“I should say Mr Trask, Iris,” I said, with a sly glance at Beryl.
“Ach!” exclaimed the child disgustedly, throwing a handful of grass stalks at me.
After all, we were only enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon, talking nonsense, as people will at such times—anyhow, indulging in no rational conversation worth chronicling. And Beryl and I would engage in a playful argument on some unimportant trifle, and Iris, with child-like restlessness, would wander about, now throwing a stone into a water-hole to scare a mud turtle floating with its head on the surface, or peer about from bush to bush trying to discover a bird’s nest; and at last as the afternoon wore on we started to retrace our steps homeward.
It will always linger in my memory, that peaceful, utterly uneventful stroll. The flaming wheel of the westering sun was drawing down to the farther ridge as we came in sight of the tree-embowered homestead, with a soft blue smoke-reek or two curling up into the still air. The bleat of the returning flocks was borne to us from the distance; and, approaching along a bush path which should converge with ours, came half a dozen Kafirs of both sexes, walking single file, the red ochre colouring their blankets and persons harmonising not uneffectively with the prevailing green of the surroundings, while the full tones of their melodious language—the deep bass of the males and the rich pleasing inflection of women’s voices as they conversed—added an additional note of completeness to the closing beauty of a typical African day. And within my mind was the all-pervading thought that this day was but the beginning of many such; that the next, and the morrow, and the day after, that would be brightened and illuminated by the same sweet companionship—even that of her who was now beside me; that each day’s occupation would be sweetened and hallowed by the thought that we were dwellers beneath the same roof—and then—and then—who could tell? Ah, it was one of those periods that come to some of us at a time in our lives when imagination is fresh, and heart and mind unseared by shattered illusions, and the corroding gall of latter days not even so much as suspected then.
“Hullo!” I exclaimed, catching sight of a third figure strolling beside Brian and his father, “Who’s that? Looks like Trask.”
“Yes, it is,” assented Beryl.
The appearance of the stranger seemed to mar the harmony of the situation to my mind. I did not like Trask. He was one of those men who, wherever they find themselves, never give any one a chance of forgetting their presence; no, not even for a moment. When Trask appeared at Gonya’s Kloof—which, by the way, was the name of the Mattersons’ farm—why, there was no possibility of overlooking the fact, for he simply monopolised the whole conversation. He was a man of about my own height and build, and three or four years my senior, on the strength of which, and of having about that amount of colonial experience, he chose to assume towards my humble self a good-humouredly contemptuous and patronising manner, which to me was insufferable. Not infrequently, too, he would try his hand at making me a butt for his exceedingly forced and laboured wit, which is a thing I don’t take. He was a neighbour of twelve miles or so, where he farmed—or was supposed to farm—his own place, and was reputed well off. To crown his other offences in my eyes, he was a bachelor, and was a precious deal too fond of coming over to Gonya’s Kloof on any or no pretext.
Turning from his greeting to the girls—a greeting to my mind dashed with a perfectly unwarrantable tone of familiarity—he opened on me.
“Ha, Holt, getting more into the way of things now, I suppose? You’ll soon know your way about. Things take a little getting into at first—ha-ha!”
This in a sort of bray, accompanied by a condescending expression.