watching it as well. Perhaps he saw her face reflected on the gleaming, pearly surface. Max arose from his seat and walked over to the Hattingh camp.
He went straight to Susannah and took her shyly outstretched hand. She returned his ardent pressure slightly, and a spasm of bliss went through him. Then he turned and greeted the others with nervous effusiveness, but his advances were very coolly received. No one volunteered a remark for some little time. The silence became oppressive; it was broken by Old Schalk, in evident pursuance of a conversation which Max’s visit had interrupted. He addressed the visitor—
“What is the real belief of the Jews and the Roman Catholics about Christ?”
“I—I don’t exactly know,” replied Max hesitatingly; “I was very young when I left home.”
“But you know well enough,” said Mrs Hattingh. “Jan Roster told us all about it in his last sermon: Pontius Pilate and the soldiers were Roman Catholics, and—and—”
“Well, wife, we are waiting.”
“Ach, Schalk, you heard the sermon as well as I. At all events the Jews and the Roman Catholics between them crucified the Lord.”
“I know that as well as you do, woman; but what I asked about was their belief. Oom Dantje van Rooyen says that he heard from the minister that the Jews and the Roman Catholics do not believe quite the same thing.”
“Oh! what should I know about that? But surely” (turning to Max) “you can tell us about your faith?”
Poor Max did not know what to say. Nathan had, over and over again, impressed upon him that, although there was certainly no truth in any religion whatever, he must be sure to keep all the Jewish feasts and observances—with the exception of fasts, which he was to pretend to keep—all the days of his life. He had heard other Jews discussing ritual and religion in the same strain. He wished heartily that he knew the details of Susannah’s faith, so that he might believe what she believed. He replied, lamely enough—
“You must ask my brother about these things.”
“Another thing I should like to know,” said Old Schalk; “that is, why they eat children in the synagogues?”
It was strange to hear this echo of one of the lying cries of the Judenhetze in this remote corner of an African Desert.
“You must wait and ask my brother,” repeated Max.
“Yes; they are a wicked lot in their religion,” continued Old Schalk. “Fancy a religion that forbids one to eat pork and teaches you to eat children—not their own children, oh no, but Christian children that they steal in the streets of the big towns, and then fatten up for the Passover!”
“But, uncle, I don’t think they do so any more,” said Susannah, moved by the pain in Max’s face. “It was long ago that they used to do that.”
“What does a girl like you know about such things? Did we not read about it in the book which Uncle Sarel lent us, and didn’t Jan Roster say it was quite true, and that they caught the Jews doing it in Russia the other day? Why, even Max cannot say it isn’t true.”
“I—I never heard of it,” faltered Max.
“Never heard of it?” said Mrs Hattingh in low but indignant tones. “What a dreadful thing to be so ignorant of one’s own religion!”
Max went home slightly consoled in his humiliation by another gentle pressure from the hand of Susannah at parting. But some of the bloom had already been rubbed off the blossom which had unfolded in such radiant fairness only a few hours before. He could see that Susannah’s secret had been surprised from her, and that opposition and danger loomed ahead. He anticipated that Nathan would make his life a burthen, would torture him with coarse allusions and unpleasant jokes. This he was prepared for, and the prospect was a sickening one. The future was heavily clouded, and behind the clouds visible he foreboded others. But “the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” His love was sure, and he knew it to be returned. Sleep knit up the ravelled fabric of his happiness, and memories of the new bliss he had tasted haunted his dreams.
The next morning brought trouble. Shortly after breakfast Max saw, to his dismay, three members of the Hattingh family labouring heavily across the sand towards the shop. Mrs Hattingh was in the centre—she leant heavily on the arms of her granddaughters. As the three entered the shop, the two girls looked at Max with an expression of indescribable slyness. Max groaned in spirit; Nathan had given him strict injunctions that on no account whatever were any members of the Hattingh family to get any more credit. He knew instinctively that this was what they had now come to ask for.
Mrs Hattingh sat down heavily upon a packing-case, panting from the exertions of her walk. Maria and Petronella lifted the flap of the counter quite unceremoniously and walked in. Then they began to pull down the goods from the shelves and examine them. Mrs Hattingh beckoned to Max to come to her. In a low tone and with meaning looks she told him that she wanted to buy some material for a dress for Susannah. Max knew this to be a lie, but he did not dare to show his knowledge. She eventually selected enough material for two dresses; but, from the number of yards ordered, Max could see that his attachment was being used for the purpose of providing the two large specimens of young womanhood present with frocks which they badly needed. Other articles were selected by the girls, who kept darting meaning looks at him and uttering whispered hints about their cousin. When they left, carrying several large parcels, the Hattingh account had been increased on the debit side by upwards of two pounds sterling, and the fact pressed like an indigestion upon the already laden breast of poor Max.
Within a few days the Trek-Boers began to flock into Namies. Pasturage was now plentiful, and the gregarious instinct, which is present to a certain extent even in a Trek-Boer, prompted them to draw together. A week after the rain there were fully a dozen camps grouped around that of Old Schalk.
A good deal of flirting of a sort went on among the young men and maidens. Music nightly startled the coneys until they scuttled away among the rocks of the kopje, for “Oom Schulpad” turned up from no one knew where with his old fiddle, and played reels and polkas which made the feet of the young people itch to be dancing.
Oom Schulpad was an elderly and deformed man who owned a disreputable-looking cart and three small donkeys, by means of which he used to make extremely long journeys through the Desert, which he knew as well as he knew his instrument. In many places where another would have died of thirst, Oom Schulpad could find water. Music and hunting were his two passions, and he loved his rifle as much as his fiddle. Sometimes he would penetrate deep into the dunes, and return with a load of gemsbok bultong. He was a thorough vagrant by disposition, and hardly ever settled down at one spot for more than a fortnight at a time. His music made him a persona grata at all the camps, so he simply passed from one to another—always a welcome guest.
Being very clever and versatile as a mechanic, he could mend harness, repair a gun, make veldschoens, or replace a broken spoke in the wheel of a wagon. His name, which means “Uncle Tortoise,” was given him on account of the shape of his back. He had a real talent as well as a passionate love for music. His tongue was an extremely bitter one, and he was accordingly feared by those whom he disliked. He had never married. He said that he hated women; nevertheless he was usually to be found, when not away hunting, in the company of young girls. These, as a rule, liked and trusted him.
It was with the advent of the Trek-Boers that the real troubles of poor Max began. The relations between himself and Susannah formed the standing joke at Namies for weeks. Every day the shop would be filled with idle young men and women whose only purpose was to joke at the expense of the unhappy lover. Many of these jokes were coarse, and made Max burn with shame. He often longed for muscle so that he might revenge his wrongs. Sometimes the supposed prospective domestic arrangements of the young couple with reference to the extremely limited accommodation at the back of the shop would be discussed in realistic and distressing detail. Attached to the shop was a little room about twelve feet square, which formed a lean-to. This, with the shop and a small room at the back which was used as a store for hides, formed the whole extent of the premises. The back room was occupied by the brothers jointly as a sleeping chamber. Their meals were cooked by a Hottentot boy behind a bush, and were eaten upon the counter.
Susannah also had her troubles, but she did not suffer nearly as much as Max, for she had an extremely bitter tongue, and in the game of chaff was more than a match for any one who attacked her.
These two thus underwent a discipline which stood them in good stead afterwards. In the course of a couple of weeks they became more or less callous, and were it not for the dread of Nathan’s return, which oppressed him like a nightmare, Max would have been happy enough. But Nathan was now a fortnight overdue, and was daily expected to arrive.
On the afternoon of the second Sunday after the meeting at the foot of the koekerboom on the top of the kopje, Max suddenly made up his mind and did what was for him a very heroic deed. He put on his best clothes, went boldly over to the Hattingh camp, at which there was a large miscellaneous gathering. He walked around the circle and shook hands with every one present. Then he took his seat next to Susannah, who blushed with pleasure at her lover’s daring. She had been rather hurt at the way in which he had kept aloof from her, and his vulnerability to the banter which she despised had annoyed her.
After a few minutes the company was electrified mildly by seeing these two walk off together. This time they did not make for the kopje, but strolled across the flats, where a few springbucks were playing about unconcernedly as though they knew it was Sunday.
Old Schalk snorted violently, and began to mutter questions at his wife. She—her conscience gripping her over the credit which, by virtue of her tacit approval of his addresses towards her niece she had induced Max to give—whispered audibly—
“Ach! what does it matter? Let the children alone.”
The conversation soon glided back to the channel in which it had been flowing when the interruption came. A certain stranger—a man who was travelling through Bushmanland for the purpose of buying cattle for the Cape Town market—was discussing astronomy with Old Schalk, who was a strong supporter of the geocentric theory. The cattle-dealer was not by any means well up in his subject; as a matter of fact, he was simply retailing certain notions which he had picked up in a crude state from a young relative of his who had been to a college, and which he had not been able properly to digest. Nevertheless he stoutly maintained his thesis.
“Ach! what?” said Old Schalk. “These star-peerers, what do they know? Are their eyes better than mine? Can they shoot springbucks better than I can? Don’t I see that the sun gets up every morning there” (he pointed to the east), “and don’t I see every evening that it goes down there?”
He shook the long stick towards the west, as though threatening an astronomer with the consequences of his folly.
“Ja, Oom; but you see it’s this way—”
“Ach! don’t tell me about your this way and that way. You find me a star-peerer who knows his Bible or has better eyes than I have, and I’ll listen to him. Doesn’t the Bible say that Joshua told the sun to stand still? Doesn’t the Prophet Isaiah say that the Lord stretched the sky over the earth like a tent? These star-peerers are all rogues and Romanist heathens.”
“But, Oom,” said the cattle-dealer, who was, as it were, blowing the fuse of a torpedo which he had in reserve, “how is it that these star-peerers are able to tell long before the times when the sun and the moon will be darkened?”
“How are they able to tell? Why, they find it out from the almanack, of course.” The only almanack with which the Trek-Boer is acquainted is one issued by the Dutch Reformed Church. This document is adorned with the Signs of the Zodiac, and is heavily garnished with Scripture texts. It is believed by certain classes of the Boers that the almanack is annually deduced from the Bible by a committee of Church ministers.
The cattle-dealer, blown up—to change the old metaphor—by his own torpedo, had to own himself vanquished. Old Schalk’s reputation for wisdom rose higher than ever, and a deadly blow was dealt to the heliocentric theory in Bushmanland.
The lovers strolled away over the sandy plain, which was now covered with a rich carpet of variously hued flowers. Gorgeous gazanias of the tint of the richest mahogany, and with the base of each petal eyed like a peacock’s tail; blue, sweet-scented heliophilas, purple and crimson mesembryanthemums, and lovely variegated pelargoniums brushed their feet at every step. They said little to one another, and that little could interest none but themselves. Both were ignorant and illiterate to a degree; their range of ideas was more limited than it is easy to describe, or even to realise; but their hearts were young and full of vague, sweet, unutterable thoughts. The springbucks—the advance detachment of a large “trek”—were scattered, singly or in small groups, over the illimitable plain. They sheered off, feeding tamely, to either side. The meerkats scuttled back to their low, burrow-pierced mounds, where they sat erect on a tripod, formed by hind legs and tail, ready to dart underground. The striped-faced gemsbuck-mice dashed wildly into their burrows in terror, and then out again in uncontrollable curiosity.
As they walked homeward in the short gloaming Max asked Susannah if she would always be true, even if her people were against him and his brother drove him away. The girl looked straight into his eyes and answered “Yes,” in a clear, low tone. Max, believing her, saw Hope shining through the clouds of uncertainty that filled the future, and was happy.
When they reached the camp the short Desert twilight had nearly faded and the eastern stars were burning brightly. The gathering had dispersed, and Old Schalk, sitting smoking in his chair before the mat-house, was the only person visible.
“Well,” he said, “what is this they tell me about you and my niece?”
“I want to marry her, Uncle; I am very fond of her.”
“Marry her? You will have to become a Christian before you marry my niece?”
This was meant sarcastically. No Boer believes in the possibility of a Jew becoming a Christian.
“Yes, Uncle, I’ll do that at once.”
“Hear him, now. He thinks a Jew can become a Christian as easily as a man can change his shirt. Did you ever hear of a jackal turning into a tame dog in a day?” Max flushed hotly but made no reply. “I never heard of such a thing in all my life,” continued the old Boer. “It is not even as if you were rich and had a shop of your own; but you are only a poor little boy without anything. Look here, I do not want your brother Nathan to think that I have had anything to do with this foolishness.”
Just then a diminutive Hottentot approached from behind the camp, saluted Old Schalk, and squatted down on the ground close by upon his hams. The man was clad in a few ragged skins and looked weak and emaciated.
“Well, schepsel, where do you come from?”
“Out of the veld, Baas.”
“And where are you going to?”
“I have come to the Baas.”
“For what?”
“I have come to the Baas to look for work.”
“Ja, and what is your name?”
“I am old Gert Gemsbok, Baas.”
“What! Are you the vagabond Bushman who got Willem Bester into the tronk?”
“I am he, Baas.”
“And you come to ask me to give you work?”
“I only told the truth, Baas.”
“Ach, what does a Bushman know about truth?”
“If I did a sin when I spoke the truth, Baas, I have had my punishment: for six long years I have lived like a badger in a hole. I am a human being, Baas; let me come back and live among other human beings.”
“No, no, schepsel; not a Boer in Bushmanland will give you work. Willem Bester died in the tronk. No, no!”
“I have a sickly old wife, Baas, and she cannot live any longer on the veld-kost. Give me work, Baas, and I will serve you faithfully.”
“No, no, schepsel; go back and live with the badgers.”
Max heard and wondered. His awakening soul was shocked at the unreasoning cruelty of the old Boer’s conduct. The Hottentot had arisen slowly and feebly from the ground and was walking away; the young Jew followed and soon overtook him. Max had been bartering fat-tailed sheep for goods with some of his customers and he wanted a herd. He told Gert Gemsbok to follow him to the shop.
That night the old Hottentot told his tale, or most of it, to Max. They sat up in the shop until late, Gemsbok happy in the enjoyment of a pipeful of good tobacco. He had lacked the means of smoking ever since he had been driven into banishment. The suffering which this deprivation must have entailed can only be realised by those who know the Hottentot’s dependence upon his pipe.
Max burned with wrath at what he heard; his ingenuous soul revolted at the tale of injustice and stupid cruelty. By instinct he could tell that the old man’s story was ingenuous and, so far as it went, unreserved. He called to mind that Old Schalk had not attempted to deny Gemsbok’s plea that the evidence given by him against Willem Bester was true.
Max engaged Gemsbok at a salary of eight shillings per month, with rations for himself. This was a fair rate of remuneration for Bushmanland. The work which the old Hottentot had to do was to look after the flock of three hundred fat-tailed sheep which Max had recently acquired, to herd them all day in the Desert, and to haul water for them with a derrick out of the well when he drove them home every night. Gemsbok knew that he could every day gather enough veld-kost to supplement his ration and make it suffice for his wife as well as for himself. He had left her under a bush a few miles away. Before daylight next morning he was well on his course to fetch her, with hope and gladness filling his heart.
The Gemsbok ménage was established in a cleft of the kopje-side about fifty yards behind the store. The habitation consisted of a movable screen of loose bushes about two feet high and shaped like a crescent. This was shifted from one side to another of the fireplace as the wind changed. A vagrant dog which Gert had found far out in the Desert, half-famished for want of water, was added to the strength of the establishment, and became the devoted slave of its rescuer.
The old couple now tasted happiness probably far greater than any they had previously experienced. Max was kind to them. Presents of old sacks and a few articles of cast-off clothing, fragments of food from his scanty table, an occasional pinch of tobacco,—such things filled the hearts of these belated creatures with deep joy and thankfulness. A pot of salve for the old woman’s legs was provided, and the result was satisfactory.
Max found Gert a most intelligent and entertaining companion, and mentally far in advance of any of the inhabitants of the Desert whom he had met. The old man’s experiences had been varied and his life full of the tragic, and he seemed not to have forgotten anything he had ever seen or heard in the course of his long struggles against adverse Fate.
The ramkee was much in evidence. Oom Schulpad, with a true artist’s generous appreciation of the art of a fellow craftsman, often brought his violin to the shop at night. There the two musicians would contend, like two troubadours, in a kind of tournament of song. Sometimes they would play duets, and it was then that Gemsbok proved his skill, for he accompanied without difficulty any air played upon the violin after he had heard it once. He would sit and listen attentively whilst Oom Schulpad played it slowly over. Then the notes of the ramkee would second the more civilised instrument as truly as if the music lay printed before the player and he could read it.
On the night when this occurred for the first time, after Gemsbok had returned to his scherm, Oom Schulpad sat silently on the counter for a few minutes. Then, as he took his departure he said, in a musing tone—
“Ja, he knows more music than I, that old Bushman.”
As Gemsbok’s poor old wife was entirely helpless, it was he who fetched, wood and water and attended to all the domestic duties. The old woman slept most of the day, but at night the cheerful firelight from the scherm lit up the kopjes long after the last of the Boers lay snoring. Then the old couple would sit, toasting themselves at the cheerful blaze, and chatting happily together, except when some lively tune from the ramkee startled the ancient silence of the Desert.
One of the Boers camped nearest the shop was a man named Koos Bester, cousin of the Willem Bester who had died in prison after being sentenced upon old Gemsbok’s evidence. Koos was a very big, sallow, dark-haired man with a scraggy fringe of coarse, black beard around his chin, and eyes of a very peculiar shade of light grey. His usual mien was melancholy, his strength was prodigious, his hands and feet were of enormous size and looked as if they belonged to some one else.
Koos Bester was a man who seldom either spoke or smiled; nevertheless he could hardly be called morose. He was by no means a bad fellow in his way, and was devotedly attached to his comely wife and his three small children. His father-in-law, a very old man, lived with him. The Besters usually camped at a water-place on the other side of the dunes. As, however, no rain had fallen in that vicinity for some time, they moved over to Namies, meaning to return to the spot they had come to regard as their home as soon as circumstances permitted.
Koos had been much attached to his cousin Willem and had felt the latter’s imprisonment and death very keenly. He hated the sight of Gert Gemsbok, who continually reminded him of Willem’s fate; the very fact of knowing that the old Hottentot was in the neighbourhood was sufficient to make him miserable. One day he asked Max to dismiss Gemsbok, but Max indignantly refused.
The scherm was in full view of the Besters’ camp, and the sight of the cheerful camp-fire with the old couple sitting next to it was a nightly affront. Then the ramkee got upon Koos’ nerves to such an extent that he became very unhappy indeed. Gert’s tune, with its endless variations, became absolutely hateful to the melancholy Boer. One day, in the course of a discussion on the subject, Koos had the bad taste to insult Oom Schulpad by a reference to his physical defects. The old fiddler had spoken in terms of admiration of the Hottentot’s skill as a musician, and Koos lost his temper. Oom Schulpad said nothing at the time, but he scored up a grudge against Koos. Whenever Oom Schulpad felt that he owed another anything in this way, he took a pride in devising means to pay the debt.
At length Koos found that he could stand the ramkee no longer, so he shifted his camp to the other side of the kopjes, where the tune could not reach his disgusted ears. A few days afterwards a thunderstorm passed over the eastern fringe of the dunes, and he returned to his favourite camping-place. But Gert Gemsbok’s air haunted him for weeks with deadly persistency.