“Yes. Take your gun with you. That’ll give colour to the affair. You can have my trap and horses, only spare the springs all you can in going through some of those bad drifts. You’d better take a week of it. Harvey can do a lot of your work for you. He’s almost too good a man for a chief constable. You’d better get as far up into the Wildschutsberg part as you can; they say the Boers up that way are the worst—especially since that firebrand, Andries Botma, has been his rounds. Look up Kershaw too; they say the fellow is three parts Boer in his sympathies. You might be able to get something out of him.”
A knock at the door and the Court constable, being bidden to enter, announced that Mynheer Stephanus De la Rey wanted to see the Civil Commissioner.
“The very man,” exclaimed the latter. “You must get to his farm, Morkel. You’re sure to hear something there. Show him in, Hendrik.”
Stephanus entered, and as he did so Morkel went out, laden with the circulars that needed attention.
Left alone with the magistrate, Stephanus looked a trifle ill-at-ease. His frank geniality seemed to have left him as he replied to that official’s inquiries after his family and concerns wherewith the Boer is wont to preface any and every interview if on anything like friendly terms with his interlocutor. Then he came to the point. He wished to resign his field-cornetcy.
Jelf looked annoyed, and felt it too. What was the reason, he asked. A reliable, influential man like Stephanus was just the man for the office. He would be hard to replace. Would he not reconsider his decision?
But Stephanus was firm; the fact being that since he had become converted to the “patriot” cause he was too honest to continue holding a post under the British Government, honorary as such might be. He did not, however, desire to say as much to the Government representative before him.
But the latter saw through his constraint, and went straight to the root of the thing. He was irritated at the obstinacy, as he called it, of this Boer, and the latter, to his amazement and indignation, found himself being roundly lectured. The Civil Commissioner had heard reports of disaffection among some of the farmers—notably those in the Wildschutsberg district, but he had never expected to find among the disloyal a man so universally respected as the one before him, and much more to the same effect Stephanus, however, kept both his temper and his dignity.
If that was the way the representative of the Government regarded him, he replied, all the more reason why he should adhere to his original resolve, and resign the field-cornetcy in favour of somebody who would be more acceptable. Would Mynheer kindly receive his formal resignation?
Yes, Mynheer would, in that case. But the farewell greeting between the two was stiff and unfriendly.