Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales

by Arthur Shearly Cripps

He dreamed of being a Rhodes scholar years before it came off that Rhodes scholarship of his. It came in the fullness of time a thing of many struggles and prayers, of star-led hopes and paths steep with uphill climbing.

Then at last it was that I agreed to go with him on his yearly pilgrimage, in September, the month of his sailing for home. May used to be a Canterbury month in England, the hawthorn month that pricked men in their courages and sent them out on the Kentish road. September had been Edgar's pilgrimage month every year a spring month in our southern country. The masasa leaves were taking many tints then in Mashonaland. Speaking generally, the dominant note of our woodland world was rose-color as we tramped together to the station. Matabeleland by contrast seemed rather drab and drouthy, yet she was showing signs of spring. One great rock stood up very beautiful in a pink lichen garment. It was hard by the path that led to the last hill-climb, ere you reached the burial-place. We camped out close beside it, two Mashona boys who had come to seek their fortunes in Bulawayo, and Edgar and I.

When the morning light came I was up. When the sun rose I had all but finished my service. There, on his own ground, so to speak, it seemed easier to pray for the Patron with a sanguine heart, and to give thanks for him with a clear conscience. Over our breakfast we sat on and talked, and looked about us. Edgar seemed to me to be growing in discernment. Once he had seemed so provocatively cock-sure about his mighty patron. To pray for him as we had prayed that morning in the language of a race he had contemned might have sounded to him in years past mere clerical impertinence. Now he seemed to suffer me rather gladly.

But he said little. We had scant time to spare just then; there were so many miles to go to the railway. He was to leave for Oxford that very night. While the carriers were cooking their breakfast he came with me to the grave and knelt at the head, looking northwards. I said nothing aloud, nor did he. The rocks bulked dark in the bright air, the hills wore mystic colors, the sun shone passionately in a setting of tender blue. Words seemed a presumption just then, too much of a time or nation or age that passes. That which may or may not take shape in words remained the untied power of silent prayer. That morning among the many-colored hills I looked to sight the faith that can remove such as these. And I prayed there quietly, in prayer that seemed to need no words, for Edgar. I asked for him that he might see those visions without which! people are apt to perish.

II.

He did not write much, and he did not come for five years. When he came he was not at first communicative. He seemed to take more interest than he used to do in the Mission, I noticed. He had always been a hero among the Mashona boys: that was no new thing. And I was thankful indeed to see that he had not lost his old artless art of making friends with them. So many things might have conspired to rob him of it. He stayed but a month in all at the Mission, and he said little all that time, but his eyes were full of thought as I talked to him passing on to him hopes, disappointments, joys of battle unabating and enhanced. He was a good listener. I did not try to force the pace with him. But for all that I was eager to know his mind. And it seemed a long while waiting and waiting, thinking he might be going to speak day after day. Then at last the time did come for him to speak, but it was after he had left the Mission.

History repeated itself, and we camped in the old place once more. The camp-fire shone out, and the moon rose broad and golden over the grave of pilgrimage. There he lay with his feet to the north on the height above us the founder and name-giver of our State. It was strange how his patronage seemed to dominate us. We said our evensong rather northwards than eastwards; we scanned the northern horizon as though seeking a sign. The wind blew that way as we paced to and fro afterwards, and our thoughts went the way of the wind.

At last I broke the silence. We were resting on a ledge of rock then, smoking, staring away north-wards among the moonlit kopjes. There he sat beside me, fair-haired and tall, strong and rejoicing in his strength, always courteous but strangely dumb. He was going to-morrow. Would he go without a revealing word?

'So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be.'

I paused doubtfully.