Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales

by Arthur Shearly Cripps

'Tell him I'll pay for him and for another who wants to go,'
Edgar said. 'He's probably got a particular friend. What about
Atiwagoni?' 'He might be keen to go,' I said, 'and he's quicker
than most of them.'

We began to smoke a last pipe silently. The time was drawing near to strike our camp. We must start for Bulawayo at once if we would catch Edgar's midnight train easily.

I reached for my wallet, and brought out an Oxford anthology.

I turned over the pages and began to read rather sadly

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

'There's that point of view to consider,' I said. 'I'm fond of Arcadia and Arcadians, and there's loss entailed if you send Arcadians on the way of Athens.' Edgar sighed. 'I know what you mean,' said he; 'and I feel it as you do. But Arcadia's got Lacedaemon at her throat, a southern state not much troubled with scruples, neither very philosophic nor very literary. The way has been opened by him we wot of to Oxford, to the Athens of the north. It was opened, as men thought, for the benefit of young Lacedaemonians. The man that was hand-in-glove with Africanders, with our Lacedaemonians of the south, did that. He imperiled Lacedaemonian stability by opening the way to northern stars and their influences to Shelley, Burke, and Mill, and to all manner of people dangerous to the back-veld views of Lacedaemon. He opened the way to Tolstoy's rediscovery of the Christian Law, amongst other northern treasures, didn't he? And I, with the Arcadian taint in my veins, saw the way open and went northwards. Now it has come to pass that I remember my own people as Moses did, and use the wisdom of Oxford as he used the wisdom of Egypt, to help one's own people towards a promised land. They want leaders, don't they? Is there not a cause? Is it healthy for Lacedaemon to go on as she does in Arcadia, setting aside Arcadia's own happiness?' 'I'll be back again next year,' Edgar said, 'to compare notes and report progress, should all fall well. If I forget thee, O my Darien-peak, let my right hand forget her cunning!' We knelt long at the grave with the feet of its sleeper laid true north; then we said 'Good-bye' to it. 'Bless him,' Edgar said to me as we turned away.' He opened a wider way than he knew perchance; God prosper the Great North Road, the Road to Oxford rather than to Cairo!'

THE LEPER WINDOWS

Its Cathedral was rising at last in a small South African capital. For many years a pro-Cathedral of corrugated iron had sufficed. Now the first stage of a noble design in ruddy sandstone was all but completed.

The new Bishop who had been called to sit in its Cape-oak throne was complacent of its charms. Chancel and Lady-chapel were provided; transepts and tower might be expected in due course of time. The Bishop was long and lean and dark-haired, very closely shaven. He came from Oxford, yet he was wise enough to obtrude that fact but seldom on South Africa. He watched and listened intently and said strangely little; nevertheless, when he did speak, he seemed to have no lack of things to say. His speech to the Cathedral Building Committee after a three months' silence was not without its interest. He spoke well of both design and execution.

He turned to the shyer subject of the raising of the funds. How had they attained to such wealth as their secretary announced? Mainly by means of three fancy fairs and a cafe chantant. Alas! that it should be so. Yet he did not propose to hold inquests. Let the dead bury their dead! Let them, however, set their hearts as the nether millstone against the adding of transept or tower save only by alms made to God. He went on to ask with whose memory the Lady-chapel was to be associated. Was it not the fact that they had associated the chapel of Christ's Mother with the memory of a visionary statesman? There seemed to be want of consideration for the great dead shown in their popular decision, inasmuch as he had not seen his way to accept her Son. Was it not something of a felony to have stolen the dead man's name—a felony that had assisted their funds very lavishly? But, likely enough, the Committee had had some noble thought in mind when they gave to the dead such reckless honor. The last touches were now being given to the nave. He wished to make a personal request of his own. He understood that colored persons and natives were not to be encouraged to frequent this mother of churches. Their status within was, to say the least, precarious and hard to reconcile with due respect for the second chapter of Saint James. He asked to put in at his own expense five windows after the likeness of leper windows in England windows that colored persons and natives might use freely and without reproach. By this means someone at least of them from without the walls might be made free of the vision of the services within.