“Naturally. But one must look forward—not back, unless it is for a pure, strengthening recollection. One might look longingly back from the rough, toilsome ascent of a steep hill into the sunlit, peaceful valley one had rested in behind; then to keep on and on till the ascent was conquered, and an easy road led smoothly down into another restful calm. That is how you must look at life, when things go the reverse of smoothly with you at first—as perhaps they will.”
Poor Lilian! Not yet could she realise this herself, and she knew it. Yet she laid it down in theory to her companion, for he had told her that he liked that sort of talk—that it did him good, in fact—and its remembrance encouraged him when he was inclined to take a gloomy view of things. They had become great friends, those two, thrown together thus by force of circumstances; and Lilian had never tired of listening to her companion’s hopes and fears, any more than he had ever tired of confiding them to her—it must be confessed, with something of wearisome reiteration, the more so that he had found so gentle and sympathetic a listener.
“But I forgot. I must not talk like that, or you will say I’m getting poetic; and ‘those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh,’” concluded Lilian, looking up at him with a bright, arch smile.
“Oh, I say! As if I should think anything of the kind!” exclaimed Hicks. “It was I who was talking nonsense. I suppose the firelight makes a fellow get sentimental. The firelight in winter is pretty much what the moonlight is in summer, I suppose.”
But the sentimental side of this firelight talk was brought to an end by the entrance of Mr Brathwaite, followed almost immediately by that of his wife.
“Sharp evening!” he said, joining the two on the hearth. “We must expect winter now, at the end of May; and this year it’ll be a cold one. I see there’s a little snow on the mountains already—just a sprinkling.”
“When shall we have a good fall?” asked Lilian. “The mountains must look perfectly beautiful, all covered, and with such a sun as this upon them. It must be very cold up there.”
“Cold? I believe you. I was nearly frozen to death up there myself once. It was some years ago now. I was coming over the Katberg road with a waggon-load of mealies—I and Ben Jackson. He had three waggons. We were caught in a snowstorm, and had to outspan. Couldn’t see ten yards in front of us. Ten yards! Not one; for the wind whirled the powdery stuff into our eyes till we were nearly blinded. It was no joke, I can tell you. There are some lively krantzes about there; and it’s the easiest thing in the world to drop a few hundred feet before you know where you are.”
“And how did you manage?”
“Well, we outspanned, and tied the oxen to the yokes. We couldn’t make a fire, so we turned into our blankets and piled up everything in the way of covering; but that wasn’t enough, and I was quite frozen. Nothing to eat all the time, except a bit of frozen bread to gnaw at. One of my Kafirs was nearly dead, and thirteen out of sixteen oxen died from cold and starvation. Ben was more unlucky still, and lost two whole spans. Yes, that was a time!”