“Who’s crying out for compliments? I leave ’em to the chaps over in England, who praise each other to their face in the halls, and tell each other what fine fellows they are to save the Kaffirs from them cruel, savageous colonists. May the Lord look up and down ’em for the mischief they’ve done.”
“You seem very bitter, Abe.”
“Well, the reading in that paper has lef a bitter taste. You see, sonny, I recomember the wars of the ‘thirties’ and the ‘forties,’ when your father were a boy—and his uncles and brothers, and sisters and wives—the whole lot of us—were raw to the land—when the country all round were wild—and the Kaffirs hangin’ on the frontier like a great dark wave way out on the sea—ready to rush in and sweep us offern the land. Three times they rushed in—three times we had to leave our homes, our flocks, our crops, and make for the posts. Then we had to fight ’em back, and those people away over in England each time ’ud fetch a howl that reached across the sea about the cruelty of the colonists—with never a word about the burnt houses, and the cattle swept off, and the women and children.
“Look here, sonny,” said Abe, his face growing dark; “I’ll tell you somethin’ I seed when I was a grown boy—somethin’ about one of these very wars the people at home have blamed us for making for our own gain.
“The Kaffirs were over yonder; about twenty miles away across the Chumie, and the farmers were scattered all about, thinkin’ of nothin’ at all but the mealie crop, and the wheat nearly ripe, and the pumpkin patches—for they had been through hard times, and the season were good. Jes’ away back of this place, where the three springs of the Kleinemonde rise out of the flats, there were a little valley no bigger’n ten acres, set around with small hills, and the water runnin’ through and round it under big yellerwood and Kaffir plum trees; while in the water stood clumps of palmeit and tree ferns, yeller and green, and rustlin’ to the wind. Beyond the hills the grass veld rolled away to the Fish River bush, over here towards the Kaffirs, and the Kowie bush ’way back. On the grass veld were a many herd of bucks—springbok and blesbok—while in the thick bush were koodoo and buffel—ay, an’ elephant!
“It is a mooi place now, that little valley; but I tell you then it were a spot to make a man look and long. But it were risky. The Fish River bush were a leetle too close, in case the Kaffirs raided.
“Howsomdever, there were one man who took the risk. He were ole Mr Tolver—a farmer from Devonshire, and with him were seven sons—two on ’em born here, the rest away in the ole country. My gum! you should a seed ’em. The ole man hisself were not so big, though he were broad an’ deep; but four of his boys were over six feet, and the other three were growing fast. Ole Mr Tolver druv his stake into the little valley. ‘This is my settlement,’ he sez to the Government officer who came riding round, and tried to persuade him to give it up, because of its aloneness. ‘Here I am,’ he sez, ‘and here I stays, and durn the Kaffirs!’
“‘You’re a stubborn man, Tolver,’ sez the officer, ‘but I have warned you. If the Kaffirs come they would cut you off before you could reach Grahamstown.’
“‘Jes’ cast your eyes over my boys,’ sez Tolver; and the boys laughed, and stood in a row.
“There was Jake at the top, six-foot-four, with a yeller beard, and eyes blue as a bit of sky. Slow he were and heavy in his tread, with a hand like a leg o’ mutton and a heart soft as a woman. He were courtin’ a girl over at Clumber. I seed him offen there, but all the time you’d a thought he were there to play with the little girl, and not her big sister. Nex’ to him were Oll, with a smooth face and a bull neck, and brown eyes that were always laughing. He took arter his mother. Arter him come Seth—long and thin and solum, with a habit of croonin’ to hisself. And nex’ him were Harry—the devil of the family; straight as a ramrod, handsome, and hot-tempered. He were a fine young chap, and the girls ran when he came in sight to put their hair straight. Then come one below six foot—young Willie, who took after his brother Jake, and jes’ follered Harry like a shadder. Nex’ him were barefooted Jimmy—a boy that was a born hunter, and knew more about animiles and how to cotch ’em than any man; an’ last of all were the baby Tom. Tho’ they called him ‘baby,’ he were as big a’most as you, with the hair sticking through a hole in his felt hat, and bare brown legs.