Bang! The report of a gun behind them. “Hicks to the fore,” remarked Claverton, shading his eyes to watch the effect of the shot. But the buck held on its way, caring not a straw for the bullet which buried itself in the earth with a vicious thud some ten or a dozen yards behind.
In this way they rode on in the pleasant sunshine, and eventually drew rein in front of a prettily situated though roughly built house of red brick, with thatched roof and high stoep. This was the abode of a Dutchman, Isaac Van Rooyen by name, and here they had arranged to stay and have dinner, for on the frontier a standing hospitality is the rule, and in travelling every one makes a convenience of his neighbour and is made a convenience of in turn. The Boer, a large corpulent man of about sixty, advanced to welcome them as the clamorous tongues of a yelping and mongrel pack gave warning of their approach, and consigning their horses to a dilapidated-looking Hottentot, they entered the house. A long, low room furnished with the characteristic plainness of such an abode; a substantial table, several chairs, on some of which none but a lunatic or an inebriate would venture to trust his proportions for a single instant. In one corner stood an ancient and battered harmonium, another contained a sewing-machine and a huge family Bible in ponderous Dutch lettering, while the walls were garnished with sundry grievous prints, high in colour and grisly in design, representing Moses destroying the Tables of the Law, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and so on. The vrouw arose from her coffee-brewing as they entered—the absorption of coffee is a sine qua non in a Boer domicile on the arrival of visitors—and greeted them with stolid and wooden greeting, and a brace of great shy and ungainly damsels—exact reproductions of their mother at twenty and twenty-one—looked scared as they limply shook hands with the new-comers. But others were there besides the regular inmates, for the Naylors had arrived, as also Armitage and Allen, and our friend Will Jeffreys, and these were keeping up a laborious conversation with the worthy Boer and his ponderous vrouw, whose daughters, aforesaid, eat together in speechless inanity, now and again venturing a “Ja” or a “Nay” if addressed, and straightway relapsing into a spasmodic giggle beneath their kapjes.
“Doesn’t Miss Brathwaite play?” inquired the Boer, with a glance at Ethel and then at the harmonium.
“‘England expects.’ Go now and elicit wheezy strains from yon venerable and timeworn fire-engine,” said Claverton, in a low tone.
She drew off her gloves in a resigned manner, and was about to sit down at the despised instrument, when some one putting a book on the music-stool in order to heighten the seat, that fabric underwent a total collapse and came to the ground with a crash. Another seat was found, and she began to play—but oh! what an instrument of torture it was—more to the performer than to the audience. Every other note stuck fast, keeping up an earsplitting and discordant hum throughout; and the bellows being afflicted with innumerable leaks, were the cause of much labour and sorrow to the player.
“I can’t play on this thing,” she said. “Every other note sticks down, and the bellows are all in holes, and—I won’t.”
Naylor explained to the Dutchman that Ethel was a great pianist but was nothing at harmoniums, which excuse covered her somewhat petulant retreat from the abominable instrument, and just then dinner was brought in. Then it became a question of finding seats, many of the chairs being hors de combat.
“Here you are, Allen; come and sit here,” called out Armitage. In a confiding moment, and the table being full, the unsuspecting youth dropped into the seat indicated, and then—dropped on the floor, for the rickety concern forthwith “resigned,” even as the music-stool had done before it. A roar of laughter went up from the incorrigible joker at the success of his impromptu trap, and Allen arose from the ruins of the chair, like Phoenix from the ashes.
“I say, though, that’s better than the cruise down the river with the bee in your bonnet, isn’t it, old chap?” said Armitage, exploding again. Allen looked rather glum, and another seat, not much less rickety than the other, was found for him.
When he was settled, the Boer stood up and with closed eyes began a long, rambling oration, presumably to the Creator, which was meant for grace, and having discoursed unctuously on everything, or nothing, for the space of several minutes, he set the example of falling to.