Sunday, morning dawned very perfectly. They were all sleeping on the stoep, their beds in line against the wall, Clive upon the oak chest, which her austere self-discipline commanded. At three o'clock, though a few stars lingered, the sky was already tinting itself with the lovely lustre of a pink pearl. No sound broke the stillness but the breathing of the sleepers and the soft perpetual dropping of acorns from the branches overhead.
The peace and beauty of it smote April to the heart. She pressed her fingers over her eyes and tears oozed through them, trickling down her face. When at last she looked again the stars were gone and the sky was blue as a thrush's egg, with a fluff of rose-red clouds knitted together overhead and a few crimson rags scudding across the Qua-Quas. A dove suddenly cried, "Choo-coo, choo-coo," and others took up the refrain, until in the hills and woods hundreds of doves were greeting the morning with their soft, thrilling cries. Fowls straying from a barn near by started scratching in the sand. The first streak of sunshine shot across the hills and struck a bush of pomegranates blossoming scarlet by the gate.
Presently the farm workers began to come from their huts and file past the stoep towards the outhouses. Julie, the Cape foreman, with a right leg longer than the left, was the first to stagger by.
"Moorer, Missis!" he said, with a pull of his cap and a swift respectful glance at the stoep. Clive, awake by now on her oak chest, responded absently without raising her head from the pillow.
"Moorer, Julie!"
Next, Isaac, whose legs were so formed that when he stood still they described a circle, and when he moved the circle became a triangle.
"Moorer, Missis!" said he.
"Moorer, Isaac!"
Jim, the cowherd, had a hare-lip and no roof to his mouth, and was so modest that he turned his head away when he lisped his salutation to the stoep.
"Moor-ler, Mithis!"