“Well,” said Braddon pleasantly. “Let’s leave it at that. I’m camped out on Diepner’s land now beyond the river but we may get orders to start the bridge any time—and then the rails on this side—I only want you to be reasonable, Mr Retief, and realise that it isn’t our fault.”
Nick rolled a blood-suffused eye on him.
“You start on my land, that’s all,” he said with heavy significance.
A minute later, he let out a terrific roar that shook the rafters of the verandah above him and was addressed to the native who had recently arrived with the sheep and cows.
“What is the matter with you, you base-born son of a baboon, that you put your master’s scabby, leprous sheep into my calves’ kraal when I told you they were to go into that one down by the sluit?”
Following this furious inquiry he arose and betook himself to the kraal, leaving Chrissie and Braddon together.
“Will you drink coffee?” she asked.
“Thank you, I’d like some very much.”
She opened the door and went to fetch the beakers and rusks out on the stoep table. Braddon immediately bestirred himself to her assistance, proving himself still further unlike her several swains, for among the more ignorant class of Boers it is the affair of the women to wait upon men as upon the lords of the earth.
Afterwards, the two sat down by the table and waited for the old man. Braddon made polite conversation. He felt no embarrassment, but neither did he feel much interest. He had met Dutch girls before and they had not “gone to his head” or to his heart either. Their complexions were invariably good, but as conversationalists they were draggy.