As he entered the living-room Hazel was there dispensing early coffee. If only he had the opportunity of being alone with her even now, he thought, but he had not. Already the cart stood inspanned in front of the stoep.
“Well, young buffalo hunter,” said old Hesketh, “I shall be sorry to lose you, and if ever you’re round this way don’t forget to look in and help to liven an old man up. You’re always welcome for as long as you like to stay. But it’s slow work for a young ’un, to be sure.”
“That it isn’t, Mr Hesketh,” rejoined Dick, heartily, not a little touched by the kindness and real warmth of his host’s words. “I’ve had a rattling good time here, and enjoyed it as well as I’ve ever enjoyed anything”—with a meaning glance in the direction of Hazel, to which she, however, utterly failed to respond. But perhaps she made up for it in the frank warmth of her farewell.
“Do come and see us at our place, Mr Selmes, when you have done your travels,” she said. “My father will be delighted, I can answer for that, though we can’t give you quite such good sport as you’ve been having here. Still, you will have a hearty welcome.”
Dick mumbled something as he pressed the little hand, longer perhaps than he need have done—and then he had a confused consciousness of climbing to his seat, and in less than no time the homestead at Haakdoornfontein was out of sight.
“Jolly old place,” he said regretfully, as he looked back. “Tell you what, Greenoak. I quite hate leaving it.”
“I dare say,” remarked Greenoak, drily. He was thinking at that moment that his charge was becoming something of a burden. The said charge was thinking of something else, and that “something” evidently something all-engrossing—so much so, that for upwards of an hour he did not utter a word—a very unusual thing indeed for Dick Selmes.
But he was young, and his spirits soon reasserted themselves. Bowling along in the glorious air and sunshine, as each fresh stage passed took them over—to him—new and varying scenes, his temporary gloom was soon dispelled. Harley Greenoak, too, was the ideal kind and tactful companion, and by the time they sighted the beautiful mountain range, the forest-clad rampart beyond which lay Kafirland—Kafirland with its delightful potentialities of stirring adventure—Dick had quite recovered his old light-heartedness. Yet this was in a measure sobered, tempered, by the recollections of one whom he had left behind him.
“Well, girlie,” said old Hesketh to his niece, after the departure of the guests. “We shall miss the young ’un—eh? You’ll be dull now with only an old fogey to put up with.”